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scattered along the Chinga stream in 1912. The canyon-forming creek runs into Urgailyk.
This empties in Elegest, which again is a tributary to Yenisey from the high mountains of
Tannu Ola. The material had already been examined by Backlund & Khlopin (1915), who,
however, believed that it was of terrestrial origin. Pehrman (1923) reexamined it and,
assuming that he had identified fusion crust and regmaglypts, concluded that it was in fact,
meteoritic. In the years 1910-1950, when the creeks of this area were exploited for gold,
"native iron" was found on several occasions; thus, in 1948, a 7.5 kilogram fragment was
discovered by the prospector-geologist A.L. Dodin. In another case, in 1929, S. Ivanov
found a cluster of at least 20 individuals. Some were forged into spikes and nails, others
reached museums in Moscow, Kyzyl, Irkutsk, Alma-Ata and Minusinsk. Since the majority of the
fragments had a flattened, somewhat curved form, often with sharp torn edges, the original mass
could have been a crater-producing meteorite like Henbury. The crater was thought to have
disappeared through erosion or simply to have passed unnoticed, since, in 1912, little
attention was paid to crater-producing meteorites. Field work was carried out in 1963 in
order to test the crater theory, but no crater was ever found. It was concluded that the fall
had been a small shower and that erosion had eliminated all traces of the impact. It is not
known when this meteorite fell and about 80 kilograms in weight was recovered.
E-mail Address: meteorites@att.net