The Book of the Damned

at are leprous to the faithful-are brought down-from the Super-Sargasso Sea-or from what for con

is orthodoxy that storms have little, if any, effect below the waves of the ocean-but-of course-only to have an opinion i

rological Mag

ns not subject to submarine volcanic action, d

ll from the sky; and at

connection between the t

urricanes; might as well think of a bullet swerved by someone fanning himself. The only trouble with the orthodox reasoning is the usual tr

aordinary if there were no concurrences. Nevertheless so many of these concurrenc

Assoc., 1860-o

es at Siena, Italy, 179

rricane in England, Sept. 2, 1786." The remarkable datum here is that this phenomenon was visible f

l Register-ma

1877, is described as a "huge ball of green fire." This phenomenon is described by another correspondent,

tion of the kind called causal. If it is too difficult to think of stones and metallic masses swerved from their courses by storms, if they move at high ve

nd "coincidence" so insisted upon that

e Monthly Weather Review, March, 1886; meteorite in a thunderstorm, off coast of Greece, Nov. 19, 1899 (Nature, 61-111); fall of a meteorite in a storm, July 7, 1883

. Soc. Pro

red nucleus, about half the apparent diameter of the moon, a

gh meteorites have fallen in storms, no connection is supposed to

of the Super-Sargasso Sea, says that, though it is difficult to trace connection between the phenomena, three aerolites had fallen

way to account fo

ance that ours is only an intermediate existence, in which there is nothin

elieved in

excluded

ieve in "thu

exclude "th

ure rooms. We cannot take for a real base that, as to phenomena with which they are more familiar, peasants are more

r is built upon supports. A support then seems final. But it is built upon underlying structures. Nothing final can be found in all the bridge, because the bridge itself is not a final thing in itself, but is a relationship between Manhattan

of Acceptance, o

are in the reptilia

timuli to take on

sustained against resistance, by inertia, of all the rest, and will be relatively right, though not finall

Exclusionism must be overthrown, it will avail t

outrage upon common sense that we think w

ts of stone and iron ha

f suspension, in a region of inertness to this

e, 50-517. It isn't: it's likely to be of almost any kind of stone, but we call attention to the skill with which some of them

the first place"-are found near where lightning was seen to strike: that are supposed by

eciding. But with single writers coincidence seldom is overworked: we find the excess in the subject at large. Such a writer as the one of the Cornhill Mag

lightning striking ground near wedge-shaped object in China; lightning striking ground near wedge-shaped object in Scotland; lightning

ess. Nevertheless this is the psycho-tropism of scienc

m the sky-"during the rains." (Jour. Inst. Jamaica, 2-4.) Some other time we shall inquire into this localization of

rd to tell why. If the word of a Lord Kelvin carries no more weight, upon scientific subjects, than the word of a Sitting Bull, unless it be in agreement with conventional opinion-I think it must be because sav

they have seen such objects fall from the sky. Such objects are called "thunderbolts" in these countries. They are called "thunderstones" in Moravia, Holland, Belgium, France, Cambodia, Sumatra, and Siberia. They're ca

belief in ghosts and witches, whic

rimitive Culture, 2-237). As to South American Indians-"Certain stone hatche

ut find our interpretation of "thunderstones" just a little too strong or rich

in the sky by fulgurous exhalation congl

ide the notion that worked-stone objects have ever fallen from the sky. A writer in the Amer. Jour. Sci., 1-21-325, read this paper

e're a little fl

and

ggest to the intelligent reader

y and confined: less obviously mechanical-that as an acceptance of ours becomes firmer and firmer-established, we pass from the state of intelligence to reflexes in ruts. An odd thing is that intelligence is usually supposed to be creditable. It may be in the sense that it is mental act

the ground in the first place: that the natives jumped to the conclusion that these carved stones had fallen in or with lightning. In Central Africa, it is said that often have wedge-shaped, highly polished objects of stone, described as "axes," been found sticking in trees that have been struck by lightning-or by what seemed to be lightning. The natives, rather like the u

the natives, to have

en fall with a brilliant light, looking like flashes of lightning. This matter seems important: we'll take it up later, with

the conclusion that th

d to have been found in a tree that had been struck by some

umped to the

ho found a flint near an old willow-"near her house." I emphasize "near her ho

ju

who owned the cow dug up the ground at the spot and found a small greenstone "ax." Blinkenberg says

ary, 1

ful storm"-by a signal staff, which had been split by something. I shou

by a more leisurely process, the farmer though

ess, upon such a subject as this, it does seem a little shocking. In most works upon meteorites, the peculiar, sulphurous odor of things that fall from the sky is mentioned. Sir John Evans (Stone Implements, p.

anything; that the disputes of ancient Greece are no nearer solution now than they were several thousand years ago-all because, in a positive sense, there is nothing to prove or solve or settle. Our object is to be more nearly real than our op

oundment" (pear-shaped) with the angular outlines of ordinary meteorites. The conventional explanation that it had been formed as a drop of molten matter from a larger body seems reasonable to me;

ica. Meunier, too, is a little lamentable here: he quotes a soldier of e

iscellan

April, 1876: weight about 8 pounds: no particu

16 (London Times, Sept. 28, 1916). According to Nature, 98-

ted by the Museum of St. Albans; said, at the British Museu

mes, Apri

uring a heavy fall of rain. An account of this phenomenon in Nature, 14-27

see the Scientific Americ

ger than could very w

e, 30

here the object had been supposed to have fallen; that two days later "a very peculiar stone" was foun

rbance from what-only as a matter of convenience now, and until we have more data-we call the Super-Sargass

nd in Burma; called "thunderbolts" by the natives. I think there's a good deal of meaning in such expressions as "unlike any other found

ndon, 2-3-97. One of them, described as an "adze," was exhibited by Cap

foreign origin-also we fear it is a kind of plagiarism: we got it from the geologists, who demonstrate

meaning was inter-linear, we suspect that a Captain Duff merely hints rather than to risk having a Prof. Lawrence Smith fly at him and call him "a half-insane man." Whatever Captain Duff's meaning ma

tree that had been struck, about a month before, by something in a thunderstorm. He searched among the roots of this tree and found a "thunderstone." Not said whether he jumped or leaped to the conclusion that it had

urse that they were really investigated by him, but that his phenomena occupied a position approximating higher to real investigation than to utter neglec

and how quickly

n, or the obscurity

two fungi sprang up before night; and we did read of Dr. Gray and his thousands of fishes from one pailful of water-but these instances stand out; more frequently there was no "investigation." We now have a good many reported occurrences that were "inves

. Met. So

ing a thunderstorm of June 30, 1866, at Netting Hill. Mr. G.T. Symons, of Symons' Meteorological Magazine,

ore, Mr. Symons saw that the coal reported to have fallen from the sky, and the coal unloaded more prosaically the day before, were identical. Persons in the neighborhood, unable to make this simple identification, had bought fr

ss. With what seems to me to be super-abundance of convincingnes

psule with an explosive, and "during the storm had thrown the bu

is inartistry, did not lug in K

that "during the storm, the sky in many places remained partially clear while hail and rain were falling." That may have more meaning when we take up the possible extra-mundane origin

allen, during a storm, a

rewn," during the storm, with a mass of clinkers, estimated at about two bushels: sizes from that o

ept that they must merge away somewhere with local phenomena of the scene of precipitation. If a red-hot stove should drop from a cloud into Broadway, someone would find that at about the time of the occurrence, a moving van had passed, and that the moving men had tire

Hill, searching cellars until he found one with newly arrived coal in it; ringing door bells, exciting a whole neighborhood, calling up to second-story windows, stopping people in the stree

four o'clock, afternoon of July fifth. Will you look over your records and

ymons

y they had been raked out

" had struck the house at 180 Oakley Street, Chelse

ns inves

as an "agglomeration of brick, s

ing had flashed down the chimney, an

vy body had fallen. If we admit that climbing up the chimney to find out is too rigorous a requirement for a man who may have been l

suggest that bricks are man

lity and laughability must merge away with the "proper"-as the Sci. Am. Sup. would say. The preposterous is always interpretable in terms of the "prop

exhausted himself at Notting Hill. I

ught it necessary, I'd list one hundred and fifty instances of earthy matter said to have fallen from the sky. It is his antagonism to atmospheric disturbance associated with the fall of things from the sky that blinds and hypnotizes a Mr. Symons here. This especial Mr. Symons rejects the Reading substance because it was not "of true meteoritic material." It's uncanny-or it's not uncanny at all, but universal-if you don't

of a place in the museum we're writing. He argues against belief in all external origins "for our credit as Englishmen

said to have fallen, during a thunderstorm, at Brixton, Aug

Hill: there's been a marked fa

887. It was analyzed by a chemist, who could not identify it as true meteoritic material. Whether a product of workmanship like human workmanship or not, this

" which does not suggest the spheroidal or symmetric. It is our notion that the word "lump" was, because of its meaning of amorphousness, used purposely to have the next datum stand alone, remote, without similars. If

cannon

ure heap, in Sussex,

rst place, lightning might be attracted by it, and, if seen to strike there, the untutored mind, or mentality below

ground-or if every farmer doesn't know his own manu

who were looking out at their lawn, during a thunderstorm, when they "considered," as Mr. Symons

y d

nd a sto

mo

had been there i

ty by Mr. C. Carus-Wilson. It is described in the Journal's list of exhi

s "thunderstone" was in the possession of Mr. C. Carus-Wilson, who tells the story of the witness and his family-the sheep killed, the burial of something in the earth, the digging, and the finding. Mr. C. Carus-Wilson describes the object as a ball of hard, ferruginous quartzite, about the size of

iversal process localized in human minds. The process called "explanation" is only a local aspect of universal assimilation. It looks like materialism: but the intermediatist holds that interpretation of the immaterial, as it is called, in terms of the material, as it is called, is no more rational than interpretation of the "material" in terms of the "immaterial": that there is in quasi-existence neither the material nor the immaterial, but approximations one way or the other. But so hypnotic quasi-reasons: that globular lumps of sandstone are common. Whether he

ng excuses

know, we're not quit

ods and at the same time feel qu

dards to judge by, I'm afraid we'd have to be a little severe with some o

o with his un-named family, had "considered" that he had seen a stone fal

hat, during a thunderstorm, a farmer had seen the ground

u

nze

ntative scientists should have gone to that farmer and there spent a summer studying this on

y celestiality, or that of it which, too, is only of Intermediateness should not be quite as amusing as terrestriality is beyond our reasoning powers, which we have agreed are not ordinary. Of course there i

t. Jour.

clearly showing that they were of a te

y classing him with St. Augustine, Darwin, St. Jerome, and Lyell. As to the "thunderstones," I think that he investigated them mostly "for the credit of Englishmen," or in the spirit of the Royal Krakatoa Committee, or about as the commis

e enlightening to anyone who still thinks that these occurrence

existence of "thunderstones," or "thunderbolts" as he calls them-"feeling certain

Edin., 3-147, is the report of a "thunderstone," "supposed to have fallen in Hampshire, Sept., 1852." It was an iron cannon ball, or it was a "large nodule of iron pyrites or bisulphuret of iron."

iron object, had fallen in the garden of Mr. Robert Dowling, of Andover; that it had fallen upon a path "within six yards of the house." It had been picked up "immediately" after the storm by Mrs.

f the solidest thing conceivable, in quasi-existence, is only concentrated phantomosity. It is not only that there have been other reports of quartz that has fallen from the sky; there is another agreement. The round quartz object of We

dian Insti

bers, Mr. J.A. Livingstone, exhibited a globular quartz body which he

ided that the object was spurious, because

t it was only a geode, which had been upon the ground i

ver made by theologians. Fassig lists a quartz pebble, found in a hailstone (Bibliography, part 2-355). "Up and down," of course. Another object of quartzite was reported to have fallen, in the autumn of 1880, at Schroon Lake, N.Y.-said in the Scientific American, 43-272 to be a fraud-it was not-the usual. About the first of May, 1899, the newspapers published a story of a "snow-wh

d Querie

centimeters by 5 millimeters by about 5 centimeters; said to have fallen

ic

n. At first some of our data were of so frightful or ridiculous mien as to be hated, or eyeb

ur minds upon the concrete boats that have been building terrestrially lately, and thinking of w

ina-yellow to gray-said to look like a pi

he fragments of brick had been knocked from buildings by the hailstones. But there is here a concomitant that will be disagreeable to anyone who may have been inclined to smile at the now digesti

the Royal Astronomi

fallen, in a thunderstorm, at Supino, Italy,

e, 33

was described by two professors of Naples, who had accepted it as inexplicable but veritable. They were visited by Dr. H. Joh

ere is nothing incredible in the thought of shoemakers in oth

the La Scala quarries. We condemn "most probably" as bad positivism. As to the "men of position," who had accepted that this thing had fallen from the sky-"I have

anat

een knocked from, or

ject. Or that Dr. Johnstone-Lavis called a carved stone a "lapstone," quite as Mr. S

g and cel

decreases as the square root of their volume, I think. Our massed instances speak too much of coincidences of coincidences. But the axes, or wedge-shaped objects that have been found in trees, are more difficult f

bad for a

y best in accord with the underlying essence of quasi-existence. M. Arago answers a question by asking

g, with orthodox notions of velocity of falling bodies, having missed, I suppose, some of the notes I have upon large hailstones, which, for size, have fallen with astonishing

t would be to make too much noise: they insert stone wedges, and hammer them instead: then,

man can't be desperat

n one's pocket, if he's gloved, say: because no court in the land would re

and the preposterous: that this status of our own ratiocin

the course of many years. He says that the Santals are a highly developed race, and fo

little stress upon the absurdity of Dr. Bedding's explanation, because, if anything's absurd everything's absurd, or, rather, has in it some degree or aspect of absurdity, and we've never had experience with any state except something somewhere be

me upon prehistoric axes that have been washed into sight by rains, and jump to the conclusion that the things have fallen from the sky. But simple rustics come upon man

fallen from the sky. Maybe there are messages upon them. My acceptance is that they have been called "axes" to discredit

a "thunderstone," which he had brought from Jamaica. T

of having been att

s in Blinkenberg's book, nine show no sign of ever

Japanese to have fallen from the sky, are alluded to throughout as "wedges." In the Archaeologic Journ

"axes": that scientific men, when it suits their purposes, can resist temptations to pr

rily emerged from the distresses of-butter and blood and ink and paper and punk and silk. Now

f a coarse, grubbing nature, I think Dr. Bodding could never have so simply and beautifully explained

es that hammering stone wedges makes less noise than does the chopping of wood: he and his descendants, in a course of many ye

the ugly and incomplete-but not absolutely, because there is probably something of what is called foundation for it. Perhaps a mentally inc

hen we think of their scalps. We shall have to have an expression of our own upon this confusing subject. We have expressions: we don't call them explanations: we've discarded

wedges, and wha

nts of th

to comm

, perhaps, implements of this earth's prehistoric inhabitants-a wreck-a cargo of such things held

nnot accept that "thunderstones" ever were

f wedge-shaped objects especially adapted to the penetra

-34. One fell at Segowolee, India, March 6, 1853. Of the object that fell at Cashel, Dr. Haughton says in the Proceedings: "A singular feature is observable in this stone, that I have never seen in any other:-the rounded edges of the pyramid are sharply marked by lines on the black crust, as perfect as if made by a ruler." Dr. Haughton's idea is that the ma

suspect som

per is

nable, by familiarity, as

udied the Rosetta stone, he might-or, rather, would inevitably

that have fallen from the sky, in attempts to communicate. The notion that other worlds are attempting to communicat

t that a "thunderstone" had falle

ame to examine that stone-trace down

hat a "thunderstone" had

in in Stockholm? But-what if he had no anthropological, lapidarian

a dawning

g. So far, in this respect, we have been at our worst-possibly that's pretty bad-but "lapstones" are likely to be of considerable va

ing that is high up in t

Rendus,

t of Brixton-a small stone had fallen from the sky at Tarbes, France: 13 millimeters in diameter; 5 millimeter

in the first place" is too greatly re

human hands and human mentality. It was a disk of worked

is date, in France. The thing had fallen alone. But as mechanically as any part of a machine responds to its stim

ture, 1887, and in L'Année Scientifique, 1887, this occurrence is noted. It is mentioned in one of

rd of di

uent mention

n expr

e French Academy, or the S

ll from the sky, at Tarbe