Port Orford, Oregon, Meteorite Mystery. 1. John Evans and the Port Orford Meteorite Hoax

摘要

The Port Orford meteorite was allegedly discovered by John Evans, a contract explorer for the United States Government, on a mountain in southwestern Oregon in 1856. Efforts to organize the recovery of the alleged 10-ton body for placement in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., began in late 1859, but were abandoned as a consequence of the simultaneous onset of the Civil War and Evans' death. Early in this century journalistic reports revived the story and stimulated numerous unsuccessful amateur meteorite hunting expeditions into the inaccessible Kiskiyou National Forest. Smithsonian investigators visited the vaguely defined site without success in 1929 and 1939. As time passed, it became increasingly obvious to some involved officials that there was something wrong with the original accounts. Nevertheless, most persons persisted in their belief that Evans' story was true. The monograph combines a historical study by Howard Plotkin ('John Evans and the Port Orford Meteorite Hoax,' and a technical study by V.F. Buchwald and Roy S. Clarke, Jr. ('A Mystery Solved: The Port Orford Meteorite is an Imilac Specimen.').