meteor

Harvey Harlow Nininger is considered to be the father of meteoritics. He worked tirelessly to convince the scientific community that meteorites were far more common on Earth than previously thought and a valuable source of information about the solar system and the Earth’s geologic past.

“Writers of mystery stories often have to cast about for the key elements of an intriguing story […] I did not go looking for these critical ingredients of the story of the Tucson Meteorite. They came to me.” states Richard R. Willey in his forward to this short but thorough book. This book explores every aspect of the Meteorites – from their original descent to Earth, their mineral composition, to their use as anvils by American Indians and frontiersmen alike, to their name as a specimen, and the history of how they came to be in the Smithsonian.