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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
VAST and black. The thing that was poised, like a crow over
the moon.
Round and smooth. Cannon balls. Things that have fallen from
the sky to this earth.
Our slippery brains.
Things like cannon balls have fallen, in storms, upon this
earth. Like cannon balls are things that, in storms, have fallen to this earth.
Showers of blood.
Showers of blood.
Showers of blood.
Whatever it may have been, something like red-brick dust, or a
red substance in a dried state, fell at Piedmont, Italy, Oct. 27, 1814 (Electric
Magazine, 68-437). A red powder fell, in Switzerland, winter of 1867 (Pop.
Sci. Rev., 10-112)--
That something, far from this earth, had bled --
super-dragon
that had rammed a comet--
Or that there are oceans of blood somewhere in the sky
-- substance that dries, and falls in a powder -- wafts for ages in powdered
form -- that there is a vast area that will some day be known to aviators as the
Desert of Blood. We attempt little of super-topography, at present, but Ocean of
Blood, or Desert of Blood -- or both -- Italy is nearest to it -- or to them.
I suspect that there were corpuscles in the substance that
fell in Switzerland, but all that could be published in 1867 was that in the
substance there was a high proportion of "variously shaped organic
matter."
At Giessen, Germany, in 1821, according to the Report of
the British Association, 5-2, fell a rain of a peach-red color. In this
rain were flakes of a hyacinthine tint. It is said that this substance was
organic: we are told that it was pyrrhine.
But distinctly enough, we are told of one red rain that it was
of corpuscular composition -- red snow, rather. It fell, March 12, 1876, near the
Crystal Palace, London (Year Book of Facts, 1876-89; Nature,
13-414). As to the "red snow" of polar and mountainous regions, we
have no opposition, because that "snow" has never been seen to fall
from the sky: it is a growth of micro-organisms, or of a "protococcus,"
that spreads over snow that is on the ground. This time nothing is said of
"sand from the Sahara." It is said of the red matter that fell in
London, March 12, 1876, that it was composed of corpuscles--
Of course:
That they looked like "vegetable cells."
A note:
That nine days before had fallen the red substance --
flesh -- whatever it may have been -- of Bath County, Kentucky.
I think that a super-egoist, vast, but not so vast as it had
supposed, had refused to move to one side for a comet.
We summarize our general super-geographical expressions:
Gelatinous regions, sulphurous regions, frigid and tropical
regions: a region that has been Source of Life relatively to this earth: regions
wherein there is density so great that things from them, entering this earth's
thin atmosphere, explode.
We have had a datum of explosive hailstones. We now have
support to the acceptance that they had been formed in a medium far denser than
the air of this earth at sea-level. In the Popular Science News, 22-38,
is an account of ice that had been formed, under great pressure, in the
laboratory of the University of Virginia. When released, and brought into
contact with ordinary air, this ice exploded.
And again the flesh-like substance that fell in Kentucky: its
flake-like formation. Here is a phenomenon that is familiar to us: it suggests
flattening, under pressure. But the extraordinary inference is -- pressure not
equal on all sides. In the Annual Record of Science, 1873-350, it is
said that, in 1873, after a heavy thunderstorm in Louisiana, a tremendous number
of fish scales were found, for a distance of forty miles, along the banks of the
Mississippi River: bushels of them picked up in single places: large scales that
were said to be of the gar fish, a fish that weighs from five to fifty pounds.
It seems impossible to accept this identification: one thinks of a substance
that had been pressed into flakes or scales. And round hailstones with wide thin
margins of ice irregularly around them -- still, such hailstones seem to me more
like things that had been stationary: had been held in a field of thin ice. In
the Illustrated London News, 34-546, are drawings of hailstones so
margined, as if they had been held in a sheet of ice.
Some day we shall have an expression which will be, to our
advanced primitiveness, a great joy:
That devils have visited this earth: foreign devils:
human-like beings, with pointed beards: good singers: one shoe ill-fitting --
but
with sulphurous exhalations, at any rate. I have been impressed with the
frequent occurrence of sulphurousness with things that come from the sky. A fall
of jagged pieces of ice, Orkney, July 24, 1818 (Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin.,
9-187). They had a strong sulphurous odor. And the coke -- or the substance that
looked like coke -- that fell at Mortrée, France, April 24, 1887: with it fell a
sulphurous substance. The enormous round things that rose from the ocean, near
the Victoria. Whether we still accept that they were
super-constructions that had come from a denser atmosphere and, in danger of
disruption, had plunged into the ocean for relief, then rising and continuing on
their way to Jupiter or Uranus -- it was reported that they spread a "stench
of sulphur." At any rate, this datum of proximity is against the
conventional explanation that these things did not rise from the ocean, but rose
far away above the horizon, with illusion of nearness.
And the things that were seen in the sky July, 1898: I have
another note. In Nature, 58-224, a correspondent writes that, upon July
1, 1898, at Sedberg, he had seen in the sky -- a red object -- or, in his own
wording, something that looked like the red part of a rainbow, about 10 degrees
long. But the sky was dark at the time. The sun had set. A heavy rain was
falling.
Throughout this book, the datum that we are most impressed
with:
Successive falls.
Or that, if upon one small area, things fall from the sky, and
then, later, fall again upon the same small area, they are not products of a
whirlwind, which though sometimes axially stationary, discharges tangentially--
So the frogs fell at Wigan. I have looked that matter up
again. Later more frogs fell.
As to our data of gelatinous substance said to have fallen to
this earth with meteorites, it is our expression that meteorites, tearing
through the shaky, protoplasmic seas of Genesistrine -- against which we warn
aviators, or they may find themselves suffocating in a reservoir of life, or
stuck like currants in a blanc mange -- that meteorites detach gelatinous, or
protoplasmic, lumps that fall with them.
Now the element of positiveness in our composition yearns for
the appearance of completeness. Super-geographical lakes with fishes in them.
Meteorites that plunge through these lakes, on their way to this earth. The
positiveness in our make-up must have expression in at least one record of a
meteorite that has brought down a lot of fishes with it--
Nature, 3-512:
That, near the bank of a river, in Peru, Feb. 4, 1871, a
meteorite fell. "On the spot, it is reported, several dead fish were found,
of different species." The attempt to correlate is -- that the fishes
"are supposed to have been lifted out of the river and dashed against the
stones."
Whether this be imaginable or not depends upon each one's own
hypnoses.
Nature, 4-169:
That the fishes were found among the fragments of the
meteorite.
Popular Science Review, 4-126:
That one day, Mr. L. Le Gould, an Australian scientist, was
traveling in Queensland. He saw a tree that had been broken off close to the
ground. Where the tree had been broken was a great bruise. Near by was an object
that "resembled a ten-inch shot."
A good many pages back there was an instance of overshadowing,
I think. The little carved stone that fell at Tarbes is my own choice as the
most impressive of our new correlates. It was coated with ice, remember. Suppose
we should sift and sift and discard half the data in this book -- suppose only
that one datum should survive. To call attention to the stone of Tarbes would,
in my opinion, be doing well enough, for whatever the spirit of this book is
trying to do. Nevertheless, it seems to me that a datum that preceded it was
slightingly treated.
The disk of quartz, said to have fallen from the sky, after a
meteoric explosion:
Said to have fallen at the plantation Bleijendal, Dutch
Guiana: sent to the Museum of Leyden by M. van Sypesteyn, adjutant to the
Governor of Dutch Guiana (Notes and Queries, 2-8-92).
And the fragments that fall from super-geographic ice fields:
flat pieces of ice with icicles on them. I think that we did not emphasize
enough that, if these structures were not icicles, but crystalline
protuberances, such crystalline formations indicate long suspension quite as
notably as would icicles. In the Popular Science News, 24-34, it is
said that in 1869, near Tiflis, fell large hailstones with long protuberances.
"The most remarkable point in connection with the hailstones, is the fact
that, judging from our present knowledge, a very long time must have been
occupied in their formation." According to the Geological Magazine,
7-27, this fall occurred May 27, 1869. The writer in the Geological Magazine
says that of all theories that he had ever heard of, not one could give him
light as to this occurrence -- "these growing crystalline forms must have
been suspended a long time"--
Again and again this phenomenon:
Fourteen days later, at about the same place, more of these
hailstones fell.
Rivers of blood that vein albuminous seas, or an egg-like
composition, in the incubation of which this earth is a local center of
development -- that there are super-arteries of blood in Genesistrine: that
sunsets are consciousness of them: that they flush the skies with northern
lights sometimes: super-embryonic reservoirs from which life-forms emanate--
Or that our whole solar system is a living thing: that showers
of blood upon this earth are its internal hemorrhages--
Or vast living things in the sky, as there are vast living
things in the oceans--
Or some one especial thing: an especial time: an especial
place. A thing the size of the Brooklyn Bridge. It's alive in outer space --
something the size of Central Park kills it--
It drips.
We think of ice fields above this earth: which do not,
themselves, fall to this earth, but from which water does fall--
Popular Science News, 35-104:
That, according to Prof. Luigi Palazzo, head of the Italian
Meteorological Bureau, upon May 15, 1890, at Messignadi, Calabria, something the
color of fresh blood fell from the sky.
This substance was examined in the public-health laboratories
of Rome.
It was found to be blood.
"The most probable explanation of this terrifying
phenomenon is that migratory birds (quails or swallows) were caught and torn in
a violent wind."
So the substance was identified as birds' blood--
What matters it what the microscopists of Rome said --
or had to say -- and what matters it that we point out that there is no assertion that there
was a violent wind at the time -- and that such a substance would be almost
infinitely dispersed in a violent wind -- that no bird was said to have fallen
from the sky -- or said to have been seen in the sky -- that not a feather of a bird
is said to have been seen--
This one datum:
The fall of blood from the sky--
But later, in the same place, blood again fell from the
sky.
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
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