* Astronomy

GODDARD v. WINCKELL 
Supreme Court of Iowa, 1892. 
86 Iowa 71, 52 N.W. 1124. 
Action in replevin. The subject of the controversy is an aerolite. In the district court the cause was tried without the aid of a jury, and the court gave judgement for the plaintiff, from which the defendant. 

GRANGER, J. The district court found the following facts, with some others, not important on this trial: "That the plaintiff, John Goddard, is, and has been since about 1857, the owner in fee simple of the north half of section No. three, in township No. ninetyeight, range No. twenty-five, in Winnebago county, Iowa, and was such owner at the time of the fall of the meteorite hereinafter referred to. 
(2) That said land was prairie land, and that the grass privilege for the year 1890 was leased to one James Elickson. 
(3) That on the 2nd day of May, 1890, an aerolite passed over northern and northwestern Iowa, and the aerolite, or fragment of the same, in question in this action, weighing, when replevied, and when produced in court on the trial of this cause, about 66 pounds, fell onto plaintiffs land, described above, and buried itself in the ground to a depth of three feet, and became imbedded therein at a point about 20 rods from the section line on the north. 
(4) That the day after the aerolite in question fell it was dug out of the ground with a spade by one Peter Hoagland, in the presence of the tenant, Elickson; that said Hoagland took it to his house, and claimed to own same, for the reason that he had found same and dug it up. 
(5) That on May 5, 1890, Hoagland sold the aerolite in suit to the defendant H.V. Winchell, for $105, and the same was at once taken possession of by said defendant, and that the possession was held by him until same was taken under the writ of replevin herein; that defendant knew at the time of his purchase that it was an aerolite, and that it fell on the prairie south of Hoagland's land...

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