Abstract
IT was announced in the Times of May 25 that the first Rhodesian meteorite had been presented to the British Museum by the Government of Southern Rhodesia. The stone, weighing 48 Ib. 11 oz. (22 kgm.), has since been received, and it is now on exhibition in the Central Hall of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. It fell at 12.45 p.m. on March 7, 1934, in the Mangwendi Native Reserve, 40 miles east of Salisbury. A brilliant meteor (fireball) was seen, and three loud detonations followed by a rushing noise were heard, the detonations being heard over a radius of 50 miles. The natives said “the sun came rushing from the sky and buried itself in the earth”, and they called the stone “Miminimini” meaning “something to make you gape”. In its fall, it broke off the branches of a tree and made a hole 3 ft. across and 18 in. deep in stony ground. The stone itself was broken and fractured by the fall. In addition to the main mass, several small pieces were recovered, and the weight of the whole must have been about 60 Ib. But this could have been only a fraction of the original weight when the stone entered the earth's atmosphere at a height of about 100 miles. Travelling with an initial velocity of 20-40 miles a second, the intense heat developed by the resistance of the air melted and dissipated material from the surface, causing a rapid diminution in size of the stone and in its velocity.
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The First Rhodesian Meteorite: Southern Rhodesian Government's Gift to the British Museum. Nature 134, 469 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134469a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/134469a0