Meteorite Ownership
By J. HUGH PRUITT
Pacific N. W. Director,
American Meteor Society
Interest aplenty has been
aroused by recent reports In the
press regarding the nine-pound
rock which came tumbling down
from the high heavens over Ala
bama one afternoon late last
November. It tore a three-foot
hole in a roof at Sylacauga where
Hulitt Hodges and his wife were
living, bounced off a radio and
severely bruised Mrs. Hodges,
who was resting on a sofa.
Almost immediately the Air
Force took possession of the
celestial missile for examination.
Reports at Christmas time indi
cated that some institutions had
offered $5000 for the bruising
meteorite, although the Smith
sonian Institution had said it was
not worth $500. The house
where the Hodges lived they
have now settled elsewhere
was rented property. The owner,
Mrs. Birdie Guy, has 'filed suit
to get possession of the unique
sky rock. Mrs. Hodges says, "It's
mine!" Each side has retained
legal help,
o Other Noted Cases
. There are two noted meteorite
possession cases on record in the
uniisa oiaies. me earner one
was the 'Wennebaao case in
Iowa. The tenant on a rented
property had seen the actual
descent of a comparatively small
meteorite which buried itself
three feet in the ground. The
next day the tenant dug it up
and assumed ownership. .Later
he sold it. The owner of the
land, finding such objects were
valuable, claimed it was his and
brought suit for its recovery.
After several years of litigation,
the courts decided "such objects
belong to the owner of the soil
upon which they fall."
A still more noted case was
that of the famous Willamette
meteorite, almost 16 tons of
metal, the largest object of this
kind ever found In the United
States and Canada, and the fifth
in size for the entire world. In
the fall of 1902 Ellis Hughes
near Oregon City, Ore., recog
nized as meteoritic this huge
mass which rested on the prop
erty of the Oregon Iron and Steel
company adjacent to his own
land.
Trusted No On
In 1903 Hughes reasoning
that "possession is nine points
of the law" decided to move
the mass to a spot near his own
house, three fourths of a mile
away. He trusted no one to
help him except his wife, his 15-year-old
boy and his horse.
After three months of hard
work he had brought the meteor
ite to its destination,-ready for
display for a fee. Soon the com
pany from whose land the ob
ject had been moved brought
suit to recover it. While the
case was in the circuit court,
public sympathy was generally
with Hughes. The plaintiff was
finally awarded the meteorite by
the court's decision.
After the award the defend
ant appealed the case to the
Oregon supreme court. This
court on July 7, 1905, announced:
"Meteorites, though not im
bedded in the earth, are real
estate and consequently belong
to the owner of the land on
which they are found . . . Seeing
there is no error in the record,
the judgment of the circuit court
will be affirmed."
Um Mail Tribune Want Ada
Wheat, Hay, Rye
Stocks on Oregon
Farms on Decrease
Portland (U.R) Wheat, hay
and rye crops stocked on Oregon
farms showed a marked decrease
in the Jan. 1 census taken by the
U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.
The USDA Marketing Service
said Saturday, however, the
drop was offset by increased
storage of oats, barley and corn.
Totals Listed
Wheat stocks totalled 5,755,
000 bushels on Jan. 1 as com
pared to 7,546,000 bushels a year
ago. Hay was down from 1,306,-
000 tons in 1954 to 1,250,000 m
1955. Rye storage dropped from
128,000 to 83,000.
Barley stocks showed the
greatest gain during the period,
rising from 2,673,000 bushels
in 1954 to 4,364,000 on Jan. 1,
1955. Oats rose from 4,017,000 to
5,131,000. Corn was up from
359,000 to 497,000 bushels.
Longest on Records
The USDA said the 2,302,000
bushels of corn held on North
west farms was the largest on
record. The total was 33 per cent
larger than last year and almost
double the average. On a na
tional level, the corn crop was
slightly below the figures re
ported last year.
Elsewhere, the northwest
trends followed the same pat
tern as in Oregon.
The greatest east-west dis
tance across Texas is 773 miles
from Newton county to El Paso
county.
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Is That So?
Humans may think that some
members of society ere low-
down parasites but as far as
some of the lower orders are
concerned, Minnie the Moocher
was an open-handed philanthro
pist. In fact, the most ruthless
gangster is a soft-hearted sissy
in comparison.
Consider the skua, a gull. It
gets its food by power-diving
other birds. The frightened vic-
tis disgorge their partially di
gested meal in mid-aif while the
skua gobbles it up with' such
dexterity that the handout sel
dom hits the water's surface.
Even the most crass human
male preying upon widows main
tains a show of independence:
not so an angler fish which in
habits the dark mid-water of
oceans. Up until 1932 no one
really knew where the male
kept himself only females were
captured. Then, one day a 40-inch-long
female angler fish was
captured near Iceland and at
tached to . her side was a little
four-inch fish. You guessed it,
the male. Another female, no
more than two-and-a-half inches
long had a tiny two-fifth-inch
male attached.
In both these females, the
males had gripped them with
their mouths, and the lips and
tongues had united with the fe
males' skins, becoming complete
ly fused. Mouth, jaws, teeth,
gills and fins indeed almost all
the organs except those connect
ed with reproduction had de
generated in the males and they
were nourished wholly by the
blood of .the females which
coursed through their bodies.
Since then, many other such
paired fish have been captured.
Rides Inside Female
The male bonellia hasn't even
as much pride as the angler fish:
he spends most of his undignified
life riding around inside of the
female, attached to her excretory
organ.
The tapeworm is another
voracious parasite which when
given an inch takes an all. It
doesn't even make the pretense
of digesting his food. Without
a digestive tract, in fact, it sim
ply latches on to the digestive
tract of animals and soaks up its
food juices almost like blotting
paper. Thriving on this diet, it
may grow -to be 10 feet long.
A tiny beetle simply hitch
hikes on the heads of worker
termites and when nutritive
liquids are passed by mouth from
nurse to worker, it imbibes free
ly. .
To those tired of paddling
their own canoe, or powering
the canoe of others, such a para
sitic existence may sound idyllic.
But is it? When one animal has
worked out such a favorable ex
istence for itself, others are quick
to pounce upon it. As a result,
most parasites are infested with
much smaller parasites and these
in turn may support a host of
still smaller ones. "The great
fleas have little fleas upon their
backs to bite 'em, and the little
fleas have lesser fleas. And so
ad "infinitum."
Might Kill Host
Because a parasite can seldom
live long if it exceeds the host
in size should it harm the host
too much, it might kill him end
thus in turn itself . As a result,
parasites are usually compara
tively small and it is not unusual
for one host to support many
tiny parasites and these in turn
to support many more much
tinier. -
This business of mooching
upon others seems to be almost
as old as life itself. Perhaps
as soon as the first free-living
organisms arose on earth, a num
ber adapted themselves to this
comparatively easy form of de
pendency after all, as far as
the moocher is concerned, it's
an advantageous, economical way
of life.
Degenerate in practically all
ways, the parasites excell how
ever in one department. Because
they have difficulty in getting
from a dead host to a live one,
the death rate is high. To sur
vive, they have developed a fan
tastic reproductive rate, much
greater than that of their hosts.
As a consequence, counting the
vast ; number, of tiny parasites
living upon one another, the par
asitic animals in this world may
well outnumber the nonparasitic
in individuals, if not in species.
(Copyright, 1954,
by Eugene Burns)
, (Released by McClure.
Newspaper Syndicate)
By Eugene Burns
Ranger-Naturalist
Free: By special arrangement
with the editors of the Enclo
pedia Americana, my panel of
judges will award .each week to
the reader who sends me the
best question on nature and wild
life a complete 30-volume set of
this world - famous reference
work' in a handsome Sealcraft
binding. Each week, new ques
tions will be considered. Sorry,
I simply can't answer your many
friendly letters. Please address
your questions to: IS THAT SO!
care Medford Mail Tribune, P.O.
Box 575, Sausalito, Calif.
In the Day's News
By FRANK JENKINS
Interesting note from Salem:
The nine members of the house
tax committee, of the Oregon
legislature who are faced with
the task of finding $63,000,000 in
new revenue for the next two
yean, went back to school to
learn all about taxation.
The school will run five days
a week for 23 days, with sessions
starting at 8:30 a. m. Outside
experts are being called in - to
lecture to the committee. The
first one, scheduled to speak to
day on "Theories of Taxation,"
is Dr. C. Ward Macy of the fac
ulty of the University of Ore
gon. The dispatch adds that the
instruction course is necessary
because only one of the nine
members of the committee ever
served on a tax committee be
EXPERTS or no experts, I have
an idea that in the long run
the legislature will fall back
on the ancient principle that
"that system of taxation is best
which gets the most feathers
from the goose with the least
squawking.'.'
BUT
Seriously '
I hope these experts who are
instructing the members of the
committee on taxation of the
Oregon house of representatives
go rather exhaustively into the
effects of taxation on industrial
development.
Everyone who has ever had
anything to do with efforts to
balance . Oregon's economy by
bringing more industrial develop
ment to the state has run into
the fact that the tax systems of
all of Oregon's neighbors (with
the possible exception of Idaho)
are MORE FAVORABLE TO IN
DUSTRY than Oregon's system.
That is a serious roadblock in
the way of further industrial development.
SPEAKING of tax problems,
here is a typical one from
Washington:
"Congressional reaction - to
President Eisenhower's federal
pay raise proposals seems to be
generally favorable. Most mem
bers apparently support the idea
of giving prompt increase to fed
eral employees, but the compan
ion proposal to increase postal
rates has met considerable resistance.".
llfELL, gentlemen, it's as broad
' as it's long. If you raise
wages without raising postal
rates the increase will come out
of the pocket in which the people
keep their tax money. If you
raise postal rates, the increase
will come out of the pocket in
which they keep their' stamp
money.
In either event, the people pay
the bill.
Fhis postal message this week,
, President Eisenhower said
that second-class postal rates
which apply on newspapers and
magazines should be increased
"until such matter makes a fair
and reasonable contribution to
postal revenues.".
With that statement I am in
complete agreement. If news
papers and magazines are car
ried at a loss in the mails, it
amounts to a subsidy. As one
newspaper publisher, I want NO
subsidies.
Incidentally, less than ten per
cent of this newspaper's circula
tion is carried in the mails at
second-class rates. .
Two Performances Set
By Circus January 27
Afternoon and evening per
formances of Kaye Brothers In
door circus have been scheduled
for Medford on. Thursday, Jan.
27, it was announced Saturday
by members of the Medford 20
30 club, which is sponsoring the
shows here.
Scheduled on the program,
which will be held in the sen
ior high school auditorium, are
performing dogs, ponies, a baby
elephant, jugglers, wire walkers
and clowns.
Tickets may be obtained at
the door or from members if
the 20-30 club.
Returned to Medford
Dr. ROBTV E. LEE, Optometrist
7 OFFICES NOW OPEN AT THE
BIG Y MARKET BUILDING
1912 N. Pacific Hwy.
EASY PARKING
Phone 3-5923
Sunday, January IB, 1ISS
MEDFORD (OREOOK) MAE. TRIBUNE FIVE
Change in Oregon's
Law on Bids Studied
Salem (U.R) Officials of the
State Finance department and
the attorney 'general were re
ported Saturday to be studying
a change in the state law which
would allow bids with erasures
to be accepted.
Finance Director ; Harry S.
Dorman said the plan under
study would allow the bid to be
accepted providing the change
does not affect the figure or
basic specifications.
Dorman said he thought the
idea behind the existing law was
basically sound, but that if it
was modified, the state would be
able to save considerable sums
of money.
Recently a controversy de
veloped when a state tire bid
was thrown out because of an
erasure, despite the fact that
it was lower than any of the
others received.
Added Financing
Of Natural Gas Set
Seattle U.R) Two officers
of the Cascade Natural Gas
Corp., which serves 17 commun
ities in Washington, Oregon and
Idaho, left this week for New
York to complete arrangements
for financing a $7,000,000 ex
pansion program, the firm an
nounced Friday. .
Stewart Matthews, president,
and C. Spencer Clark, chairman
of the board of directors, were
to talk with investment bankers
and underwriters in preparation
for the company's program of
financing . which includes the
proposed issuance of 170,000
shares of common stock in addi
tion to common shares already
outstanding.
The firm said the expansion
contemplates a 300 per cent in
crease in company employment
and increase in sales activities
30 times greater than at present,
after the arrival of natural gas
in the Pacific Northwest.
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