| OCR Text |
Show Bogus Meteorites. Genuine meteorites are curiosities highly prized by museums and scientific scien-tific collectors. Prof. St. Meunier of the natural history museum cf Berlin paid as much as $5 per gram for a meteorites. me-teorites. It is therefore conceivable that sharp practices should be resorted resort-ed to by dealers in scientific curios! ties. A band of meteorite counterfeit- ers was recently captured and considerable consid-erable evidence ob'.ained of very curious curi-ous and ingenious methods of deceiving deceiv-ing the guliible collector. The members mem-bers of this" band were CorsicLns. It was their practice to obtain natural rock resembling meteorites as closelj as possible and then to burn them in order to produce the black crust which is one ot the earmarks of every genuine genu-ine meteorite. The pieces of rock were coated with lampblack, dissolved in molten sulphur. It seems, however, that this method was so crude thai the deception was easily discovered, and the men were forthwith arrested. |
