Abstract
“AN addition of exceptional interest has recently been made to the collection of meteorites in the British Museum, by the presentation, on the part of the Duke of Cleveland, of a siderite (iron meteorite) which fell on his Grace's property at Rowton, near Wellington, in Shropshire, about seven miles north of the Wrekin, on the 20th of April last. At about twenty minutes to 4 o'clock on the day mentioned, a strange rumbling noise was heard in the atmosphere, followed almost instantaneously by a startling explosion resembling a discharge of heavy artillery. There was neither lightning nor thunder, but rain was falling heavily, the sky being obscured with dark clouds for some time both before and after the incident narrated. About an hour after the explosion, Mr. George Brooks, stepson of Mr. Bayley, had occasion to go to a turf field in his occupation adjoining the Wellington and Market Drayton Railway, about a mile north of the Wrekin, when his attention was attracted to a hole cut in the ground. Probing the opening with a stick, Mr. Brooks discovered a lump of metal of irregular shape which proved to be a meteorite weighing 7¾ lbs. It had penetrated to a depth of eighteen inches, passing through four inches of soil and fourteen inches of solid clay down to the gravel—conclusive evidence of the force of its impact with the earth. The hole (which has been protected for further investigation) is nearly perpendicular, and the stone appears to have fallen in a south-easterly direction. Some men were at work at the time within a short distance, and they, together with many other people in the neighbourhood, heard the noise of the explosion.”
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MASKELYNE, N. The Rowton Siderite . Nature 14, 272 (1876). https://doi.org/10.1038/014272b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/014272b0