416 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 794 



Mr. Herbert S. Winslow, who is a trained 

 hunter with excellent powers of observation, 

 was standing near Walpole Street, a little be- 

 yond Chapel Street, in Norwood, and had an 

 unobstructed view of the western sky in a 

 quiet country neighborhood. He was looking 

 upward and saw a brilliant object appear in 

 the west at an altitude of about 60°. It fell 

 slowly at first, then quite rapidly, disap- 

 pearing behind some distant pine trees 

 in a direction a trifle north of west in about 

 7 seconds. There was an increase in ap- 

 parent size in the ratio of not over 3 to 1. 

 The brightness varied in a somewhat larger 

 ratio. The object was pear-shaped, sharply 

 pointed at the advancing (lower) extremity, 

 but rounded above, about twice as long as 

 broad and as large as the moon, brightest at 

 the margins, and of an orange-red color. It 

 moved with a wavy, serpentine motion, and 

 gave off numerous white sparklets on either 

 side, about as bright as Polaris. These spark- 

 lets faded out before traversing a distance 

 greater than the length of the main body. 

 The object fell in the direction of the Nicker- 

 son farm, distant 0.8 miles, and was different 

 from an ordinary shooting star. Its consid- 

 erable angular dimensions imply a flaming 

 mantle of incandescent vapor. The time was 

 6:42 P.M., October 7, 1909. Other observers 

 in Norwood confirmed enough of these state- 

 ments to make the fact beyond dispute; but, 

 singularly, I could find no witnesses from sur- 

 rounding towns after assiduous search. 



The motion having been very slow at first, 

 but rapid at the end, the appearance was not 

 inconsistent with the supposition that the ob- 

 ject might have been advancing at first nearly 

 end-on, and that the path then curved rapidly 

 into a vertical direction — a motion of which 

 there was good evidence in the fall of a 33- 

 pound meteorite at Kriihenberg in Bavaria, 

 May 25, 1869, which is said to have " entered 

 the ground to a depth of from three to four 

 feet, making a perfectly vertical hole " ; but 

 from observations at neighboring places, " the 

 inclination of the path of the meteor to the 

 horizon is computed to have been 32°.'" 

 " Dr. Flight, " History of Meteorites," p. 5. 



The serpentine motion is sometimes wit- 

 nessed in shooting stars. I have never seen 

 white sparklets from an orange-colored meteor, 

 although I have witnessed the fading of ex- 

 ploded fragments of a brilliant white meteor 

 through yellow and orange to red. The fall of 

 a bolide without noteworthy sound is excep- 

 tional, but not unprecedented. Ordinarily, 

 the noises are very loud, often " terrific." 



The following coincidences are to be noted: 



1. An object not unlike a fire-ball was seen 

 to fall in a given direction. 



2. At a point in this direction, and within 

 a few hours after the occurrence, a farm hand 

 who knew nothing about the fire-ball, found 

 that a set of bars had been unaccountably 

 broken at some time during the previous 

 night. 



3. A peculiar, large and heavy stone — an 

 ophitic andesite porphyry, entirely different 

 from the glacial boulders of the vicinity — a 

 stone quite competent to smash the bars if 

 fired through them with the velocity of a 

 cannon shot, but not able to do the damage if 

 it had been merely dropped from a height of 

 a few feet, was found directly under the break, 

 according to the statement of Mr. W. P. 

 Niekerson, the owner of the farm. 



4. The stone had apparently penetrated 

 deeply into the soft sand, as if it had dropped 

 with great velocity. 



5. On being pried out of the sand, the 

 lower and better protected end of the stone, 

 which would naturally be the advancing end, 

 was found to be still hot (statement of the 

 farmer, confirmed by workmen, and by an un- 

 prejudiced neighbor). 



6. The sand around the stone was dry, 

 whereas the surrounding earth was moist, on 

 authority of Mr. Niekerson. 



The peculiar composition of the stone, while 

 distinguishing it clearly from local boulders, 

 equally differentiated it from all known aero- 

 lites, and was a distinct difficulty in the way 

 of accepting the stone as a meteorite. I at 

 first thought that this difficulty might be met, 

 the absence of an external vitrified coat being 

 attributable to a description of the ground- 

 mass of which the sparks might have been an 



