In Coconino County, Arizona, is an extraordinary formation. It is known
as Coon Butte and as Crater Mountain. Once upon a time, something gouged
this part of Arizona. The cavity in the ground is about 3,800 feet in
diameter, and it is approximately 600 feet deep, from the rim of the
ramparts to the floor of the interior. Out from this cavity had been
hurled blocks of limestone, some of them a mile or so away, some of
these masses weighing probably 5,000 tons each. And in the formation,
and around it, have been found either extraordinary numbers of
meteorites, or fragments of one super-meteorite. Barringer, in his
report to the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia (_Proceedings,
A. N. S. P._, Dec., 1905) says that, of the trafficers in this
meteoritic material, he knew of two men who had shipped away fifteen
tons of it. But Barringer’s minimum estimate of a body large enough so
to gouge the ground is ten million tons.
It was supposed that a main mass of meteoritic material was buried under
the floor of the formation, but this floor was drilled, and nothing was
found to support this supposition. One drill went down 1020 feet, going
through 100 feet of red sandstone, which seems to be the natural,
undisturbed sub-structure. The datum that opposes most strongly the idea
that this pit was gouged by one super-meteorite is that in it and around
it at least three kinds of meteorites have been found: they are irons,
masses of iron-shale, and shale-balls that are so rounded and
individualized that they can not be thought of as fragments of a greater
body, and can not be very well thought of as great drops of molten
matter cast from a main, incandescent mass, inasmuch as there is not a
trace of igneous rock such as would mark such contact.
There are data for thinking that these three kinds of objects fell at
different times, presumably from origin of fixed position relatively to
this point in Arizona. Within the formation, shales were found, buried
at various distances, as if they had fallen at different times, for
instance seven of them in a vertical line, the deepest-buried 27 feet
down; also shales outside the formation were found buried. But, quite as
if they had fallen more recently, the hundreds of irons were found upon
the surface of the ground, or partly covered, or wholly covered, but
only with superficial soil.
There is no knowing when this great gouge occurred, but cedars upon the
rim are said to be about 700 years old.
In terms of our general expression upon differences of potential, and of
electric relations between nearby worlds, I think of a blast between
this earth and a land somewhere else, and of something that was more
than a cyclone that gouged this pit.
Other meteorites have been found in Arizona: the 85-pound iron that was
found at Weaver, near Wickenburg, 130 miles from Crater Mountain, in
1898, and the 960-pound mass, now in the National Museum, said to have
been found at Peach Springs, 140 miles from Crater Mountain. These two
irons indicate nothing in particular; but, if we accept that somewhere
else in Arizona there is another deposit of meteorites, also
extraordinarily abundant, such abundance gives something of commonness
of nature if not of commonness of origin to two deposits. There are
several large irons known as the Tucson meteorites, one weighing 632
pounds and another 1514 pounds, now in museums. They came from a place
known as Iron Valley, in the Santa Rita Mountains, about 30 miles south
of Tucson, and about 200 miles from Crater Mountain. Iron Valley was so
named because of the great number of meteorites found in it. According
to the people of Tucson, this fall occurred about the year 1660. See
_Amer. Jour. Sci._, 2-13-290.
Upon June 24, 1905, Barringer found, upon the plain, about a mile and a
half northwest of Crater Mountain, a meteorite of a fourth kind. It was
a meteoritic stone, “as different from all the other specimens as one
specimen could be from another.” Barringer thinks that it fell, about
the 15th of January, 1904. Upon a night in the middle of January, 1904,
two of his employees were awakened by a loud hissing sound, and saw a
meteor falling north of the formation. At the same time, two Arizona
physicians, north of the formation, saw the meteor falling south of
them. For analysis and description of this object, see _Amer. Jour.
Sci._, 4-21-353. Barringer, who believes that once upon a time one
super-meteorite, of which only a very small part has ever been found,
gouged this hole in the ground, writes—“That a small stony meteorite
should have fallen on almost exactly the same spot on this earth’s
surface as the great Canon Diablo iron meteorite fell many centuries
ago, is certainly a most remarkable coincidence. I have stated the facts
as accurately as possible, and I have no opinion to offer, as to whether
or not these involve anything more than a coincidence.”
Other phenomena in Arizona:
Upon Feb. 24, 1897, a great explosion was heard over the town of
Tombstone. It is said that a fragment of a meteor fell at St. David
(_Monthly Weather Review_, 1897-56). Yarnell, Arizona, Sept. 12, 1898—“a
loud, deep, thundering noise” that was heard between noon and 1 P. M.
“The noise proceeded from the Granite Range, this side of Prescott. From
all accounts, a large meteor struck the earth at this time” (_U. S.
Weather Bureau Rept., Ariz. Section_, Sept., 1898).
Upon July 19, 1912, at Holbrook, Arizona, about 50 miles from Crater
Mountain, occurred a loud detonation and one of the most remarkable
falls of stones recorded. See _Amer. Jour. Sci._, 4-34-437. Some of the
stones are very small. About 14,000 were collected. Only twice, since
the year 1800, have stones in greater numbers fallen from the sky to
this earth, according to conventional records.
About a month later (Aug. 18) there was another concussion at Holbrook.
This was said to be an earthquake (_Bull. Seis. Soc. Amer._, 1-209).