[meteorite-list] What is this?

[Sterling K. Webb]

Hi,

    This is a strictly "two-cents-worth" opinion,
since I have a stone that is a twin to this one (at
least, photographically) except that it is only the
size of a very small ostrich egg: same shape, same
smooth finish, shiny black and dense, not native
to this limestone country I live in.

    It is no mystery. The glaciers brought it here,
but then finished it off in the immense and violent
outflow that poured forth when the Wisconsin
glaciation melted rapidly. The prolate spheroid
shape is produced by the stone "spinning" around
its longest axis in the high-speed flow and grinding
against everything else in the flow. River cobbles
are just as smooth but irregular, even polygonal.

    But if you spin it fast enough, as the Mississippi
must have flowed when it carved a 25-mile wide
channel with 200-foot cliffs on either side, this is
the shape you get. I found my little one in a gully
about ten miles down from where the face of the
glacier that sat on Illinois was. This gully wasn't
any Mississippi, but I bet it was cut through the
limestone in an hour or a day, like a Scablands
channel.

    Or, maybe, it's a Thunderbird egg...


Sterling K. Webb
------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "E.P. Grondine" <epgrondine at yahoo.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 11:53 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] What is this?


> Hi Jim -
>
> The remains at Moundsville are covered in my book "Man
> and Impact in the Americas", and I have visited there
> several times, inclusing tracing the Grave Creek trade
> path. There was extensive Native American settlement
> in the entire area (map page 133 Man and Impact in the
> Americas).
>
> Most of the mounds were pretty well leveled by 1894,
> excepting the Main mound.  I have not visited the
> other mound which you mention still exists.
>
> I'm sure that maps from 1894 would show active
> European cemeteries. These could be compared against
> Schoolcraft's map.
>
> The area was also very heavily industrialized by 1894,
> so some industrial object can not be excluded.
>
> Perhaps a buisness directory or town directory or some
> such would allow identification of the individual in
> the initials. Check with the genealogical section of
> the library in Moundsville. (PS - They have a copy of
> my book, available for free loan.)
>
> As I mentioned before, I've never seen anything like
> it.  The WVA archaeologists someimes meet at the
> museum at the big mound, so you could stop by there
> and check when they will be meeting. Or you might try
> contacting them through the internet.
>
> What material is the object composed of?
>
> Ed
>
> --- Jim Strope <nwa482 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> Hi Ed..........
>>
>> I don't know how to take the name "grave digger".  I
>> am guessing that is a
>> polite way of saying that he dug into indian burrial
>> mounds in the area.
>> The initials, I am guessing, are  of the finder
>> since the 1894 corresponds
>> to the year that it was supposedly found.  There are
>> no river rocks like
>> that in this area.  However, it has been suggested
>> by another list member
>> that it could be transported glacial rock.  The
>> glaciers stopped their
>> advance along a line in Northern Ohio which is
>> probably about 100 miles
>> north of where this was found.........Moundsville
>> WV.   There were several adena
>> burial mounds in this area.  Still are two.
>>
>> Jim Strope
>> 421 Fourth Street
>> Glen Dale, WV  26038
>>
>> http://www.catchafallingstar.com
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
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