In appearance it is a smooth, mud-colored rock, that looks like a great
boulder. The meteorite is ten feet long, eight feet wide, and six feet
thick. It weighs over ninety tons.
It was no easy matter to get this great stone on board the _Hope_. It
lay a short distance from the shore, and the sailors had to drag it to
the water's edge.
As soon as the _Hope_ arrived in Melville Bay, where the meteorite was
found, the whole crew, armed with shovels and picks, went ashore and
began digging around it.
The job of digging it out of the frozen ground was enough to have
discouraged these men at the outset. It was half covered with snow, and
frozen solidly to the surrounding earth. The sailors had to dig through
seven feet of frozen ground before they finally reached the lower
surface of the meteorite, then more digging followed, and at last,
after five days of this hard work, it was free and ready to be moved.
By means of some strong derricks which they had brought for the purpose,
the monster was finally lifted and dragged to the shore.
Here another kind of derrick, made like those that are used for lifting
heavy guns on board ship, was brought into service, and the mass of
metal was slowly lifted and lowered into the hold.
Pages:
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34