"When the meeting came, it wasn’t buyers waiting — it was undercover FBI agents. The rocks were recovered, but the FBI said they were now “virtually useless to the scientific community,” and the theft also destroyed 30 years of a NASA scientist’s handwritten research notes."

"But another aspect of Clark's career is particularly relevant to the History of Science Collection at the Linda Hall Library, in an unfortunate way. Clark was an ardent book collector, and before his death he had amassed one of the world’s finest collections of books, pamphlets, and periodicals related to the history of electricity, magnetism, and telegraphy. After his death, the collection was bought in 1901 by a New Jersey engineer, Schuyler Skaats Wheeler, who then gave it by bequest to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York City, where it became known as the “Wheeler Gift”. In 1909, a thick two-volume catalog was published, describing almost 6000 items, many of them incredibly scarce (second image):

"When the Engineering Societies Library (ESL) was established in 1913, to consolidate the individual libraries of various engineering groups in New York, the Wheeler collection was merged into the ESL general collection. After many years, it was decided in 1995 to transfer the entire Engineering Societies Library to the Linda Hall Library. But the Wheeler Gift could not be included, due to a clause in the terms of the original Wheeler Gift, which specified: “The Library to remain in New York City and to be a reference library, free to all, including non-members and available for consultation at least three days in the week and some evenings and some Sundays, as soon as the Institute is in permanent quarters.” So the Wheeler Gift did not come to Kansas City, but was transferred to the New York Public Library where, 22 years later, it still sits, unaccessioned, unavailable (in spite of the terms of the gift) and generally unacknowledged, unless things have changed in the last few years, which we hope they have. It is quite an amazing collection, and we often lament that that the Wheeler Gift, the crown jewel of Latimer Clark’s legacy, got away."