{"id":936,"date":"2013-06-18T19:09:18","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T23:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/?p=936"},"modified":"2014-05-30T12:45:03","modified_gmt":"2014-05-30T16:45:03","slug":"looks-like-a-duck-sounds-like-a-duck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/?p=936","title":{"rendered":"Looks like a duck, sounds like a duck…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was adding records to my bibliographic database this afternoon when I stumbled across this interesting tidbit in the Proceedings of the Delhi Archaeological Society<\/em>:<\/p>\n

7th March, 1850<\/em><\/p>\n

A letter from Captain Dewar, of 1st Cavalry, was read, reporting the discovery of a large stone in the Jhansi district, which, when struck, emitted a sound equal to that of the finest gong.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Secretary was requested to write to Captain Dewar, to ascertain from that gentleman, what he thought the probable expense of the removal of this stone to Delhi might be.<\/em><\/p>\n

The finest gong? Sounds like a meteorite to me, but which one?<\/p>\n

As far as I can tell, there were only 7 meteorite falls (observed falls) on the South Asian subcontinent before 1850. Four of those were L chondrite, two were H type, one was a diogenite. Those two H types could have had enough iron mixed with stone to make a bell-like sound if struck, but the mass of those falls have been located and removed to London (Akbarpur<\/a>, fall 18 April 1838, found in Uttar Pradesh; Charwallas<\/a>, 12 June 1834, found in Haryana). So, if Dewar was hitting a meteorite with his hammer, it must have been from an unobserved (or at least unrecorded) fall.<\/p>\n

In a list of 106 meteorites<\/a> known to have fallen in India (both observed\/unobserved falls) before 1926, only four of those were proper irons (GarhiYasin, Kodaikanal, Nedagolla, Samelia). Based on date of observed fall\/discovery location, none of those could be the Jhansi meteorite. None of the remaining 102 meteorites on the list make good candidates, either.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I could find no record of the stone being shipped to Delhi. The Proceedings<\/em> seem to come to an end with the issue I have in my office (January 1953); I’ve lost the meteorite’s trail. It’s indeed a puzzle, the solution to which is probably buried deep in the Museum of Natural History with every other meteorite collected by the British during the colonial era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was adding records to my bibliographic database this afternoon when I stumbled across this interesting tidbit in the Proceedings of the Delhi Archaeological Society: 7th March, 1850 A letter from Captain Dewar, of 1st Cavalry, was read, reporting the discovery of a large stone in the Jhansi district, which, when struck, emitted a sound […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,35],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kodaikanal","category-museums","tag-meteorites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}