[meteorite-list] Whipple, Nininger letter - Repost - Ignore other

[MARK BOSTICK]

Hello,

I accidently posted my fastly typed transcript.....rather then the spell 
corrected version, which is found below.  I hate it when I do that.  I have 
to post from the hotmail site and so when I do post I usually have 6-8 
windows open....plus the spellchecker....plus....well you get the point.

Since some of you might be saving the letter, I am posting the corrected 
version.

Clear Skies,
Mark Bostick




August 9, 1957

Dr. Fred Whipple
Director
Astrophysical Observatory
60 Garden Street
Cambridge 38, Mass.

Dear Dr. Whipple:

     Since our last report we have moved our museum to Sedona, Arizona, and 
are much better housed then before and are equipped with ten new exhibition 
cases of original design in addition to the exhibit facilities which we had 
in the old building on U.S. Highway 66, so that now we are better able to 
carry on our instructional program.
     The Curators of Meteorites in both the U.S. National Museum and the 
British Museum of Natural History have visited us and have praised our 
project as easily the most effective educational program in meteoritics 
carreid on anywhere.  This is very encouraging to us.
     Our most important advance since the last report has been the further 
reseaches and the publishing of my book - ARIZONA'S METEORITE CRATER - with 
which, of course, you are familiar.
     Recently I have been making further classification of the several types 
of materail identified in association wtih the Arizona crater.  There has 
been considerable confusion of terms by various writers who have referred to 
my metallic spheroids as "small pellicles", "spherules", "metallic 
spherules", "Canyon Diablo spherules", and "miniscule bits and pieces" which 
appeared in THE ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL, 62, No. 3, 1957, May, P. 96.  The name 
metallic spheroids was very carefully chosen with the help of Mr. Wilfred 
Funk to whom all of the description features were submitted.  They are not 
spherical hense not spherules.  They are definitely metallic.  They stongly 
tend toward roundness.  Their chemical composition as well as shape sets 
them apart from the spherules of Spencer and from all the particles 
described by Barringer or Tilghman.
     Likewise various writers have failed to note that the metallic 
particles in our impactite slag are of two kinds and for the most part are 
different from the spherules described by Spencer from Wabar and Henbury.  
However, I have found that not all the particles in Wabar silica-glass are 
spherical as described by Spencer.
     I am sending a list of the meteoritic and impacite materials that I, or 
others, have classified from the Arizona crater.
     Our Museum has also recovered several new finds since the publication 
of THE NININGER COLLECTION OF METEORITES (1950).  The list is enclosed.

Respectfully submitted,
H. H. Nininger

HHN: AN


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