The Book of the Damned

rch 17, 1669, in the town of Chatillon-sur-Seine, fell a

rnal of Scie

er we're going to investigate some investigations-but never mind that now. Dr. Troost reported that the substance was clear blood and portions of flesh scattered

said to have been a hoax by Negroes, who had pretended to have seen the shower, for the sake of practicing upon

ically necessary determination to have all falls accredited

egister,

turer at Dartmouth College. It was an object that had upon it a nap, similar to that of milled cloth. Upon removing this nap, a buff-colored, pulpy subst

es four instances of similar objects or substances said to have fallen from the sky, two of which we shall have with our da

1-2-335, is Professor Graves' acco

819, a light was seen in Amherst-a fal

reflected upon a wall of a room in which we

reflected, was found a substance "unlike anything before observed by anyone who saw it." It was a bowl-shaped object, about 8 inches in diameter, and one inch thick. Bright buff-c

d color resembling venous blood." It absorbed moisture quickly from th

i-soul of a datum that se

mes, Apri

abad, India. It is said that the fish were of the chalwa sp

re dead

t that they had been scooped out of a pond, by a whirlwind-even th

ere not f

ped objects of the same substance as that which fell at Amherst-it is said that, wh

he Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1834-307. May 16

e, 1-25-362, occurs the inevitabl

fallen in 1819, had been found at "nearly the same place." Prof. Hitchcock was invited by Prof. Graves to examine

k recognized i

gelatinou

pecies it belonged to, but he predicted that simi

ening, two oth

in some respects, a fungous growth. The rival convention is "spawn of frogs or of fishes." These two conventions have made a strong combination. In instances where testimony was not convincing that gelatinous matter had been seen to fall,

re described as whitish or grayish. In looking up the subject, myself, I have read only of greenish nostoc. Said to be greenish, in Webster's Dictionary-said to be "blue-green" in the New International Encyclopedia-"from bright green to olive-green" (Science Gossip, 10-114); "green" (Science Gossip, 7-260); "greenish" (Not

tucky Ph

ally these things of the accursed have been hushed up or disregarded-suppressed like the seven black rains of Slains-but,

looked like beef th

ible in the sky. It fell in flakes of various sizes; some two inches square, one, three or four inches square. The flake-formation is interesting: later we shall think of it as signifying pressure-somewhere. It was a thick shower, on

e exclu

beef: one flake of it the

, we can sympathize with them in this sensational instance, perhaps. Newspaper correspondents wrote broadcast and witnesses were

that they are inimical to all data of externally derived substances that fall upon this earth, a

e call attempted positivism: not to find out the new; no

merican Supp

d from Kentucky had been e

r explanation of this mu

he substance and to fix its status. The Kentu

ace, and had swollen in rain, and, attracting attention by greatly increase

n, I don

several times. That's one of t

of the Salvation Army, when some third-rate scientist comes out with an explanation of the vermiform appendix or the os coccygis that would have been a

ntucky, one of the most res

imes, Marc

indication of being the "dried" spawn of some reptile, "doubtless of the frog"-or up from one pl

s well, he had called upon that upholder of respectability, to see the substance that had been identified as nostoc. But he had also called upon Dr. Hamilton, who had a specimen, and Dr. Hamilton had declared it to be lung tissue. Dr. Edwards writes of the substance that had so completely, or beautifully-if beauty

ghted buzzards, but far up a

ad dis

ee (Monthly Weather Review, May, 1918) lists it as a jelly-like material, su

insuperable odds against all things ne

ve, in the aspects of

eness to unity and disunity. Every resistance is itself divided into parts resisting one another. Th

reports of instances. These data are so improper they're obscene to the science of today, but we shall

f, that gelatinous substance

far away, the whol

ar through and

are brought d

is penetration of light th

ay that the whole sky is gelatinous: it seems

respect must be "classed amongst the mythical fables of

sed by the stand

the fir

in a whirlwind, a

g that we have alluded to before; whether the substance were nostoc, or spawn, or some kind of a larval nexus, doesn't matter so much. If it stood in the sky for several days, we rank with Moses as a chronicler of improprieties-or was that story, or datum, we mean, told by Moses? Then we

Rendus

emy some fragments of a gelatinous substance, said to have fallen from the sky

Rendus

resinous and gelatinous. It was odorless until burned: then it spread a very pronounced sweetish odor. It is described

s gra

nd 1846, a similar substanc

d fallen at Bath, England. I think it is not acceptable that they were jellyfish: but it does look as if this time frog spawn d

re,

the size of peas, after a heavy rainfall. We are not told of nostoc, this time: it is said that t

fell at Bath were neither jellyfish nor masses

urred at Bath, Engla

mes, Apri

n original text. Ed.] railroad station, at Bath. "Many soon developed into a worm-like chrysalis, about an inch in length." The account of this oc

c. of London,

them together? Many other falls we shall have record of, and in most of them segregation is the great mystery. A whirlwind seems anything but a segregative force. Segregation of things that have fallen from the sky has been avo

more of these objects

table to whirlwinds seems to me to be

ay that these things had been stationa

black rain

red rains

thodoxy is that Mr. Jenyns dutifully records th

1686, 1718, 1796, 1811, 1819, 1844. He gives earlier dates, but I practice exclusions, myself. In the Report of the British Association, 1860-63, Gr

ss for either

We are told that this substance fell only three feet away from an observer. In the Report of the British Association, 1855-94, according to a letter from Greg to Prof. Baden-Powell, at night,

Lusatia, March, 1796; fall of a gelatinous substance, after the explosion of a meteorite, near Heidelberg, July, 1811. In the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 1-234, the substance that fell at Lusatia

servations upon the meteors of November, 1833

were found on the ground at Rahway, N.J. The substance

nia, had found a jelly-like substance of about

Prof. Olmstead, a woman at West Point, N.Y., had seen a

ubstance, like soft soap, had been found. "It possessed little elastici

infidelity, as to accept that these things had fallen from the sky:

ibed as gelatinous substance forms a presumption in favor of

o Prof. Olmstead's series of papers upon this subject of the November meteors