* Astronomy

Title: THE MAYODAN METEORITE, ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, NORTH CRNOITNA
Author: Enward P. Hendersson and Stuart H. Perry

In September, 1950, Mr. James E. Beaver of High Point, N' C', submitted to the U. S. National Museum a small fragment for identification which he thought might be a meteorite. Having read in the September issue of Science Digest a description of a meteorite and of the interest that this Museum has in them, he asked us to investigate a sample that for years had been considered by his family to be an iron meteorite' The sample proved to be an iron meteorite. In response to our request for permission to see the main mass, Mr. Beaver sent it for examination and supplied the historical information about its discovery.
In a letter dated September 18 he wrote:
..This meteorite was discovered in 1920 near our farm in Rockingham County, N. C. Back in those days the upkeep of the roads was the responsibility of each county and it was the practice of the few neighbours to get together and repair the section of the load that passed by their property. It was while working with a few of his neighbours in repairing one of these roads that my father discovered this meteorite (embedded) in the road. They thought at first that it was just another rock, but when one of them lifted it to carry it (out of the road) they found that it was much too heavy to be an ordinary rock, so my father carried it home with him, where it remained for 30 years as an object of curiosity and conjecture. However, my father suspected that it was a meteorite, in fact we have been calling it a meteorite ever since I can remember. He sent a sample of it to an iron smelting concern and they replied that it was of no value."

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