No one knows for sure how the mete­orite got to this loca­tion; it may have bounced across the Earth from the orig­i­nal impact site to its cur­rent loca­tion. The large cube-shaped form (about 3 by 3 metres in cir­cum­fer­ence and 1 metre high) was dis­cov­ered in 1920 by farm own­er Jacobus Her­manus Brits when his plow struck it. The Amer­i­can Muse­um of Nat­ur­al His­to­ry in New York tried to buy the mete­orite in 1954 but was unable to trans­port it, and the site was declared a nation­al mon­u­ment in 1955, although it was not open to vis­i­tors until 1985. The area has now been land­scaped with a pleas­ant herba­ceous gar­den and pic­nic area, as well as easy access to the mete­orite. It is a pleas­ant place to stand and con­tem­plate the stone’s extrater­res­tri­al ori­gins, not to men­tion its incred­i­ble age: the mete­orite is esti­mat­ed to be between 200 and 400 mil­lion years old.