HOVEY, THE FOYER METEORITES 33 



The Brenham meteorite was found in the year 1886 scattered in 

 many pieces on the prairie in Brenham Township, Kiowa County, 

 Kansas, over an area more than a mile in length. The fragments were 

 hardly covered by the original prairie soil, and several of them were 

 projecting through the sod. Nearly all were found by being struck by 

 mowing machines, plows or other farm implements. The occurrence of 

 heavy "rocks" in a region where stones of any kind are a great rarity 

 was a source of surprise to the ranchmen and led finally to the discovery 

 that they were meteoritic in origin. 



About thirty fragments of the meteorite have been found, several of 

 which were used for many purposes about the ranches and had a rather 

 prosaic history before their value was learned. The smaller but heavier 

 (75-pound) mass here exhibited was used for years to hold down a cellar 

 door or the cover of a rain barrel, while the larger but lighter (52. 5-pound) 

 mass served as a weight on a hay-stack. It is probable that the meteorite 

 of which these are fragments burst soon after reaching the earth's atmos- 

 phere. The total weight of all the fragments of Brenham which have 

 been found is about 2,000 pounds; the largest piece known weighs 466 

 pounds, the smallest an ounce or two. 



Other specimens of this meteorite may be seen in the Morgan Hall of 

 Mineralogy on the Fourth Floor. 



FOREST CITY 



(Aerolite.) 



On Friday, May 2, 1890, at 5:15 P. M., a brilliant ball of fire shot 

 across the sky from west to east in northern Iowa, its flight being accom- 

 panied by a noise likened to that of a heavy cannonading, or of thunder, 

 and by scintillations like those of fireworks. The meteoric light was 

 dazzling even in the full daylight prevailing at the time and the noises, 

 which were due to explosions, were heard throughout a district 200 

 miles in diameter. This meteor was the Forest City meteorite. 



The meteorite burst when it was about 11 miles northeast of Forest 

 City, Winnebago County, whence its name, and most of the fragments 

 were scattered over an area about one mile wide and about two miles 



