The Book of the Damned

that have come d

o preserve

ky, but were-"on the ground, in the first place"; or that there have b

ally sandy place, the scientific explanation would of course be that all s

at I am permitted to see because I am still primi

port findable of a fall

e in the fi

een seen to fall from the sky. The writer says that all observers were mistaken

t thick cloud that appeared suddenly in a sky that had been cloudless, August, 1804, near To

sky. (Notes and Queries, 8-6-104); accounts of such fa

American, J

red the ground for a long distance is the reported

en there "in th

fter a heavy storm, July 30, 18

sert, after a rainfall (No

he slopes of the Apennines. These may have been the ejectamenta of a whirlwind. I add, however, that I have notes upon two other falls of tiny toads, in 1883, one in France and one in Tahiti; also of fish in Scotland. But in the phenomenon of the Apennines, the mixture seems to me to be typical of the products

ther Review

g carried over the adjoining fields together with a large quantity of

ll instances I have that attribute the fall of small frogs or toads to whirlwinds, only one definitely identifies or places the whirlwind. Also, as has been said before, a pond going up would be quite as interesting as frogs coming down. Whirlwinds we read of over and over-but where and what whirlwind? It seems to me that anybody who

: we shall have to give to civilizat

h white fr

is earth-in spite of all we think we know of the accelerative velocity of falling bodies-and have propagated-why the exotic becomes the indigenous, or from the strangest of pla

another note upon a

g. of Nat. Hi

history of Ireland, some fish were found "

is a good one for

had been blown dry. (Living Age, 52-186.) Date not

that which occurred at Mountain Ash, in the Va

falls of fishes in the United States; but accounts of these reported occurrences are not findable in other American publications. Nevertheless, the treatment by the Zoologist of the fall reported from Mountain Ash is fair. First appears, in the issue of 1859-6493, a letter from the Rev. John Griffith, Vicar of Abedare, asserting that the fall had occurred, chiefly upon the property of Mr. Nixon, of Mountain Ash. Upon

gical Gardens, Regent's Park. The Editor says that o

ray's explanation

so high an authority as Dr. Gray," but says that he had obtained some of these fishes from persons w

ter, 1859-14, the fishes them

n the first place, we base our objections

ribute to the discharge of a whirlwind, but upon a narr

t seemed so incredible, but for which support is pil

fall of fishes occurred upon

llen and that others could have whirled even a tenth of a minute, then falling directly after the first to fall. Because of these evil circumstances the best adapt

were minnows and sticklebacks. Some persons, thinking them to be sea fishes, placed them in salt water, according to Mr. Roberts. "The effect is stated to have been almost instantaneous death." "Some were placed in fresh water. These seemed to

rch 10, 1859, Vicar Gri

me houses were c

rgest fishes were five inches long, a

British Associ

was very conclusive. A specimen of the fish was exh

us is the

someone else with a pailful of water in which were thousands of fishes four or five inches long, some of which cover

super-geographical

ate to our super-geographical acceptances, or to the Principles of Super-Geography: or data of things that have been in the air longer than acceptably could a whirlwind carry

earth's gravitation, of course, however, a region that, by the flux and variation o

ion to the crucifixio

s of small frogs that have fallen from the sky, not one report upon a fall of t

upon thick grass and so survive: but Sir James Emerson Tennant, in his History of Ceylon, tells of a fall of fishes upon gravel, by which they were seemingly uninjured. Some

Living Age, 52-186); Ross-shire, Scotland, 1828 (Living Age, 52-186); Moradabad, India, July 20, 1829 (Lin. Soc. Trans., 16-764); Perthshire, Scotland (Livin

t, repulsive reflex-is that the fishes of India did not fall from the sky; that they were foun

al zone of a magnet's attraction, we accept that there are bodies of water and also clear spaces-bottoms of ponds dropping out-very

re: a matter that we'll consider-remain and dry, or even p

on record" (All the Year Round, 8-255) at Rajkote, India, July

ists and their concept of an overflowing stream-but, according to D

hem having been placed in a tank, where they survived-that occurred in India,

not fall helter-skelter, or here and there, but they fell in a stra

r. Sci.,

ho would say that, in the climate of India, it would not take long for fishes to putrefy, is-that high in the air, the climate of India is not torrid. Another peculiarity of this fall is that some of the fishes were much larg

Society of Bengal, 2-650, depo

resh, but others were ro

ot, five were fresh and the

s Grace's observatio

ese fishes weighed one and a half

at Futtepoor, Ind

and dry." (Dr. Buist

way: about 183

Sept. 19

ats, England, that, at Hindon, a suburb of Sunderland, Aug. 24, 1

l area: about

e aloft-but by no visible lightning. The sea is close to Hindon, but if you try to think of these

s, the fall upon this small

indication of a direct fal

n

d stiff and hard, when picked up,

onary source overhead: we'll have to take up the subject from many approaches before our acceptance

s to emerge: but, if ever anything did go up from this e

ther Review

horse were carried completely away, and neither horse no

r digestions that I note as we go along, there is little of the bizarre or the unassi

ther Review

a small piece of alabaster; that, at Bovina, e

l in a h

d. Or Science and its continuity with Presbyterianism-data like this are damned at birth. The Weather Review does sprinkle, or baptize, or attempt to save, this

f cold northerly winds, and were but a small part of a series of similar storms; apparently some spe

s time, the other mechanical thing "there in the first place" cannot rise in response to its stimulus: it is resisted in that these objects were coated with ice-month of May in a souther

ciated things were r

eight mi

carried partly horizontally eight miles farther than the other. But either supposition argues for power more than that of

pt that this turtle had been raised from this earth's surface, somewhere

curred in the state of Mississippi

for it-and ine

rtle and the piece of alabaster may have had far different origins-from different worlds, perhaps-have entered a region of suspension over this earth-wafting near each other-long duration-final precipitation by atmosph

ess, or of putrefaction, been struck-long d

e of the distance-quite as magnetism is negligible at a very short distance from a magnet. Theoretically the attraction of a

rth's surface to that region have been

er-Sarg

ised by this earth's cyclones: horses and barns and elephants and flies and dodoes, moas, and pterodactyls; leaves from modern trees and leaves of the Carboniferous era-all, however, tending to disintegrate into homogeneous-looking muds or d

ity-or living fishes, also-ponds o

itation, I prefer to

e correlation and eq

is one of

pulsion and of inertness irrespective

avitation admits

acceptable even to the orthodox, or there is de

ill s

re the

u will, your

ity, besides which, however, there would be nothing to suffice, our expression upon the Super-Sargasso Sea, though it harmonizes with data of fishe

fall of tadpole

all of full-grown

gs a few m

e be such reports they are some

if such falls be attributed to whirlwinds; and more likely to fall from the Super-Sarg

o this earth, and the necessity then of conceiving of some factor besides mere stationariness

Gossip,

erstorm": roads and fields strewn with them, so that they were gathered up by the hatful: none seen to fall

fall of snails: that he had supposed that all such stories had gone the way of witch stories; that, to his

like to trace the origin of

at to be fair is to have no opinion at all; that to be honest is to be uninterested; that to investigate is to admit prejudice; that nobody has ev

that the snails were of a familiar land-species"-tha

the rain: that "astonished rustics had jum

o said that he had s

error," says t

aid that the snails "may be considered as a local species." Upon page 457, another correspondent says that the numbers had been exaggerated, and that in his opinion they had been up

e, 47

derborn, Germany. From this cloud, fell a torrential rain, in which were hundreds of mussels. The

idewalks of Montreal, Canada, Dec. 2

uring a heavy shower, July 3, 1860, he heard a peculiar sound at his feet, and looking down, s

the matter of the fall that occurred at Memphis, Tennessee, occur some strong significan

her Review,

t storm in which the rain "fell in torrents," snakes were found. They were crawling on sidewalks, in yards, and in s

lace, and that it was only that something occurred to call special attention to them, in the streets of Me

ecies or not, but that "when first seen, they were o

the persons who were out sight-seeing in a violent storm, and had not been

had been raised from some other part o

that a whirlwind c

ion of other objects r

e snakes-stones, fence rails, limbs of trees. Say that the snakes occupied the next gradation, and would be the n

s no mention of other falls said to h

dozens of snakes-I don't know how many to a den-hundreds maybe-but, according to the account of this occurrence in the New York Times, there were thousands of them; alive; from one foot to eighteen inches in le

ething of a migratory nature-but that snakes in the Unite

ling notions of swarming would seem explanatory enough: neverthel

nomie,

lland; ants, Aug. 1, 1889, Strasbour

193.) Enormous fall of ants, Nancy, France, July 21, 1887-"most of them were wingless." (Nature,

ur express

enormous that migration from some place external to

e northern latitudes of this earth; that there is significance in recurrence of these falls in the last of January-or that we have the sq

no other forms of insect-life upon these glaciers, and there was no vegetation to support insect-life, except microscopic organisms. Nevertheless the description of this probably polymorphic species fits a description of larvae said to have fallen in Switzerland, and less definitely

mes, Apri

a large number of black worms, about three-quarte

g upon the ground. The occurrence is considered a great mystery, because the worms could not have come up from the gro

a snowstorm, in 1827, at Pakroff, R

ude of small, black insects, said to have been gnats, but also s

, near Sangerfield, N.Y., Nov. 18, 1850 (Scientific American, 6-96). The writer thinks that

American, F

entific American, March 7, 1891, the Editor says that similar worms had been seen upon the snow near Utica, N.Y., and in Oneida and Herkimer Counties; that some of the worms had been sent to the Department of Agriculture at Washington. Again two species, or polymorphism. According to Prof. Riley, it was not pol

e, France, May, 1858. The larvae were inanimate as if wi

nsects," Jan. 24, 1849, in Lithuania; occurrence of larvae estimated at 300,000 on the snow in Switzerland, in 1856. The compiler says that most of these larvae live underground, or at the roots of trees; that whirlwinds uproot trees, and carry away the larvae-

llars," not seen to fall, but found crawling on the snow, after a

not have been hatched in the neighborhood, for, during the days preceding, the temperature had been very low"; said to have been of a

nomie,

st, in Switzerland, incalculable numbers of larvae: some black and

n January, larvae were precisely and painstakingly picked out of frozen ground, in incalculable numbers, he thinks of a tremendous force-disregarding i

avoy, he may think then of a very fine sorting over by differences of specific gra

rland January, 1890, were three times the size of the black larvae that fel

together and held them together and p

ame from Ge

. We'll be persecuted for

sist

ings may have come here before amoebae: that, upon Genesistrine, there may have been an evolution expressible in conventional biologic terms, but that evolution upon this earth has been-like evolution in modern Japan-induced by external influences; that evolution, as a whole, upon this earth, has been a process of population by immigration or by bombardment. Some notes I have upon remains of men and animals encysted, or cov

ecause tadpoles are more numerous in their season than are the frogs in theirs: but the tadpole-season is earlier in the spring, or in a time that is more tempestuous. Thinking in terms of causation-as if there were real causes-our notion is that, if X is likely to cau

gs in or about the last of January and frogs in July and August, and bombard this earth, any more than do p

rt crawling, and a million little frogs start hopping-knowing no more what it's

Super-Sargasso Sea, and that parts of the Super-Sargasso Se