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Nininger Moment #18
Nininger the writer
 Harvey Nininger started on his long career of meteorites in 1923
when his interests drastically changed from biology to meteorites.
In 47 years Harvey published some 162 papers relating to meteorites,
notably a number of falls and finds. He was especially good at
noting the details of the falls and finds and all the circumstances
of their recovery. Such detailed accounts help pave the way for
further discoveries. It also set a standard that would be used later
by scientists to document falls and finds.
A wide variety of these papers were published in various scientific
journals of the time, including the American Journal of Science and
various State and local publications. These papers were the
transitional publications from a descriptive stage, to the
scientific analytical stage and represent an important part of early
meteoritical studies.
Harvey Nininger also published in a great many magazines of the time
like Popular Astronomy and various newspapers who would publish his
interesting and educational articles on meteorites.
Also published were a number of books which include: "Our Stone
Pelted Planet (1933), Out of the Sky (1952), Arizona's Meteorite
Crater (1956), The Nininger Collection of Meteorites (1950), Ask a
Question About Meteorites (1961), A Comet Strikes the Earth (1942),
Chips from the Moon (1947), Find a Fallen Star (1972) one of the
most popular publications. This dealt with Nininger's autobiography
and the steps he had taken on all aspects of meteorites, from the
early ages to to his more seasoned latter years.
The Nininger's (Harvey and his wife Addie) started a collection of
papers called the "Contributions of the Society for Research on
Meteorites, which were edited by Addie and which eventually became
the Meteortical Society of today.
Nininger's contributions formed a very important part of
meteoritical history for nearly a half century of time. A number of
these publications can be found in the "The Published Papers of
H.H.. Nininger, biology and Meteoritics (1971) by the center for
meteorite studies, Arizona State University, Tempe, Az. Although
this listing of publications is extensive it doesn't include many
newspaper articles and other published papers by Nininger that were
published elsewhere. The Niningers also distributed many thousands
of pamphlets for use in helping locals find meteorites in their
area. No doubt many different ones were generated.
The Nininger Moments are articles or books written originally by
Harvey Nininger and put into a consolidated form by Al Mitterling.
Some of the items written in the moments might be old out dated
material and the reader is advised to keep this in mind. Special
credit to this post goes to Carleton B. Moore from the Published
Papers of H.H. Nininger.
--AL Mitterling
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