|
BOOK OF THE DAMNED
By Charles Fort
CHAPTER: 01,
02, 03,
04, 05,
06, 07,
08, 09,
10, 11,
12, 13,
14, 15,
16, 17,
18, 19,
20, 21,
22, 23,
24, 25,
26, 27,
28
I SHALL attempt not much of correlation of dates. A
mathematic-minded positivist, with his delusion that in an intermediate state
twice two are four, whereas, if we accept Continuity, we can not accept that
these are anywhere two things to start with, would search our data for
periodicities. It is so obvious to me that the mathematic, or the regular, is
the attribute of the Universal, that I have not much inclination to look for it
in the local. Still, in this solar system, "as a whole," there is
considerable approximation to regularity; or the mathematic is so nearly
localized that eclipses, for instance, can, with rather high approximation, be
foretold, though I have notes that would deflate a little the astronomers'
vainglory in this respect -- or would if that were possible. An astronomer is
poorly paid, uncheered by crowds, considerably isolated: he lives upon his own
inflations: deflate a bear and it couldn't hibernate. This solar system is like
every other phenomenon that can be regarded "as a whole" -- or the
affairs of a ward are interfered with by the affairs of the city of which it is
a part; city by county; county by state; state by nation; nation by other
nations; all nations by climatic conditions; climatic conditions by solar
circumstances; sun by general planetary circumstances; solar system "as a
whole" by other solar systems -- so the hopelessness of finding the phenomena
of entirety in the ward of a city. But positivists are those who try to find the
unrelated in the ward of a city. In our acceptance this is the spirit of cosmic
religion. Objectively the state is not realizable in the ward of a city. But, if
a positivist could bring himself to absolute belief that he had found it, that
would be a subjective realization of that which is unrealizable objectively. Of
course we do not draw a positive line between the objective and subjective -- or
that all phenomena called things or persons are subjective within one
all-inclusive nexus, and that thoughts within those that are commonly called
"persons" are sub-subjective. It is rather as if Intermediateness
strove for Regularity in this solar system and failed: then generated the
mentality of astronomers, and, in that secondary expression, strove for
conviction that failure had been success.
I have tabulated all the data of this book, and a great deal
besides -- card system -- and several proximities, thus emphasized, have been
revelations to me: nevertheless, it is only the method of theologians and
scientists -- worst of all, of statisticians.
For instance, by the statistic method, I could
"prove" that a black rain had fallen "regularly" every seven
months, somewhere upon this earth. To do this, I'd have to include red rains and
yellow rains, but, conventionally, I'd pick out the black particles in red
substances and in yellow substances, and disregard the rest. Then, too, if here
and there, a black rain should be a week early or a month late -- that would be
"acceleration" or "retardation." This is supposed to be
legitimate in working out the periodicities of comets. If black rains, or red or
yellow rains with black particles in them, should not appear at all near some
dates -- we have not read Darwin in vain -- "the records are not
complete." As to other, interfering black rains, they'd be either gray or
brown, or for them we'd find other periodicities.
Still, I have had to notice the year 1819, for instance. I
shall not note them all in this book, but I have records of 31 extraordinary
events in 1883. Someone should write a book upon the phenomena of this one year
-- that is, if books should be written. 1849 is notable for extraordinary
falls, so far apart that a local explanation seems inadequate -- not only the
black rain of Ireland, May, 1849, but a red rain in Sicily and a red rain in
Wales. Also, it is said (Timb's Year Book, 1850-241) that, upon April
18 or 20, 1849, shepherds near Mt. Ararat, found a substance that was not
indigenous, upon areas measuring 5 to 10 miles in circumference. Presumably it
had fallen there.
We have already gone into the subject of Science and its
attempted positiveness, and its resistances in that it must have relations of
service. It is very easy to see that most of the theoretic science of the 19th
century was only a relation of reaction against theologic dogma, and has no more
to do with Truth than has a wave that bounds back from a shore. Or, if a shop
girl, or you or I, should pull out a piece of chewing gum about a yard long,
that would be quite as scientific a performance as was the stretching of this
earth's age several hundred million of years.
All "things" are not things, but only relations, or
expressions of relations: but all relations are striving to be unrelated, or
have surrendered to, and subordinated to, higher attempts. So there is a
positivist aspect to this reaction that is itself only a relation, and that is
the attempt to assimilate all phenomena under the materialist explanation, or to
formulate a final, all-inclusive system, upon the materialist basis. If this
attempt could be realized, that would be the attaining of realness; but this
attempt can be made only by disregarding psychic phenomena, for instance -- or, if
science shall eventually give in to the psychic, it would be no more legitimate
to explain the immaterial in terms of the material, than to explain the material
in terms of the immaterial. Our own acceptance is that material and immaterial
are of a oneness, merging, for instance, in a thought that is continuous with a
physical action: that oneness cannot be explained, because the process of
explaining is the interpreting of something in terms of something else. All
explanation is assimilation of something in terms of something else that has
been taken as a basis: but, in Continuity, there is nothing that is any more
basic than anything else -- unless we think that delusion built upon delusion is
less real than its pseudo-foundation.
In 1829 (Timb's Year Book, 1848-235) in Persia, fell
a substance that the people said they had never seen before. As to what it was,
they had not a notion, but they saw that the sheep ate it. They ground it into
flour and made bread, said to have been passable enough, though insipid.
That was a chance that science did not neglect. Manna was
placed upon a reasonable basis, or was assimilated and reconciled with the
system that had ousted the older -- and less nearly real -- system. It was said
that, likely enough, manna had fallen in ancient times -- because it was still
falling -- but that there was no tutelary influence behind it -- that it was a
lichen from the steppes of Asia Minor -- "up from one place in a whirlwind
and down in another place." In the American Almanac, 1833-71, it
is said that this substance -- "unknown to the inhabitants of the
region" -- was "immediately recognized" by scientists who examined
it: and that "the chemical analysis also identified it as a lichen."
This was back in the days when Chemical Analysis was a god.
Since then his devotees have been shocked and disillusioned. Just how a chemical
analysis could so botanize, I don't know -- but it was Chemical Analysis who
spoke, and spoke dogmatically. It seems to me that the ignorance of inhabitants,
contrasting with the local knowledge of foreign scientists, is overdone: if
there's anything good to eat, within any distance conveniently covered by a
whirlwind -- inhabitants know it. I have data of other falls, in Persia and
Asiatic Turkey, of edible substances. They are all dogmatically [53/54] said to
be "manna"; and "manna" is dogmatically said to be a species
of lichens from the steppes of Asia Minor. The position I take is that this
explanation was evolved in ignorance of the fall of vegetable substances, or
edible substances, in other parts of the world: that it is the familiar attempt
to explain the general in terms of the local; that, if we shall have data of
falls of vegetable substance, in, say, Canada, or India, they were not of
lichens from the steppes of Asia Minor; that, though all falls in Asiatic Turkey
and Persia are sweepingly and conveniently called showers of "manna,"
they have not been even all of the same substance. In one instance the particles
are said to have been "seeds." Though, in Comptes Rendus, the
substance in 1841 and 1846, is said to have been gelatinous, in the Bull.
Sci. Nat. de Neuchatel, it is said to have been of something, in lumps the
size of a filbert, that had been ground into flour; that of this flour had been
made bread, very attractive-looking, but flavorless.
The great difficulty is to explain segregation in these
showers --
But deep-sea fishes and occasional falls down to them, of
edible substances; bags of grain, barrels of sugar; things that had not been
whirled up from one part of the ocean-bottom, in storms or submarine
disturbances, and dropped somewhere else --
I suppose one thinks -- but grain in bags never has fallen --
Object of Amherst -- its covering like "milled cloth"
--
Or barrels of corn lost from a vessel would not sink --
but a
host of them clashing together, after a wreck -- they burst open; the corn sinks,
or does when saturated; the barrel staves float longer --
If there be not an overhead traffic in commodities similar to
our own commodities carried over this earth's oceans -- I'm not the deep-sea fish
I think I am.
I have no data other than the mere suggestion of the Amherst
object of bags or barrels, but my notion is that bags and barrels from a wreck
on one of this earth's oceans, would, by the time they reached the bottom, no
longer be recognizable as bags or barrels; that, if we can have data of the fall
of fibrous material that may have been cloth or paper or wood, we shall be
satisfactory and grotesque enough.
Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., 1-379:
"In the year 1686, some workmen, who had been fetching
water from a pond, seven German miles from Memel, on returning to their work,
after dinner (during which there had been a snow storm) found the flat ground
around the pond covered with a coal-black, leafy mass; and a person who lived
near said he had seen it fall like flakes with the snow."
Some of these flake-like formations were as large as a
table-top.
"The mass was damp and smelt disagreeably, like rotten
seaweed, but, when dried, the smell went off.
"It tore fibrously like paper."
Classic explanation:
"Up from one place, and down in another."
But what went up, from one place, in a whirlwind? Of course,
our Intermediatist acceptance is that had this been the strangest substance
conceivable, from the strangest other world that could be thought of; somewhere
upon this earth there must be a substance similar to it, or from which it would,
at least subjectively, or according to description, not be easily
distinguishable. Or that everything in New York City is only another degree or
aspect of something, or combination of things, in a village of Central Africa.
The novel is a challenge to vulgarization: write something that looks new to
you; some one will point out that the thrice-accursed Greeks said it long ago.
Existence is Appetite: the gnaw of being; the one attempt of all things to
assimilate all other things, if they have not surrendered and submitted to some
higher attempt. It was cosmic that these scientists, who had surrendered to and
submitted to the Scientific System, should, consistently with the principles of
the system, attempt to assimilate the substance that fell at Memel with some
known terrestrial product. At the meeting of the Royal Irish Academy it was
brought out that there is a substance, of rather rare occurrence, that has been
known to form in thin sheets upon marsh land.
It looks like greenish felt.
The substance of Memel:
Damp, coal-black, leafy mass.
But, if broken up, the marsh-substance is flake-like, and it
tears fibrously.
An elephant can be identified as a sunflower -- both have long
stems. A camel is indistinguishable from a peanut -- if only their humps be
considered.
Trouble with this book is that we'll end up a lot of
intellectual roués: we'll be incapable of being astonished with anything. We
knew, to start with, that science and imbecility are continuous; nevertheless so
many expressions of the merging-point are at first startling. We did think that
Prof. Hitchcock's performance in identifying the Amherst phenomenon as a fungus
was rather notable as scientific vaudeville, if we acquit him of the charge of
seriousness -- or that, in a place where fungi are so common that, before a given
evening two of them sprang up, only he, a stranger in this very fungiferous
place, knew a fungus when he saw something like a fungus -- if we disregard its
quick liquefaction, for instance. It was only a monologue, however: now we have
an all-star cast: and they're not only Irish; they're royal Irish.
The royal Irishmen excluded "coal-blackness" and
included fibrousness: so then that this substance was "marsh-paper,"
which "had been raised into the air by storms of wind, and had again
fallen."
Second act:
It was said that, according to M. Ehrenburg, "the
meteor-paper was found to consist partly of vegetable matter, chiefly of
conifervæ."
Third act:
Meeting of the royal Irishmen: chairs, tables, Irishmen:
Some flakes of marsh-paper were exhibited.
Their composition was chiefly of conifervæ.
This was a double inclusion: or it's the method of agreement
that logicians make so much of. So no logician would be satisfied with
identifying a peanut as a camel, because both have humps: he demands accessory
agreement -- that both can live a long time without water, for instance.
Now, it's not so very unreasonable, at least to the free and
easy vaudeville standards that, throughout this book, we are considering, to
think that a green substance could be snatched up from one place in a whirlwind,
and fall as a black substance somewhere else: but the royal Irishmen excluded
something else, and it is a datum that was accessible to them as it is to me:
That, according to Chladni, this was no little, local
deposition that was seen to occur by some indefinite person living near a pond
somewhere.
It was a tremendous fall from a vast sky-area.
Likely enough all the marsh paper in the world could not have
supplied it.
At the same time, this substance was falling "in great
quantities," in Norway and Pomerania. Or see Kirkwood, Meteoric
Astronomy, p. 66:
"Substance like charred paper fell in Norway and other
parts of northern Europe, Jan. 31, 1686."
Or a whirlwind, with a distribution as wide as that, would not
acceptably, I should say, have so specialized in the rare substance called
"marsh paper." There'd have been falls of fence rails, roofs of
houses, parts of trees. Nothing is said of the occurrence of a tornado in
northern Europe, in January, 1686. There is record only of this one substance
having fallen in various places.
Time went on, but the conventional determination to exclude
data of all falls to this earth, except of substances of this earth, and of
ordinary meteoric matter, strengthened.
Annals of Philosophy, 16-68:
The substance that fell in January, 1686, is described as
"a mass of black leaves, having the appearance of burnt paper, but harder,
and cohering, and brittle."
"Marsh paper" is not mentioned, and there is nothing
said of the "conifervæ," which seemed so convincing to the royal
Irishmen. Vegetable composition is disregarded, quite as it might be by some one
who might find it convenient to identify a crook-necked squash as a big fish
hook.
Meteorites are usually covered with a black crust, more or
less scale-like. The substance of 1686 is black and scale-like. If so be
convenience, leaf-likeness is scale-likeness. In this attempt to assimilate with
the conventional, we are told that the substance is a mineral mass: that it is
like the black scales that cover meteorites.
The scientist who made this "identification" was von
Grotthus. He had appealed to the god Chemical Analysis. Or the power and glory
of mankind -- with which we're not always so impressed -- but the gods must tell us
what we want them to tell us. We see again that, though nothing has identity of
its own, anything can be "identified" as anything. Or there's nothing
that's not reasonable, if one snoopeth not into its exclusions. But here the
conflict did not end. Berzelius examined the substance. He could not find nickel
in it. At that time, the presence of nickel was the "positive" test of
meteoritic matter. Whereupon, with a suppositious "positive" standard
of judgment against him, von Grotthus revoked his "identification." (Annals
and Mag. of Nat. Hist., 1-3-185).
This equalization of eminences permits us to project with our
own expression, which, otherwise, would be subdued into invisibility:
That it's too bad that no one ever looked to see --
hieroglyphics? -- something written upon these sheets of paper?
If we have no very great variety of substances that have
fallen to this earth; if, upon this earth's surface there is infinite variety of
substances detachable by whirlwinds, two falls of such a rare substance as marsh
paper would be remarkable.
A writer in the Edinburgh Review, 87-194, says that
at the time of writing, he had before him a portion of a sheet of 200 square
feet, of a substance that had fallen at Carolath, Silesia, in 1839 -- exactly
similar to cotton-felt, of which clothing might have been made. The god
Microscopic Examination had spoken. The substance consisted chiefly of conifervæ.
Jour. Asiatic Soc. of Bengal,
1847-pt. 1-193:
That March 16, 1846 -- about the time of a fall of edible
substance in Asia Minor -- an olive-gray powder fell at Shanghai. Under the
microscope, it was seen to be an aggregation of hairs of two kinds, black ones
and rather thick white ones. They were supposed to be mineral fibres, but, when
burned, they gave out "the common ammonical smell and smoke of burnt hair
or feathers." The writer described the phenomenon as "a cloud of 3800
square miles of fibers, alkali, and sand." In a postscript, he says that
other investigators, with more powerful microscopes, gave opinion that the
fibres were not hairs; that the substance consisted chiefly of conifervæ.
Or the pathos of it, perhaps; or the dull and uninspired, but
courageous persistence of the scientific: everything seemingly found out is
doomed to be subverted -- by more powerful microscopes and telescopes; by more
refined, precise, searching means and methods -- the new pronouncements
irrepressibly bobbing up; their reception always as Truth at last; always the
illusion of the final; very little of the Intermediatist spirit --
That the new that has displaced the old will itself some day
be displaced; that it, too, will be recognized as myth-stuff --
But that if phantoms climb, spooks of ladders are good enough
for them.
Annual Register, 1821-681:
That, according to a report by M. Lainé, French Consul at
Pernambuco, early in October, 1821, there was a shower of a substance resembling
silk. The quantity was tremendous as might be a whole cargo, lost somewhere
between Jupiter and Mars, having drifted around perhaps for centuries, the
original fabrics slowly disintegrating. In Annales de Chimie, 2-15-427,
it is said that samples of this substance were sent to France by M. Lainé, and
that they proved to have some resemblances to silky filaments which, at certain
times of the year, are carried by the wind near Paris.
In the Annals of Philosophy, n.s., 12-93, there is
mention of a fibrous substance like blue silk that fell near Naumberg, March 23,
1665. According to Chladni (Annales de Chimie, 2-31-264), the quantity
was great. He places a question mark before the date.
One of the advantages of Intermediatism is that, in the
oneness of quasiness, there can be no mixed metaphors. Whatever is acceptable of
anything, is, in some degree or aspect, acceptable of everything. So it is quite
proper to speak, for instance, of something that is as firm as a rock and that
sails in a majestic march. The Irish are good monists: they have of course been
laughed at for their keener perceptions. So it's a book we're writing, or it's a
procession, or it's a museum, with a Chamber of Horrors rather over-emphasized.
A rather horrible correlation occurs in the Scientific American,
1859-178. What interests us is that a correspondent saw a silky substance fall
from the sky -- there was an aurora borealis at the time -- he attributes the
substance to the aurora.
Since the time of Darwin, the classic explanation has been
that all silky substances that fall from the sky are spider webs. In 1832,
aboard the Beagle, at the mouth of La Plata River, 60 miles from land,
Darwin saw an enormous number of spiders, of the kind usually known as
"gossamer" spiders, little aeronauts that cast out filaments by which
the wind carries them.
It's difficult to express that silky substances that have
fallen to this earth were not spider webs. My own acceptance is that spider webs
are the merger; that there have been falls of an externally derived silky
substance, and also of the webs, or strands, rather, of aeronautic spiders
indigenous to this earth; that in some instances it is impossible to distinguish
one from the other. Of course, our expression upon silky substances will merge
away into expressions upon other seeming textile substances, and I don't know
how much better off we'll be --
Except that, if fabricable materials have fallen from the sky
--
Simply to establish acceptance of that may be doing well
enough in this book of first and tentative explorations.
In All the Year Round, 8-254, is described a fall
that took place in England, Sept. 21, 1741, in the towns of Bradly, Selbourne,
and Alresford, and in a triangular space included by these three towns. The
substance is described as "cobwebs" -- but it fell in flake-formation,
or in "flakes or rags about one inch broad and five or six long." Also
these flakes were of a relatively heavy substance -- "they fell with some
velocity." The quantity was great -- the shortest side of the triangular
space is eight miles long. In the Wernerian Nat. Hist. Soc. Trans.,
5-386, it is said that there were two falls -- that they were some hours apart
-- a
datum that is becoming familiar to us -- a datum that can not be taken into the
fold, unless we find it repeated over and over and over again. It is said that
the second fall lasted from nine o'clock in the morning until night.
Now the hypnosis of the classic -- that what we call
intelligence is only an expression of inequilibrium; that when mental
adjustments are made, intelligence ceases -- or, of course, that intelligence is
the confession of ignorance. If you have intelligence upon any subject, that is
something you're still learning -- if we agree that that which is learned is
always mechanically done -- in quasi-terms, of course, because nothing is ever
finally learned.
It was decided that this substance was spiders' web. That was
adjustment. But it's not adjustment to me; so I'm afraid I shall have some
intelligence in this matter. If I ever arrive at adjustment upon this subject,
then, upon this subject, I shall be able to have no thoughts, except
routine-thoughts. I haven't yet quite decided absolutely everything, so I am
able to point out:
That this substance was of quantity so enormous that it
attracted wide attention when it came down --
That it would have been equally noteworthy when it went up --
That there is no record of anyone, in England or elsewhere,
having seen tons of "spider webs" going up, September, 1741.
Further confession of intelligence upon my part:
That, if it be contested, then, that the place of origin may
have been far away, but still terrestrial --
Then it's that other familiar matter of incredible
"marksmanship" again -- hitting a small, triangular space for hours --
interval of hours -- then from nine in the morning until night: same triangular space.
These are the disregards of the classic explanation. There is
no mention of spiders having been seen to fall, but a good inclusion is that,
though this substance fell in good-sized flakes of considerable weight, it was
viscous. In this respect it was like cobwebs: dogs nosing it in the grass, were
blindfolded with it. This circumstance does strongly suggest cobwebs --
Unless we can accept that, in regions aloft, there are vast
viscous or gelatinous areas, and that things passing through become daubed. Or
perhaps we clear up the confusion in the descriptions of the substance that fell
in 1841 and 1846, in Asia Minor, described in one publication as gelatinous, and
in another as a cereal -- that it was a cereal that had passed through a
gelatinous region. That the paper-like substance at Memel may have had such an
experience may be indicated in that Ehrenberg found in it gelatinous matter,
which he called "nostoc." (Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.,
1-3-185.)
Scientific American, 45-337:
Fall of a substance described as "cobwebs," latter
part of October, 1881, in Milwaukee, Wis., and other towns: other towns
mentioned are Green Bay, Vesburge, Fort Howard, Sheboygan, and Ozaukee. The
aeronautic spiders are known as "gossamer" spiders, because of the
extreme lightness of the filaments that they cast out to the wind. Of the
substance that fell in Wisconsin, it is said:
"In all instances the webs were strong in texture and
very white."
The Editor says:
"Curiously enough, there is no mention, in any of the
reports that we have seen, of the presence of spiders."
So our attempt to divorce a possible external product from its
terrestrial merger: then our joy of the prospector who thinks he's found
something.
The Monthly Weather Review, 26-566, quotes the
Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser:
That, upon Nov. 21, 1898, numerous batches of spider-web-like
substance fell in Montgomery, in strands and in occasional masses several inches
long and several inches broad. According to the writer, it was not spiders' web,
but something like asbestos; also that it was phosphorescent.
The Editor of the Review says that he see no reason
for doubting that these masses were cobwebs.
La Nature, 1883-342:
A correspondent writes that he sends a sample of a substance
said to have fallen at Montussan (Gironde), Oct. 16, 1883. According to a
witness, quoted by the correspondent, a thick cloud, accompanied by rain and a
violent wind, had appeared. This cloud was composed of a woolly substance in
lumps the size of a fist, which fell to the ground. The Editor (Tissandier) says
of this substance that it was white, but was something that had been burned. It
was fibrous. M. Tissandier astonishes us by saying that he can not identify this
substance. We thought that anything could be "identified" as anything.
He can only say that the cloud in question must have been an extraordinary
conglomeration.
Annual Register, 1832-447:
That, March, 1832, there fell, in the fields of Kourianof,
Russia, a combustible yellowish substance, covering, at least two inches thick,
an area of 600 or 700 square feet. It was resinous and yellowish: so one
inclines to the conventional explanation that it was pollen from pine trees --
but, when torn, it had the tenacity of cotton. When placed in water, it
had the consistency of resin. "This resin had the color of amber, was
elastic, like India rubber, and smelled like prepared oil mixed with wax."
So in general our notion of cargoes -- and our notion of cargoes
of food supplies:
In Philosophical Transactions, 19-224, is an extract
from a letter by Mr. Robert Vans, of Kilkenny, Ireland, dated Nov. 15, 1695:
that there had been "of late," in the counties of Limerick and
Tipperary, showers of a sort of matter like butter or grease...having "a
very stinking smell."
There follows an extract from a letter by the Bishop of Cloyne,
upon "a very odd phenomenon," which was observed in Munster and
Leinster: that for a good part of the spring of 1695 there fell a substance
which the country people called "butter" -- "soft, clammy, and of a
dark yellow" -- that cattle fed "indifferently" in fields where
this substance lay.
"It fell in lumps as big as the end of one's
finger." It had a "strong ill scent." His Grace calls it a
"stinking dew."
In Mr. Vans' letter, it is said that the "butter"
was supposed to have medicinal properties, and "was gathered in pots and
other vessels by some of the inhabitants of this place."
And:
In all the following volumes of Philosophical Transactions
there is no speculation upon this extraordinary subject. Ostracism. The fate of
this datum is a good instance of damnation, not by denial, and not by explaining
away, but by simple disregard. The fall is listed by Chladni, and is mentioned
in other catalogs, but, from the absence of all inquiry, and of all but formal
mention, we see that it has been under excommunication as much as was ever
anything by the preceding system. The datum has been buried alive. It is as
irreconcilable with the modern system of dogmas as ever were geologic strata and
vermiform appendix with the preceding system --
If, intermittently, or "for a good part of the
spring," this substance fell in two Irish provinces, and nowhere else, we
have, stronger than before, a sense of a stationary region overhead, or a region
that receives products like this earth's products, but from external sources, a
region in which this earth's gravitational and meteorological forces are
relatively inert -- if for many weeks a good part of this substance did hover
before finally falling. We suppose that, in 1685, Mr. Vans and the Bishop of
Cloyne could describe what they saw as well as could witnesses in 1885:
nevertheless, it is going far back; we shall have to have many modern instances
before we can accept.
As to other falls, or another fall, it is said in the American
Journal of Science, 1-28-361, that, April 11, 1832 -- about a month after the
fall of the substance of Kourianof -- fell a substance that was wine-yellow,
transparent, soft, and smelling like rancid oil. M. Herman, a chemist who
examined it, named it "sky oil." For analysis and chemic reactions,
see the Journal. The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal,
13-368, mentions an "unctuous" substance that fell near Rotterdam, in
1832. In Comptes Rendus, 13-215, there is an account of an oily,
reddish matter that fell at Genoa, February, 1841.
Whatever it may have been --
Altogether, most of our difficulties are problems that we
should leave to later developers of super-geography, I think. A discoverer of
America should leave Long Island to someone else. If there be, plying back and
forth from Jupiter and Mars and Venus, super-constructions that are sometimes
wrecked, we think of fuel as well as cargoes. Of course the most convincing data
would be of coal falling from the sky: nevertheless, one does suspect that
oil-burning engines were discovered ages ago in more advanced worlds -- but, as I
say, we should leave something to our disciples -- so we'll not especially wonder
whether these butter-like, or oily substances were food or fuel. So we merely
note that in the Scientific American, 24-323, is an account of hail
that fell, in the middle of April, 1871, in Mississippi, in which was a
substance described as turpentine.
Something that tasted like orange water, in hailstones, about
the first of June, 1842, near Nimes, France; identified as nitric acid (Jour.
de Pharmacie, 1845-273).
Hail and ashes, in Ireland, 1755 (Sci. Amer., 5-168).
That, at Elizabeth, N.J., June 9, 1874, fell hail in which was
a [63/64] substance, said, by Prof. Leeds, of Stevens Institute, to be carbonate
of soda (Sci. Amer., 30-262).
We are getting a little away from the lines of our
composition, but it will be an important point later that so many extraordinary
falls have occurred with hail. Or -- if they were of substances that had had
origin upon some other part of this earth's surface -- had the hail, too, that
origin? Our acceptance here will depend upon the number of instances. Reasonably
enough, some of the things that fall to this earth should coincide with falls of
hail.
As to vegetable substances in quantities so great as to
suggest lost cargoes, we have a note in the Intellectual Observer,
3-468: that upon the first of May, 1863, a rain fell at Perpignan,
"bringing down with it a red substance, which proved, on examination, to be
a red meal mixed with fine sand." At various points along the
Mediterranean, this substance fell.
There is, in Philosophical Transactions, 16-281, an
account of a seeming cereal, said to have fallen in Wiltshire, in 1686 -- said
that some of the "wheat" fell enclosed in hailstones -- but the writer
in Transactions, says that he had examined the grains, and that they
were nothing but seeds of ivy berries dislodged from holes and chinks where
birds had hidden them. If birds still hide ivy seeds, and if winds still blow, I
don't see why the phenomenon has not repeated in more than two hundred years
since.
Or the red matter in rain, at Siena, Italy, May, 1830; said,
by Arago, to have been vegetable matter, (Arago, Oeuvres, 12-468).
Somebody should collect data of falls at Siena alone.
In the Monthly Weather Review, 29-465, a
correspondent writes that, upon Feb. 16, 1901, at Pawpaw, Michigan, upon a day
that was so calm that his windmill did not run, fell a brown dust that looked
like vegetable matter. The Editor of the Review concludes that this was
no widespread fall from a tornado, because it had been reported from nowhere
else.
Rancidness -- putridity -- decomposition -- a note that has been
struck many times. In a positive sense, of course, nothing means anything, or
every meaning is continuous with all other meanings: of that all evidences of
guilt, for instance, are just as good evidences of innocence -- but this condition
seems to mean -- things lying around among the stars a long time. Horrible
disaster in the time of Julius Caesar; remains from it not reaching this earth
till the time of the Bishop of Cloyne: we leave to later research the discussion
of bacterial action and decomposition, and whether bacteria could survive in
what we call space, of which we know nothing --
Chemical News, 35-182:
Dr. A.T. Machattie, F.C.S., writes that, at London, Ontario,
Feb. 24, 1868, in a violent storm, fell, with snow, a dark-colored substance,
estimated at 500 tons, over a belt 50 miles by 10 miles. It was examined under a
microscope, by Dr. Machattie, who found it to consist mainly of vegetable matter
"far advanced in decomposition." The substance was examined by Dr.
James Adams, of Glascow, who gave his opinion that it was the remains of
cereals. Dr. Machattie points out that for months before this fall the ground of
Canada had been frozen, so that in this case a more than ordinary remote origin
has to be thought of. Dr. Machattie thinks of origin to the south.
"However, this," he says, "is mere conjecture."
Amer. Jour. Sci., 1841-40:
That, March 24, 1840 -- during a thunderstorm -- at Rajkit, India,
occurred a fall of grain. It was reported by Col. Sykes, of the British
Association.
The natives were greatly excited -- because it was grain of a
kind unknown to them.
Usually comes forward a scientist who knows more of the things
that natives know best than the natives know -- but it so happens that the usual
thing was not done definitely in this instance:
"The grain was shown to some botanists, who did not
immediately recognize it, but thought to be either a spartium or a vicia."
CHAPTER: 01,
02, 03,
04, 05,
06, 07,
08, 09,
10, 11,
12, 13,
14, 15,
16, 17,
18, 19,
20, 21,
22, 23,
24, 25,
26, 27,
28
|
