Abstract
THE Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History) have acquired, partly by purchase and partly by presentation, from Mrs. Lorna Tillotson, one half of a new meterorite which fell at Beddgelert, Caernarvonshire, on September 21. The other half is to go to the University of Durham, where Prof. F. A. Paneth plants to make measurements of the helium, uranium and thorium content to add to the present meagre data available for calculating the age of metepritic stones. Plaster casts of the stone will be made before it is divided. The meteorite is a black chondrite, a rather uncommon type of stony meteorite. The mineral composition has not been studied at present. Its arrival was accompanied by several loud explosions likened by Mr. Tillotson to heavy gunfire. Mr. Tillotson, by noting the positions of the holes in the roof and in the ceiling of the room into which the meteorite fell, determined that the angle of its fall on to the roof was nearly vertical. Very few reports have been received about the light or sound phenomena accompanying the fall. Those so far received are from three localities in Caernarvonshire, Lancashire and Cheshire. Any records of the passage of a meteor over Great Britain or Ireland would, therefore, be of interest, and should be sent either to Prof. Paneth or to Dr. W. Campbell Smith, Keeper of Minerals, British Museum (Natural History), London, S.W.7.
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British Museum (Natural History): Acquisitions. Nature 164, 990 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/164990a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/164990a0