M. Doello Jurado and the acquisition of ?El Toba? meteorite by the Museum of Natural History in 1924

Abstract

The important role that the interest and diligence of Dr. M. Doello Jurado played in the acquisition of El Toba meteorite for the collection of the (at that time) Museum of Natural History, and the convictions that led him to proceed quickly to avoid it being destroyed or unscrupulously sold, are presented. In this task he was assisted by Dr. Antenor Alvarez, sanitarian physician and politic and ex-governor of Santiago del Estero, who informed him about the existence and danger of destruction of the meteorite. The fieldwork and the not easy task of transporting more than four tons of iron from the Chaco forest to the museum facilities at Bernardo de Irigoyen street was assigned to naturalist Enrique de Carles, who -as he points and acknowledges- was helped in his task by many people and institutions such as the Argentine Army and the Córdoba Central Railroad. De Carles is also responsible for drafting the official report and writing the memory of the fieldwork. The final report that Doello Jurado sends to the Minister of Justice and Public Instruction ends with an emphatic paragraph in which the author makes clear his firm conviction that the scientific value, and not the material one, justifies that meteorites that had fallen or may fall into the territory of the Nation should be considered its property and preserved in museums for research and education of the people.