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Nininger Moment #21
The Tough Early Years
A number of lessons that Nininger learned in the beginning of his
quest for finding meteorites taught him early on that a program of
hunting down meteorites would be a rewarding but difficult endeavor.
In one of the early chapters of Find a Falling Star, at the
beginning of each chapter is a wise saying. Perhaps the one that
says it all of Nininger's quest was this one: "Apply your mind to at
least one problem which has never been solved, which in general is
considered impossible of solution, but if solved would help out
humanity. Do with your life something that has never been done, but
which you feel needs doing." In Nininger's effort to learn about
meteorites, first he found precious little information on the
subject. One of the first good tools in the form of a book was one
written by Dr. O.C. Farrington called the Catalog of Meteorites of
North America (published 1909). Here Nininger was able to read about
the recorded falls and finds of the past to the current time of
1909.
In his efforts to locate the fall of November 9th, 1923 that he
himself had seen fall, he had located two other meteorites in the
predicted area of the fall. The same had been true when hunting down
a couple of other leads, leaving him to believe correctly that
meteorites were more plentiful than believed to be at that time.
These finds were the reward he needed to continue on with the
program of hunting meteorites
Often Nininger would take time off and drive down the old rural
roads of Kansas in an already old Model T of the time. As he had no
place for a spare tire, a good pair of tire tools and patching
materials for his car were in order. Often repairing tires in a raw,
cold numbing Kansas wind and in ankle deep mud in order to drive to
some out of the way farm house to check a lead. Sometimes creeping
through mud for hours only to find a common rock rather than a
meteorite.
At the beginning of his program he borrowed from the family budget
in order to be able to do a field trip, often lecturing along the
way for extra money in the area he was an authority in. Usually he
would stay at third class hotels and eat cold lunches to keep the
costs down and seeing if his idea of hunting and finding meteorites
had merit. He often brain stormed of ways to fund his idea, knowing
that grants for an untested program would never be given, when money
was short for programs considered far more important of that time.
In trying to find out more about meteorites he made field trips to
other universities in Kansas thinking he would run into some good
resources or a knowledgeable professor on the subject. What Nininger
found was an ignorance of the subject. His trip for example to the
University of Kansas at Lawrence yielded only a bit of information
on the subject dear to his heart. He question both the geology
department heads as well as the astronomy department. He found that
the professors in the geology department professed ignorance on the
subject but worst to Nininger was the total lack of interest in the
subject. They showed him an un-labeled meteorite and told him which
one they thought it was. Nininger saw that what they claimed to be a
iron meteorite was rather a stony-iron which he identified as being
a part of the Brenham, KS find. Talking to the professor in the
astronomy department he produced a very common slice of an iron
meteorite telling Nininger the very basic chemical structure of the
specimen. When asked about stony meteorites the professor stated he
didn't know there were any. Nininger often ran into this same type
of ignorance in other localities of higher learning. It seem that
the geologists felt it was related to astronomy coming from the sky
and the astronomers felt that it was more of a geology subject
because of the make up being stony or iron.
From 1923 to 1929 Nininger gained both knowledge and experience
while he taught at McPherson College. One of the ways he learned
more was to visit the major collections of the time. These were
Washington, Chicago, New York, Harvard, Yale, and Amerst. Only one
other collection on the continent of North America was worth a visit
and that was in Mexico City where five of the greatest meteorites of
the world were held. But he also needed a way to pay for the program
he wished to pursue. This is where the plans to go to Mexico first
began and a way to possibly better fund his new program.
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. Source:
Find A Falling Star
--AL Mitterling
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