Let the Stars Fall Into Your Pocket

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Since they sometimes fragment into a thousand or more pieces, the best place to find meteorites is where they've been found before. Deserts, prairies, dry lake and riverbeds, and other arid and semi-arid regions have all proven to be good places to look.

Areas with soft ground, swamps, grasslands, marshes, and anywhere the climate is humid a great part of the time are less likely hunting grounds. Not because meteors don't land in such regions . . . but because the moisture in those areas speeds up a meteorite's decomposition, and makes it harder to identify.

WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOU?

While a "find" (a meteoroid that no one saw fall) isn't generally worth as much as a "fall" (a meteorite that was seen streaking toward earth), the going rate for even an extremely weathered specimen starts at five to ten dollars a pound.

If you believe you've found a meteor, send either it or a sample section of the rock (depending on the size of your find) to one of the following:

Mr. Glenn I. Huss, Director
American Meteorite
Laboratory . . .
. . . Box 2098
Denver, Colo. 80201 . . .

Dr. Carleton B. Moore,
Director
. . . Center for Meteorite Studies
Arizona State University . . .
. . . Tempe, Ariz. 85281

Division of Meteorites . . .
National Museum of Natural History . . .
Smithsonian Institution . . .
Washington, D.C. 20560 . . .

Professor John Wasson . . .
. . . Institute of Geophysics
University of California at . . . Los Angeles
Los Angeles, Calif. 90024 . . .

Any of the above gentlemen can tell you whether or not your find is really a meteor (there is no charge for this verification, but—if you want your sample back—you should enclose return postage when you mail it in). If the rock is a meteoroid, don't worry . . . you'll receive an offer for it.

IN SHORT . . .

While I seriously doubt you'll ever find your fortune searching for this "treasure from the skies", it is exciting to note that a single good find can put several hundred dollars in your pocket. Still, the potential dollar value of any meteorite you might stumble across is incidental . . . incidental, that is, to any outdoorsman or -woman who never has enough good excuses to go wandering about the countryside!

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