The Book of the Damned (10 page)

6

Lead, silver, diamonds, glass.

They sound like the accursed, but they’re not: they’re now of the chosen—that is, when they occur in metallic or stony masses that Science has recognized as meteorites. We find that resistance is to substances not so mixed in or incorporated.

Of accursed data, it seems to me that punk is pretty damnable. In the
Report of the British Association,
1878-376, there is mention of a light chocolate-brown substance that has fallen with meteorites. No particulars given; not another mention anywhere else that I can find. In this English publication, the word “punk” is not used; the substance is called “amadou.” I suppose, if the datum has anywhere been admitted to French publications, the word “amadou” has been avoided, and “punk” used.

Or oneness of allness: scientific works and social registers: a Goldstein who can’t get in as Goldstein, gets in as Jackson.

The fall of sulphur from the sky has been especially repulsive to the modern orthodoxy—largely because of its associations with the superstitions or principles of the preceding orthodoxy—stories of devils: sulphurous exhalations. Several writers have said that they have had this feeling. So the scientific reactionists, who have rabidly fought the preceding, because it was the preceding: and the scientific prudes, who, in sheer exclusionism, have held lean hands over pale eyes, denying falls of sulphur. I have many notes upon the sulphurous odor of meteorites, and many notes upon phosphorescence of things that come from externality. Someday I shall look over old stories of demons that have appeared sulphurously upon this earth, with the idea of expressing that we have often had undesirable visitors from other worlds; or that an indication of external derivation is sulphurousness. I expect some day to rationalize demonology, but just at present we are scarcely far enough advanced to go so far back.

For a circumstantial account of a mass of burning sulphur, about the size of a man’s fist, that fell at Pultusk, Poland, Jan. 30, 1868, upon a road, where it was stamped out by a crowd of villagers, see
Rept. Brit. Assoc.,
1874-272.

The power of the exclusionists lies in that in their stand are combined both modern and archaic systematists. Falls of sandstone and limestone are repulsive to both theologians and scientists. Sandstone and limestone suggest other worlds upon which occur processes like geological processes; but limestone, as a fossiliferous substance, is of course especially of the unchosen.

In
Science,
March 9, 1888, we read of a block of limestone, said to have fallen near Middleburg, Florida. It was exhibited at the Sub-tropical Exposition, at Jacksonville. The writer, in
Science,
denies that it fell from the sky. His reasoning is:

There is no limestone in the sky;

Therefore this limestone did not fall from the sky.

Better reasoning I cannot conceive of—because we see that a final major premise—universal—true—would include all things: that, then, would leave nothing to reason about—so then that all reasoning must be based upon “something” not universal, or only a phantom intermediate to the two finalities of nothingness and allness, or negativeness and positiveness.

La Nature,
1890-2-127:

Fall, at Pel-et-Der (L’Aube), France, June 6, 1890, of limestone pebbles. Identified with limestone at Chateau-Landon—or up and down in a whirlwind. But they fell with hail—which, in June, could not very well be identified with ice from Château-Landon. Coincidence, perhaps.

Upon page 70,
Science Gossip,
1887, the Editor says, of a stone that was reported to have fallen at Little Lever, England, that a sample had been sent to him. It was sandstone. Therefore it had not fallen, but had been on the ground in the first place. But, upon page 140,
Science Gossip,
1887, is an account of “a large, smooth, water-worn, gritty sandstone pebble” that had been found in the wood of a full-grown beech tree. Looks to me as if it had fallen red-hot, and had penetrated the tree with high velocity.

But I have never heard of anything falling red-hot from a whirlwind—

The wood around this sandstone pebble was black, as if charred.

Dr. Farrington, for instance, in his books, does not even mention sandstone. However, the British Association, though reluctant, is less exclusive:
Report
of 1860, p. 197: substance about the size of a duck’s egg, that fell at Raphoe, Ireland, June 9, 1860—date questioned. It is not definitely said that this substance was sandstone, but that it “resembled” friable sandstone.

Falls of salt have occurred often. They have been avoided by scientific writers, because of the dictum that only water and not substances held in solution, can be raised by evaporation. However, falls of salty water have received attention from Dalton and others, and have been attributed to whirlwinds from the sea. This is so reasonably contested—quasi-reasonably—as to places not far from the sea—

But the fall of salt that occurred high in the mountains of Switzerland—

We could have predicted that that datum could be found somewhere. Let anything be explained in local terms of the coast of England—but also has it occurred high in the mountains of Switzerland.

Large crystals of salt fell—in a hailstorm—Aug. 20, 1870, in Switzerland. The orthodox explanation is a crime: whoever made it, should have had his fingerprints taken. We are told
(An. Rec. Sci.,
1872) that these objects of salt “came over the Mediterranean from some part of Africa.”

Or the hypnosis of the conventional—provided it be glib. One reads such an assertion, and provided it be suave and brief and conventional, one seldom questions—or thinks “very strange” and then forgets. One has an impression from geography lessons: Mediterranean not more than three inches wide, on the map; Switzerland only a few more inches away. These sizable masses of salt are described in the
Amer. Jour. Sci.,
3-3-239, as “essentially imperfect cubic crystals of common salt.” As to occurrence with hail—that can in one, or ten, or twenty, instances be called a coincidence.

Another datum: extraordinary year 1883:

London
Times,
Dec. 25, 1883:

Translation from a Turkish newspaper: a substance that fell at Scutari, Dec. 2, 1883; described as an unknown substance, in particles—or flakes?—like snow. “It was found to be saltish to the taste, and to dissolve readily in water.”

Miscellaneous:

“Black, capillary matter” that fell, Nov. 16, 1857, at Charleston, S.C.
(Amer. Jour. Sci.,
2-31-459).

Fall of small, friable, vesicular masses, from size of a pea to size of a walnut, at Lobau, Jan. 18, 1835
(Rept. Brit. Assoc.,
1860-85).

Objects that fell at Peshawur, India, June, 1893, during a storm: substance that looked like crystallized niter, and that tasted like sugar
(Nature,
July 13, 1893).

I suppose sometimes deep-sea fishes have their noses bumped by cinders. If their regions be subjacent to Cunard or White Star routes, they’re especially likely to be bumped. I conceive of no inquiry: they’re deep-sea fishes.

Or the slag of Slains. That it was a furnace-product. The Rev. James Rust seemed to feel bumped. He tried in vain to arouse inquiry.

As to a report, from Chicago, April 9, 1879, that slag had fallen from the sky, Prof. E.S. Bastian
(Amer. Jour. Sci.,
3-18-78) says that the slag “had been on the ground in the first place.” It was furnace-slag. “A chemical examination of the specimens has shown that they possess none of the characteristics of true meteorites.”

Over and over and over again, the universal delusion; hope and despair of attempted positivism; that there can be real criteria, or distinct characteristics of anything. If anybody can define—not merely suppose, like Prof. Bastian, that he can define—the true characteristics of anything, or so localize trueness anywhere, he makes the discovery for which the cosmos is laboring. He will be instantly translated, like Elijah, into the Positive Absolute. My own notion is that, in a moment of super-concentration, Elijah became so nearly a real prophet that he was translated to heaven, or to the Positive Absolute, with such velocity that he left an incandescent train behind him. As we go along, we shall find the “true test of meteoritic material,” which in the past has been taken as an absolute, dissolving into almost utmost nebulosity. Prof. Bastian explains mechanically, or in terms of the usual reflexes to all reports of unwelcome substances: that near where the slag had been found, telegraph wires had been struck by lightning; that particles of melted wire had been seen to fall near the slag—which had been on the ground in the first place. But, according to the
New York Times,
April 14, 1879, about two bushels of this substance had fallen.

Something that was said to have fallen at Darmstadt, June 7, 1846; listed by Greg
(Rept. Brit. Assoc.,
1867-416) as “only slag.”

Philosophical Magazine,
4-10-381:

That, in 1855, a large stone was found far in the interior of a tree, in Battersea Fields.

Sometimes cannon balls are found embedded in trees. Doesn’t seem to be anything to discuss; doesn’t seem discussable that anyone would cut a hole in a tree and hide a cannon ball, which one could take to bed, and hide under one’s pillow, just as easily. So with the stone of Battersea Fields. What is there to say, except that it fell with high velocity and embedded in the tree? Nevertheless, there was a great deal of discussion—

Because, at the foot of the tree, as if broken off the stone, fragments of slag were found.

I have nine other instances.

Slag and cinders and ashes, and you won’t believe, and neither will I, that they came from the furnaces of vast aerial super-constructions. We’ll see what looks acceptable.

As to ashes, the difficulties are great, because we’d expect many falls of terrestrially derived ashes—volcanoes and forest fires.

In some of our acceptances, I have felt a little radical—

I suppose that one of our main motives is to show that there is, in quasi-existence, nothing but the preposterous—or something intermediate to absolute preposterousness and final reasonableness—that the new is the obviously preposterous; that it becomes the established and disguisedly preposterous; that it is displaced, after a while, and is again seen to be the preposterous. Or that all progress is from the outrageous to the academic or sanctified, and back to the outrageous—modified, however, by a trend of higher and higher approximation to the impreposterous. Sometimes I feel a little more uninspired than at other times, but I think we’re pretty well accustomed now to the oneness of allness; or that the methods of science in maintaining its system are as outrageous as the attempts of the damned to break in. In the
Annual Record of Science,
1875-241, Prof. Daubrée is quoted: that ashes that had fallen in the Azores had come from the Chicago fire—

Or the damned and the saved, and there’s little to choose between them; and angels are beings that have not obviously barbed tails to them—or never have such bad manners as to stroke an angel below the waistline.

However this especial outrage was challenged: the Editor of the
Record
returns to it, in the issue of 1876: considers it “in the highest degree improper to say that the ashes of Chicago were landed in the Azores.”

Bull. Soc. Astro. de France,
22-245:

Account of a white substance, like ashes, that fell at Annoy, France, March 27, 1908: simply called a curious phenomenon; no attempt to trace to a terrestrial source.

Flake formations, which may signify passage through a region of pressure, are common; but spherical formations—as if of things that have rolled and rolled along planar regions somewhere—are commoner:

Nature,
Jan. 10, 1884, quotes a Kimberley newspaper:

That, toward the close of November, 1883, a thick shower of ashy matter fell at Queenstown, South Africa. The matter was in marble-sized balls, which were soft and pulpy, but which, upon drying, crumbled at touch. The shower was confined to one narrow streak of land. It would be only ordinarily preposterous to attribute this substance to Krakatoa—

But, with the fall, loud noises were heard—

But I’ll omit many notes upon ashes: if ashes should sift down upon deep-sea fishes that is not to say that they came from steamships.

Data of falls of cinders have been especially damned by Mr. Symons, the meteorologist, some of whose investigations we’ll investigate later—nevertheless—

Notice of a fall, in Victoria, Australia, April 14, 1875
(Rept. Brit. Assoc.,
1875-242)—at least we are told, in the reluctant way, that someone “thought” he saw matter fall near him at night, and the next day found something that looked like cinders.

In the
Proc. of the London Roy. Soc.,
19-122, there is an account of cinders that fell on the deck of a lightship, Jan. 9, 1873. In the
Amer. Jour. Sci.,
2-24-449, there is a notice that the Editor had received a specimen of cinders said to have fallen—in showery weather—upon a farm, near Ottowa, Ill., Jan. 17, 1857.

But after all, ambiguous things they are, cinders or ashes or slag or clinkers, the high priest of the accursed that must speak aloud for us is—coal that has fallen from the sky.

Or coke:

The person who thought he saw something like cinders, also thought he saw something like coke, we are told.

Nature,
36-119:

Something that “looked exactly like coke” that fell—during a thunderstorm—in the Orne, France, April 24, 1887.

Or charcoal:

Dr. Angus Smith, in the
Lit. and Phil. Soc. of Manchester Memoirs,
2-9-146, says that, about 1827—like a great deal in Lyell’s
Principles
and Darwin’s
Origin,
this account is from hearsay—something fell from the sky, near Allport, England. It fell luminously, with a loud report, and scattered in a field. A fragment that was seen by Dr. Smith, is described by him as having “the appearance of a piece of common wood charcoal.” Nevertheless, the reassured feeling of the faithful, upon reading this, is burdened with data of differences: the substance was so uncommonly heavy that it seemed as if it had iron in it; also there was “a sprinkling of sulphur.” This material is said, by Prof. Baden-Powell, to be “totally unlike that of any other meteorite.” Greg, in his catalogue
(Rept. Brit. Assoc.,
1860-73), calls it “a more than doubtful substance”—but again, against reassurance that is not doubt of authenticity. Greg says that it is like compact charcoal, with particles of sulphur and iron pyrites embedded.