Scientific American has just opened its archives for the years 1845 to 1909 until the end of November. Details can be found at http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/archive/index.html.
The archives is very useful for the meteorite historian - articles and letters relating to meteorites, meteors, aerolites, etc., can be downloaded for free until November 30.
To use the resource efficiently, click on the link "Advanced Search" in the upper right-hand corner of the web page, which will bring you to the following search page: http://www.nature.com/sciam/search/adv_search?sp-a=sp1001702d&sp-x-1=ujournal&sp-q-1=Scientific American.
Enter your search word at the top, for example the word "meteorites", and then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and select sort by "Date - Oldest". I pulled up 810 hits for this search, and if the articles are between 1845 and 1909, you can just click on the title and download the article for free.
The first item on my retrieval list was entitled "Meteorites - Their Origins", which was published on page 94 of the December 9, 1848 issue of Scientific American and discusses Charles Upham Shepard's views on meteoritic origins.
I haven't done much searching on the archives yet, but I am sure it will turn up some really nice items for those interested in the history of meteorites. Happy searching!
Mark
