People find a great many meteorites that were not seen to fall. Most of these landed on the surface of the earth at some time in the remote past or happened to fall in an originally unpopulated portion of the land area of the globe. Generally, such meteorites are discovered entirely by accident, although in recent years quite a few recoveries of unwitnessed falls have been made by design. This has been the case during the systematic surveys with meteorite detectors conducted around such recognized meteorite crater areas as Canyon Diablo, Arizona; Odessa, Texas; and Wolf Creek, Australia.
The different modes of discovery of meteorites not seen to fall are interesting in themselves. The largest percentage of finds has unquestionably been made by farmers. The Plymouth, Indiana, meteorite, for example, was plowed up or, as the farmer nursing the rib bruised by his bucking plow would probably prefer to say, “plowed into.” So were such meteorites as the Algoma, Wisconsin; the Bridgewater, North Carolina; the Carlton, Texas; and the Chesterfield, South Carolina, to name only a few. A farmer found the Kenton, Kentucky, iron while he was cleaning out a spring. Another farmer was removing debris from an abandoned water well in an attempt to revive it when he discovered the Richland, Texas, iron. A field drainage project brought the Seeläsgen, Poland, iron to light. A man planting an apple tree near his house dug out the Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, iron, and a farmer hoeing tobacco turned up the Scottsville, Kentucky, iron.
The second largest percentage of finds probably has been made by miners. Prospectors and placer miners have mistaken numerous iron meteorites for lumps of silver ore. Among these are the Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Lick Creek, North Carolina; and Illinois Gulch, Montana, irons. The Aggie Creek, Alaska, iron was raised by a gold dredge. The gold miners recognized this meteorite as an unusual “haul” when it announced its presence by clanging loudly on the metallic screen of the dredge.
Men at work on road construction are also to be thanked for chancing upon meteorites of unwitnessed fall, for example, the irons found by road crews at Bear Lodge, Wyoming, and at Bald Eagle, Pennsylvania.
Some meteorites have been “found twice.” At Opava, Czechoslovakia, archeologists discovered seven pieces of meteoritic iron in a buried Stone Age campsite—the oldest meteorite collection so far on record! Apparently the paleolithic inhabitants of the Opava region had gathered the heavy masses together and used them to bolster the fireplaces in their rude encampment.
Investigators discovered the Mesaverde, Colorado, iron in the Sun Shrine on the north side of the Pipe Shrine House, and the Casas Grandes, Mexico, iron in the middle of a large room of the Montezuma temple ruins, carefully wrapped in linen cloth like a mummy. Members of an early archeological survey found the small Anderson Township, Ohio, meteoritic specimens on altars in mounds of the Little Miami Valley group of prehistoric earthworks. Some scientists believe that the American Indians transported these specimens to Ohio from the site of the Brenham meteorites in Kiowa County, Kansas.
The Lake Murray, Oklahoma, iron meteorite in place, just as it was found. See [p. 80].
Other modes of discovery fall into no pattern and must be regarded as merely curious. A farmer plowing his field near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, came across a snake. In looking for a suitable stone with which to kill it, he first seized upon a mass of iron too heavy to lift. After he had killed the snake with a handy rock, the farmer’s attention was drawn back to the small but remarkably heavy mass he had first tried to pick up. He carted it off to the city, where eventually it was recognized as a meteorite.
In another unusual recovery, fishermen brought the Lake Okeechobee, Florida, stone up from the waters of the lake in a net—the only such recovery recorded in the whole literature of meteoritics, although three-fourths of all meteorites must necessarily fall into water on our ocean-covered globe. Again, the members of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-1914 were surprised to find the Adelie Land, Antarctica, stone lying on the snow some 20 miles west of Cape Denison.