By Anita Firebaugh
Contributing Writer
Have you ever looked in the sky and seen a streak of light? Most likely, what you saw was a shooting star, also called a meteor. If the meteor falls to earth, it’s then called a meteorite.
In 1850, before Craig County was formed from part of Botetourt and other neighboring counties, someone found a very large meteorite. The location of this huge hunk of space metal is unknown, although there are fragments in museums.
Specimens of this falling star, called the Botetourt County meteorite, are documented in scientific journals. C. U. Shepard, a 19th century professor at Amherst College in Massachusetts and noted mineral collector, in 1866 gave the following account of this meteorite:
“This iron was discovered about 1850 in a mass so ponderous that the finder, having attempted to transport it on horseback a number of miles to his house, was obliged to abandon the undertaking. He left it upon a stone wall by the side of the road, after having (with the assistance of a negro who happened along with a hammer) detached two or three small angular fragments. These were afterward given to Mr. N. S. Manross, who took them with him to Gottingen, [Germany] where, in the laboratory of Professor Wohler, he analyzed one of them so far as to determine the presence of nickel in the unusually high proportion of 20 percent.”
Meteorite hunters and enthusiasts have long been searching for the Botetourt County meteorite because its location is unknown in spite of documentation pointing to its existence. Botetourt County is a large area to cover, and in 1850 it was even bigger, as it also encompassed parts of what is now Craig County. Craig County was not formed until 1851.
So the meteorite could be anywhere among the lands that were called Botetourt in 1850.
This meteorite appears to have weighed several hundred pounds. The iron content makes it a unique meteorite. Most likely, the meteorite would be black and pitted.
Meteorites are truly rare; only 13 (according to online documentation) officially have been recovered from Virginia
Meteorites can be stony, in which case they are only slightly heavier than a typical terrestrial rock of the same size, or they can be metallic, in which case they are much heavier and ring like a bell when struck with a metallic object. Meteorites that have fallen recently have a distinctive black coating called fusion crust that looks glassy and smooth. Older meteorites are typically weathered and seem to be covered with a fairly smooth dark brown coating. Most meteorites are magnetic. If a corner is broken off and polished, most meteorites will contain numerous small flecks of metal.
Positive identification of a meteorite can be difficult and may require an expert. “Among amateur astronomers, an often said joke in some form or another is that most meteorites are actually ‘meteor-wrongs.’ A strange looking rock found in an unexpected location doesn’t make it a meteorite. They are rare,” wrote John Goss of Botetourt, the 2014-2018 President of the Astronomical League, the nation’s largest federation of amateur astronomers.
The best way to confirm the meteoritic nature of a possible meteorite is to send a small piece to a meteorite expert, many of whom are members of the Meteoritical Society, including members at universities and museums.
According to information on the Internet, there should be a small fragment of the Botetourt County meteorite in the Natural History Museum in Vienna. The Indian Museum in Calcutta and Amherst College in Massachusetts also report splinters of the Botetourt meteorite. But scientists do not know where the massive meteorite, so big it could not be transported, is now.
