Lo! (28 page)

“Ohio and four neighboring states.”

The clip of Paraguay, and the bob of New Zealand: the snip of South Africa, and the shearing of everything else that did not fit in with a theory. Whoever said that the pen is mightier than something else, overlooked the mightiest of all, and that’s the scissors.

Wherever all this water was coming from, the full account is of North America and four neighboring Continents.

Peaches flying from orchards, in the winds of New Zealand—icicles clattering in the streets of Montreal. The dripping palms of Paraguay—and the pine trees of Oregon were mounds of snow. At night this earth was a black constellation, sounding with panics. I can think of the origin of the ocean that fell upon it in not less than constellational terms. Perhaps Orion or Taurus went dry.

If a place, say in China, greatly needs water, and if there be stores of water, somewhere else, in one organism, I can think of relations of requital, as I think of need and response in any lesser organism, or suborganism.

Need of a camel—and storages—and reliefs.

Hibernating bear—and supplies from his storages.

At a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, Dec. 11, 1922, Sir Francis Younghusband told of a drought, in August, 1906, in Western China. The chief magistrate of Chungking prayed for rain. He put more fervor into it. Then he prayed prodigiously for rain. It began to rain. Then something that was called “a waterspout” fell from the sky. Many of the inhabitants were drowned.

In the organic sense, I conceive of people and forests and dwindling lakes all expressing a need, and finally compelling an answer. By “prayers” I mean utterances by parched mouths, and also the rustlings of dried leaves and grasses. It seems that there have been responses. There are two explanations. One is that it is the mercy of God. For an opinion here, see the data. The other is that it is an Organism that is maintaining itself.

The British Government has engineered magnificently for water supply in Egypt. It might have been better to plant persuasive trees and clergymen in Egypt. But clergymen are notoriously eloquent, and I think that preferable would be less excitable tipsters to God, who could convey the idea of moderation.

In one year the fall of rain, at Norfolk, England, is about twenty-nine inches. In
Symons’ Meteorological Magazine,
1889, p. 101, Mr. Symons told of this fall of water of twenty-nine inches in a year, and then told of volumes of water to depths of from twenty to twenty-four inches that had fallen, from May 25th to the 28th, 1889, in New South Wales, and of a greater deluge—thirty-four inches—that, from the 29th to the 30th, had devastated Hong Kong. Mr. Symons called attention to these two bursts from the heavens, thousands of miles apart, saying that they might, or might not, be a coincidence, but that he left it to others to theorize. I point out that a professional meteorologist thought the occurrence of only two deluges, about the same time, but far apart, remarkable, or difficult to explain in terms of terrestrial meteorology.

It was left a long time to others.

However, when I was due to appear, I appeared, perhaps right on scheduled time; and I got Australian newspapers. The Sydney newspapers told of the soak in New South Wales. I learned that all the rest of Australia was left to others—or was left, waiting for me to appear, right on scheduled time, most likely. Not rain, but columns of water fell near the town of Avoca, Victoria, and, in the
Melbourne Argus,
the way of accounting for them was to say that “a waterspout” had burst here. There were wide floods in Tasmania. Fields turned to blanks that were then lumpy with rabbits.

There had been drought in Australia, and floods were a relief to a necessity, but the greater downpour in China interests us more in conditions in China.

It was a time of direst drought and extremist famine in China.
Homeward Mail,
June 4—that, in some of the more cannibalistic regions, sales of women and children were common. It is said to be almost impossible for anybody to devour his own child. Parents exchanged children.

Down upon monstrous need came relief that was enormous. At Hong Kong, houses collapsed under a smash of alleviation. A fury of mercy tore up almost every street in the Colony. The people had prayed for rain. They got it. Godness so loved Hong Kong that in the town’s morgue it stretched out sixteen of the inhabitants. At Canton, every pietist proclaimed the efficacy of prayer, and I think he was right about that: but the problem is to tone down all this efficacy. If we will personify what I consider an organism, what he, or more likely she, has not, is any conception of moderation. The rise of the river, at Canton, indicated that up country there had been catastrophic efficacy. At Canton efficacy was so extreme that for months the people were rebuilding.

Show me a starving man—I pay no attention. Show me the starving man—I can’t be bothered. Show me the starving man, on the point of dying—I grab up groceries and I jump on him. I cram bread down his mouth, and stuff his eyes and his ears with potatoes. I rip open his lips to hammer down more food, and bung in his teeth, the better to stuff him. The explanation—it is the god-like in me.

Now, in a Library, we put in calls for the world’s newspapers. Not a hint have we had that there is anything else—nothing in scientific publications of the period—not another word from Mr. Symons—but there is an implement that is mightier than the pen—and we are led on to one of our attempted correlations, by our experiences with it.

Germany—there was a drought so severe that there were public prayers for rain. Something that was called “a waterspout” fell from the sky, and people who did not get all the details went to church about it.
Liverpool Echo,
May 20—one hundred persons perished.

At the same time, there were public rejoicings in Smyrna, where was staged another assuasive tragedy.

Drought in Russia.
Straits Times,
June 6—droughts ended by downpours in Bengal and Java. In Kashmir and in the Punjab, violent thunderstorms and earthquakes occurred together
(Calcutta Statesman,
June 1 and 3). In Turkey, there would have been extremist distress, but about the first of June, amidst .woe and thanksgiving, destructive salvations demonstrated efficacy, and for a week kept on spreading joy and misery.
Levant Herald,
June 4—earthquakes preceded deluges, and then continued with them.

In conventional meteorology, no relation between droughts and exceptional rains is admitted. Our data are of widespread droughts and enormous flows of water. There are two little, narrow strips of views on the margins of our moving pictures. On one side—that there is a beneficent God. On the other side—that there isn’t anything. And every one of us who has paid any attention to the annals of controversies knows that such oppositions usually give in to an intermediacy. May, 1880—widely this earth was in need—widely waters were coming from somewhere. Now—in Organic terms—I am telling of what seems to me to be Functional Teleportation, or enormous manifestations of that which is sometimes, say in Oklahoma, a little drip over a tree.

Volcanic eruptions upon this earth, at times of deluges—and maybe, in a land of the stars, there was an eruption, in May, 1889. In France, May 31st, there was one of the singularly lurid sunsets that are known as “afterglows,” and that appear after volcanic eruptions. There was no known volcanic eruption upon this earth, from which a discharge could have gone to the sky of France. It may have come from a volcanic eruption somewhere else. All suggestiveness is that it came to this earth over no such distance as millions of miles.

Other discharges, maybe—red rain coming down from the sky, at Cardiff, Wales
(Cardiff Western Mail,
May 26). Red dust falling upon the island of Hyeres, off the coast of France, in the Mediterranean—see the
Levant Herald,
May 29.
St. Louis Globe-Democrat,
May 30—an unknown substance that for several hours had fallen from the sky—crystalline particles, some pink, and some white.
Quebec Daily Mercury,
May 25—a fine dust that had the appearance of a snowstorm, falling in Dakota.

Monstrous festivities in Greece—a land that was bedecked with assassinations. Its rivers were garlands—vast twists of vines, budded with the bodies of cattle.

The Malay States gulped. The mines of Kamunting were suctions, into which flowed floods
(Penang Gazette,
May 24). The Bahama Islands were thirsts—drought and loss of crops—then huge swigs from the sky. Other West Indian islands went on gargantuan sprees—and I’ll end up a Prohibitionist. Orgies in Greece, and more or less everywhere else—this earth went drunk on water. I’ve experimented—try autosuggestion—you can get a pretty fair little souse from any faucet. Tangier—“great suffering from the drought”—abundant rains, about June 1st. Drought in British Honduras, and heavy rains upon the 1st and 2nd of June. Tremendous downpours described in the newspaper published upon the island of St. Helena. Earthquake at Jackson, California—the next day a gush from the sky broke down a dam. I’m on a spree, myself—Library attendants wheeling me stacks of this earth’s newspapers. Island of Cyprus—a flop from the sky, and the river Pedias went up with a rush from which people at Nicosia narrowly escaped. Torrents in Ceylon. June 4th—a drought of many weeks broken by rains in Cuba. Drought in Mexico—and out of the heavens came a Jack the Ripper. Torn plantations and mutilated cities—rise of the river, at Huezutla—when it subsided the streets were strewn with corpses.

In England, Mr. Symons expressed astonishment, because there had been two deluges.

Deluge and falls of lumps of ice, throughout England. France deluged. Water dropped from the sky, at Lausanne, Switzerland, flooding some of the streets five feet deep. It was not rain. There were falling columns of water from what was thought to be a waterspout. The most striking of the statements is that bulks dropped. One of them was watched. Or some kind of a vast, vaporous cow sailed over a town, and people looked up at her bag of water. Something that was described as “a large body of water” was seen at Coburg, Ontario. It crossed the town, holding its bag-like formation. Two miles away, it dropped. It splashed rivers that broke down all dams between Coburg and Lake Ontario. In the
Toronto Globe,
June 3, this falling bulk is called “a waterspout.” Fall of a similar bulk, in Switzerland—crops and houses and bridges mixing down a valley, at Sargans. Fall of a bulk, at Reichenbach, Saxony. “It was a waterspout” (London
Times,
June 6).

This time the fishmonger is a waterspout.

Spain pounded by falling waters: Madrid flooded: many buildings damaged by a violent hailstorm. Deluges in China continuing. Deluges in Australia continuing. Floods in Argentina: people of Ayacuchio driven from their homes: sudden rise of the river, at Buenos Aires. In the
South American Journal
of this period are accounts of tremendous downpours and devastations in Brazil and Uruguay.

One of these bodies of water that were not rain fell at Chetnole, Dorsetshire, England. The people, hearing crashes, looked up at a hill, and saw it frilled with billows. Watery ruffs, from eight to ten feet high, heaved on the hill. The village was tossed in a surf. “The cause of this remarkable occurrence was for some time unknown but it has now been ascertained that a waterspout burst on Batcombe Hill.” So wrote Mr. Symons, in whose brains there was no more consciousness of all that was going on in the world about him than there was in any other pair of scissors.

It was not ascertained that a waterspout had burst on Batcombe Hill. No waterspout was seen. What was ascertained was that columns of water of unknown origin had fallen high on the Hill, gouging holes, some of them eight or nine feet deep. Though Mr. Symons gave the waterspout explanation, it did occur to him to note that there was no statement that the water was salty—

These bulks of water, and their pendent columns—that they were waterspouts—

Or that Slaughter had lain with Life, and that murderous mothers had slung off their udders, from which this earth drank through teats that were cataracts.

Wherever the deluges were coming from, I note that, as with phenomena of March, 1913, unseasonable snow fell. Here it was about the first of June, and snow was falling in Michigan. The suggestion is that this was not a crystallization in the summer sky of Michigan, but an effect of the intense coldness of outer regions, upon water that had come to this earth from storages on a planet, or from a reservoir in Starland. Note back to mention of falls of lumps of ice in England.

Wherever the deluges were coming from, meteors, too, were coming. If we can think that falls of water and falls of meteors were related, we have reinforcement to our expression that water was coming to this needful earth from somewhere else. Five remarkable meteors are told of, in the
Monthly Weather Review.
In the
New York Sun,
May 30, is an account of a meteor that exploded in the sky of Putnam County, Florida, and was heard fifteen miles around. In Madras, India, where the drought was “very grave,” an extraordinary meteor was seen, night of June 4th
(Madras Mail,
June 26). In South Africa, where the drought was so extreme that a herd of buffaloes had been driven to a pool within five miles of the town of Uitenhage, a meteor exploded, with detonations that were heard in a line forty miles long
(Cape Argus,
May 28). May 22nd—great, detonating meteor, at Otranto, Italy. The meteor that was seen in England and Ireland, May 29th, is told of in
Nature,
40-174. For records of three other great meteors, see
Nature
and
Cosmos.
There was a spectacular occurrence at Dunedin, New Zealand, early in the morning of May 27th
(Otago Witness,
June 6). Rumbling sounds— a shock—illumination of the sky—exploding meteor.

In some parts of the United States, there had been extreme need for water. In the
New Orleans Daily Picayune
are accounts of the “gloomy outlook for crops” in six of the Southern States. About twenty reports upon this drought were published in the
Monthly Weather Review.