A quick check of airline schedules showed it was not going to be easy to get to Parral. I could fly to El Paso, but that was still more than three hundred miles north of Parral. It was the fastest way, however. My secretary promised to cover me with paperwork. I stopped by my house for a few clothes and headed for the airport.

The plane took off on time, but, as luck would have it, a faulty landing gear indicator light grounded us in San Antonio for five hours while it was replaced. By the time I arrived in El Paso it was already dark. I picked up a rental car, cleared through customs, and drove south. It was important to recover pieces of the meteorite right

away in order to measure their short half-life radioactivities. This would be great practice for the Radiation Counting Laboratory of the LRL. The Mexican highways were difficult to negotiate in the dark. The best technique was to follow a hundred yards behind a car with Mexican license plates. Some of the drivers were going 80 miles per hour, and when I saw brake lights or a cloud of dust, I knew the driver had spotted a burro on the highway. I arrived in Parral just after dawn. I checked into a hotel, washed up, drank some strong coffee, ate eggs and tortillas, and went to look for the newspaper office. I was waiting when the editor arrived. I was astonished when I saw the two big meteorite pieces on the editor' s desk. One weighed more than 30 pounds. 

The greatest surprise was the meteorite type - a rare carbonaceous chondrite. Chondrites are stony meteorites that contain chondrules, small spheres of silicate of disputed origin. Carbonaceous chondrites are chondrites that contain abundant carbon and organic compounds. While I was standing in Chavez' office, the telephone rang. The editor handed the receiver to me. It was a colleague from the Smithsonian who wanted information about the meteorite. He had called my Houston office, where my secretary gave him the number of the newspaper office. I told him what little I knew. I asked the editor about his plans for the two specimens on his desk. He said they were reserved for the National Museum. I agreed this was perfectly appropriate, but I was eager to recover some additional specimens. The editor said I must visit the local municipal president or mayor. I was going to be treated as an official NASA representative.

The mayor, Sr. Carlos Franco, was extremely gracious, and though my Spanish was meager and he spoke little English, we had an amiable meeting. I explained, through the editor as translator, how scientifically important meteorites are in general and that this particular one was a very rare type. Sr. Franco was eager to help me, and he assigned me one of his policemen and an official car for as long as I needed them.

We drove to places where specimens had been found. Recovering additional specimens proved to be easy. Everyone had small pieces of the meteorite, but I wanted some larger ones. I purchased these from the local people, with the policeman acting as interpreter and handling the negotiations. We documented several sites where specimens had been found. The stones had showered over a large area. One large stone had missed the post office in Pueblito de Allende by only 30 feet. Meteorites normally are named after the nearest post office. This one almost named itself. We listened to many tales of the fireball, its direction of travel, the loud claps of thunder, stones falling everywhere, and people running to the church in the middle of the night. I picked up 13 pieces of the

meteorite, including two large ones - enough samples for the time being.