{"collection":"fort","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/fort/damn/damn06.htm","path":"fort/damn/damn06.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/fort/damn/damn06.htm","text":"The Book of the Damned, by Charles Fort, [1919]\nLead, silver, diamonds, glass.\nThey sound like the accursed, but they're not: they're now of the chosen\u2014that 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.\nOf 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.\nOr oneness of allness: scientific works and social registers: a Goldstein who can't get in as Goldstein, gets in as Jackson.\nThe fall of sulphur from the sky has been especially repulsive to the modern orthodoxy\u2014largely because of its associations with the superstitions or principles of the preceding orthodoxy\u2014stories 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. Some day 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.\nFor 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.\nThe 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.\nIn 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:\nThere is no limestone in the sky;\nTherefore this limestone did not fall from the sky.\nBetter reasoning I cannot conceive of\u2014because we see that a final major premise\u2014universal\u2014true\u2014would include all things: that, then, would leave nothing to reason about\u2014so 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.\nLa Nature, 1890-2-127:\nFall, at Pel-et-Der (L\u2019Aube), France, June 6, 1890, of limestone pebbles. Identified with limestone at Ch\u00e2teau-Landon\u2014or up and down in a whirlwind. But they fell with hail\u2014which, in June, could not very well be identified with ice from Ch\u00e2teau-Landon. Coincidence, perhaps.\nUpon 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, waterworn, 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.\n[paragraph continues] But I have never heard of anything falling red-hot from a whirl-wind\u2014\nThe wood around this sandstone pebble was black, as if charred.\nDr. 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\u2014date questioned. It is not definitely said that this substance was sandstone, but that it \"resembled\" friable sandstone.\nFalls 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\u2014quasi-reasonably\u2014as to places not far from the sea\u2014\nBut the fall of salt that occurred high in the mountains of Switzerland\u2014\nWe 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.\nLarge crystals of salt fell\u2014in a hailstorm\u2014Aug. 20, 1870, in Switzerland. The orthodox explanation is a crime: whoever made it, should have had his finger-prints taken. We are told (An. Rec. Sci., 1872) that these objects of salt \"came over the Mediterranean from some part of Africa.\"\nOr the hypnosis of the conventional\u2014provided it be glib. One reads such an assertion, and provided it be suave and brief and conventional, one seldom questions\u2014or 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\u2014that can in one, or ten, or twenty, instances be called a coincidence.\nAnother datum: extraordinary year 1883:\nLondon Times, Dec. 25, 1883:\nTranslation from a Turkish newspaper; a substance that fell at Scutari, Dec. 2, 1883; described as an unknown substance, in particles\u2014or flakes?\u2014like snow. \"It was found to be saltish to the taste, and to dissolve readily in water.\"\nMiscellaneous:\n\"Black, capillary matter\" that fell, Nov. 16, 1857, at Charleston, S. C. (Amer. Jour. Sci., 2-31-459).\nFall 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).\nObjects 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).\nI 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.\nOr 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.\nAs 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.\"\nOver 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\u2014not merely suppose, like Prof. Bastian, that he can define\u2014the 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\ntrain 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\u2014which 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.\nSomething that was said to have fallen at Darmstadt, June 7, 1846; listed by Greg (Rept. Brit. Assoc., 1867-416) as \"only slag.\"\nPhilosophical Magazine, 4-10-381:\nThat, in 1855, a large stone was found far in the interior of a tree, in Battersea Fields.\nSometimes cannon balls are found embedded in trees. Doesn't seem to be anything to discuss; doesn't seem discussable that any one 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\u2014\nBecause, at the foot of the tree, as if broken off the stone, fragments of slag were found.\nI have nine other instances.\nSlag and cinders and ashes, and you won't believe, and neither will I, that they came from the furnaces of vast aerial superconstructions. We'll see what looks acceptable.\nAs to ashes, the difficulties are great, because we'd expect many falls of terrestrially derived ashes\u2014volcanoes and forest fires.\nIn some of our acceptances, I have felt a little radical\u2014\nI suppose that one of our main motives is to show that there is, in quasi-existence, nothing but the preposterous\u2014or something intermediate to absolute preposterousness and final reasonableness\u2014that 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\nis from the outrageous to the academic or sanctified, and back to the outrageous\u2014modified, 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. Daubr\u00e9e is quoted: that ashes that had fallen in the Azores had come from the Chicago fire\u2014\nOr 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\u2014or never have such bad manners as to stroke an angel below the waist-line.\nHowever 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.\"\nBull. Soc. Astro. de France, 22-245:\nAccount 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.\nFlake formations, which may signify passage through a region of pressure, are common; but spherical formations\u2014as if of things that have rolled and rolled along planar regions somewhere\u2014are commoner:\nNature, Jan. 10, 1884, quotes a Kimberley newspaper:\nThat, 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\u2014\nBut, with the fall, loud noises were heard\u2014\nBut 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.\nData of falls of cinders have been especially damned by Mr.\n[paragraph continues] Symons, the meteorologist, some of whose investigations we'll investigate later\u2014nevertheless\u2014\nNotice of a fall, in Victoria, Australia, April 14, 1875 (Rept. Brit. Assoc., 1875-242)\u2014at 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.\nIn 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\u2014in showery weather\u2014upon a farm, near Ottowa, Ill., Jan. 17, 1857.\nBut 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\u2014coal that has fallen from the sky.\nOr coke:\nThe person who thought he saw something like cinders, also thought he saw something like coke, we are told.\nNature, 36-119:\nSomething that \"looked exactly like coke\" that fell\u2014during a thunderstorm\u2014in the Orne, France, April 24, 1887.\nOr charcoal:\nDr. Angus Smith, in the Lit. and Phil. Soc. of Manchester Memoirs, 2-9-146, says that, about 1827\u2014like a great deal in Lyell's Principles and Darwin's Origin, this account is from hearsay\u2014something 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\"\u2014but 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.\nReassurance rises again:\nProf. Baden-Powell says: \"It contains also charcoal, which might perhaps be acquired from matter among which it fell.\"\nThis is a common reflex with the exclusionists: that substances not \"truly meteoritic\" did not fall from the sky, but were picked up by \"truly meteoritic\" things, of course only on their surfaces, by impact with this earth.\nRhythm of reassurances and their declines:\nAccording to Dr. Smith, this substance was not merely coated with charcoal; his analysis gives 43.59 per cent carbon.\nOur acceptance that coal has fallen from the sky will be via data of resinous substances and bituminous substances, which merge so that they cannot be told apart.\nResinous substance said to have fallen at Kaba, Hungary, April 15, 1887 (Rept. Brit. Assoc., 1860-94).\nA resinous substance that fell after a fireball? at Neuhaus, Bohemia, Dec. 17, 1824 (Rept. Brit. Assoc., 1860-70).\nFall, July 28, 1885, at Luchon, during a storm, of a brownish substance; very friable, carbonaceous matter; when burned it gave out a resinous odor (Comptes Rendus, 103-837).\nSubstance that fell, Feb. 17, 18, 19, 1841, at Genoa, Italy, said to have been resinous; said by Arago (\u0152uvres, 12-469) to have been bituminous matter and sand.\nFall\u2014during a thunderstorm\u2014July, 1681, near Cape Cod, upon the deck of an English vessel, the Albemarle, of \"burning, bituminous matter\" (Edin. New Phil. Jour., 26-86); a fall, at Christiania, Norway, June 13, 1822, of bituminous matter, listed by Greg as doubtful; fall of bituminous matter, in Germany, March 8, 1798, listed by Greg. Lockyer (The Meteoric Hypothesis, p. 24) says that the substance that fell at the Cape of Good Hope, Oct. 13, 1838\u2014about five cubic feet of it: substance so soft that it was cuttable with a knife\u2014\"after being experimented upon, it left a residue, which gave out a very bituminous smell.\"\nAnd this inclusion of Lockyer's\u2014so far as findable in all books that I have read\u2014is, in books, about as close as we can get to our desideratum\u2014that coal has fallen from the sky. Dr. Farrington, except with a brief mention, ignores the whole subject of the fall\nof carbonaceous matter from the sky. Proctor, in all of his books that I have read\u2014is, in books, about as close as we can get to the admission that carbonaceous matter has been found in meteorites \"in very minute quantities\"\u2014or my own suspicion is that it is possible to damn something else only by losing one's own soul\u2014quasi-soul, of course.\nSci. Amer., 35-120:\nThat the substance that fell at the Cape of Good Hope \"resembled a piece of anthracite coal more than anything else.\"\nIt's a mistake, I think: the resemblance is to bituminous coal\u2014but it is from the periodicals that we must get our data. To the writers of books upon meteorites, it would be as wicked\u2014by which we mean departure from the characters of an established species\u2014quasi-established, of course\u2014to say that coal has fallen from the sky, as would be, to something in a barnyard, a temptation that it climb a tree and catch a bird. Domestic things in a barnyard: and how wild things from forests outside seem to them. Or the homeopathist\u2014but we shall shovel data of coal.\nAnd, if over and over, we shall learn of masses of soft coal that have fallen upon this earth, if in no instance has it been asserted that the masses did not fall, but were upon the ground in the first place; if we have many instances, this time we turn down good and hard the mechanical reflex that these masses were carried from one place to another in whirlwinds, because we find it too difficult to accept that whirlwinds could so select, or so specialize in a peculiar substance. Among writers of books, the only one I know of who makes more than brief mention is Sir Robert Ball. He represents a still more antique orthodoxy, or is an exclusionist of the old type, still holding out against even meteorites. He cites several falls of carbonaceous matter, but with disregards that make for reasonableness that earthy matter may have been caught up by whirlwinds and flung down somewhere else. If he had given a full list, he would be called upon to explain the special affinity of whirlwinds for a special kind of coal. He does not give a full list. We shall have all that's findable, and we shall see that against this disease we're writing, the homeopathist's prescription availeth not. Another exclusionist was Prof. Lawrence Smith. His psycho-tropism\nwas to respond to all reports of carbonaceous matter falling from the sky, by saying that this damned matter had been deposited upon things of the chosen by impact with this earth. Most of our data antedate him, or were contemporaneous with him, or were as accessible to him as to us. In his attempted positivism it is simply\u2014and beautifully\u2014disregarded that, according to Berthelot, Berzelius, Cloez, Wohler and others these masses are not merely coated with carbonaceous matter, but are carbonaceous throughout, or are permeated throughout. How anyone could so resolutely and dogmatically and beautifully and blindly hold out would puzzle us were it not for our acceptance that only to think is to exclude and include; and to exclude some things that have as much right to come in as have the included\u2014that to have an opinion upon any subject is to be a Lawrence Smith\u2014because there is no definite subject.\nDr. Walter Flight (Eclectic Magazine, 89-71) says, of the substance that fell near Alais, France, March 15, 1806, that it \"emits a faint bituminous substance\" when heated, according to the observations of Bergelius and a commission appointed by the French Academy. This time we have not the reluctances expressed in such words as \"like\" and \"resembling.\" We are told that this substance is \"an earthy kind of coal.\"\nAs to \"minute quantities\" we are told that the substance that fell at the Cape of Good Hope has in it a little more than a quarter of organic matter, which, in alcohol, gives the familiar reaction of yellow, resinous matter. Other instances given by Dr. Flight are:\nCarbonaceous matter that fell in 1840, in Tennessee; Cranbourne, Australia, 1861; Montauban, France, May 14, 1864 (twenty masses, some of them as large as a human head, of a substance that \"resembled a dull-colored earthy lignite\"); Goalpara, India, about 1867 (about 8 per cent of a hydrocarbon); at Ornans, France, July 11, 1868; substance with \"an organic, combustible ingredient,\" at Hessle, Sweden, Jan. 1, 1860.\nKnowledge, 4-134:\nThat, according to M. Daubr\u00e9e, the substance that had fallen in the Argentine Republic, \"resembled certain kinds of lignite and boghead coal.\" In Comptes Rendus, 96-1764, it is said that this\nmass fell, June 30, 1880, in the province Entre Rios, Argentina: that it is \"like\" brown coal; that it resembles all the other carbonaceous masses that have fallen from the sky.\nSomething that fell at Grazac, France, Aug. 10, 1885: when burned, it gave out a bituminous odor (Comptes Rendus, 104-1771).\nCarbonaceous substance that fell at Rajpunta, India, Jan. 22, 1911: very friable: 50 per cent of its soluble in water (Records Geol. Survey of India, 44-pt. 1-41).\nA combustible carbonaceous substance that fell with sand at Naples, March 14, 1818 (Amer. Jour. Sci., 1-1-309).\nSci. Amer. Sup., 29-11798:\nThat, June 9, 1889, a very friable substance, of a deep, greenish black, fell at Mighei, Russia. It contained 5 per cent organic matter, which, when powdered and digested in alcohol, yielded, after evaporation, a bright yellow resin. In this mass was 2 per cent of an unknown mineral.\nCinders and ashes and slag and coke and charcoal and coal.\nAnd the things that sometimes deep-sea fishes are bumped by.\nReluctances and the disguises or covered retreats of such words as \"like\" and \"resemble\"\u2014or that conditions of Intermediateness forbid abrupt transitions\u2014but that the spirit animating all Intermediateness is to achieve abrupt transitions\u2014because, if anything could finally break away from its origin and environment, that would be a real thing\u2014something not merging away indistinguishably with the surrounding. So all attempt to be original; all attempt to invent something that is more than mere extension or modification of the preceding, is positivism\u2014or that if one could conceive of a device to catch flies, positively different from, or unrelated to, all other devices\u2014up he'd shoot to heaven, or the Positive Absolute\u2014leaving behind such an incandescent train that in one age it would be said that he had gone aloft in a fiery chariot, and in another age that he had been struck by lightning\u2014\nI'm collecting notes upon persons supposed to have been struck by lightning. I think that high approximation to positivism has often been achieved\u2014instantaneous translation\u2014residue of negativeness left behind, looking much like effects of a stroke of lightning. Some day I shall tell the story of the Marie Celeste\u2014\"properly,\"\nas the Scientific American Supplement would say\u2014mysterious disappearance of a sea captain, his family, and the crew\u2014\nOf positivists, by the route of Abrupt Transition, I think that Manet was notable\u2014but that his approximation was held down by his intense relativity to the public\u2014or that it is quite as impositive to flout and insult and defy as it is to crawl and placate. Of course, Manet began with continuity with Courbet and others, and then, between him and Manet there were mutual influences\u2014but the spirit of abrupt difference is the spirit of positivism, and Manet's stand was against the dictum that all lights and shades must merge away suavely into one another and prepare for one another. So a biologist like De Vries represents positivism, or the breaking of Continuity, by trying to conceive of evolution by mutation\u2014against the dogma of indistinguishable gradations by \"minute variations.\" A Copernicus conceives of helio-centricity. Continuity is against him. He is not permitted to break abruptly with the past. He is permitted to publish his work, but only as \"an interesting hypothesis.\"\nContinuity\u2014and that all that we call evolution or progress is attempt to break away from it\u2014\nThat our whole solar system was at one time attempt by planets to break away from a parental nexus and set up as individualities, and, failing, move in quasi-regular orbits that are expressions of relations with the sun and with one another, all having surrendered, being now quasi-incorporated in a higher approximation to system;\nIntermediateness in its mineralogic aspect of positivism\u2014or Iron that strove to break away from Sulphur and Oxygen, and be real, homogeneous Iron\u2014failing, inasmuch as elemental iron exists only in text-book chemistry;\nIntermediateness in its biologic aspect of positivism\u2014or the wild, fantastic, grotesque, monstrous things it conceived of, sometimes in a frenzy of effort to break away abruptly from all preceding types\u2014but failing, in the giraffe-effort, for instance, or only caricaturing an antelope\u2014\nAll things break one relation only by the establishing of some other relation\u2014\nAll things cut an umbilical cord only to clutch a breast.\nSo the fight of the exclusionists to maintain the traditional\u2014or to prevent abrupt transition from the quasi-established\u2014fighting so that here, more than a century after meteorites were included, no other notable inclusion has been made, except that of cosmic dust, data of which Nordenskiold made more nearly real than data in opposition.\nSo Proctor, for instance, fought and expressed his feeling of the preposterous, against Sir W. H. Thomson's notions of arrival upon this earth of organisms on meteorites\u2014\n\"I can only regard it as a jest\" (Knowledge, 1-302).\nOr that there is nothing but jest\u2014or something intermediate to jest and tragedy;\nThat ours is not an existence but an utterance;\nThat Momus is imagining us for the amusement of the gods, often with such success that some of us seem almost alive\u2014like characters in something a novelist is writing; which often to considerable degree take their affairs away from the novelist\u2014\nThat Momus is imagining us and our arts and sciences and religions, and is narrating or picturing us as a satire upon the gods\u2019 real existence.\nBecause\u2014with many of our data of coal that has fallen from the sky as accessible then as they are now, and with the scientific pronouncement that coal is fossil, how, in a real existence, by which we mean a consistent existence, or a state in which there is real intelligence, or a form of thinking that does not indistinguishably merge away with imbecility, could there have been such a row as that which was raised about forty years ago over Dr. Hahn's announcement that he had found fossils in meteorites?\nAccessible to anybody at that time:\nPhilosophical Magazine, 4-17-425:\nThat the substance that fell at Kaba, Hungary, April 15, 1857, contained organic matter \"analagous to fossil waxes.\"\nOr limestone:\nOf the block of limestone which was reported to have fallen at Middleburg, Florida, it is said (Science, 11-118) that, though something had been seen to fall in \"an old cultivated field,\" the witnesses\nwho ran to it picked up something that \"had been upon the ground in the first place.\" The writer who tells us this, with the usual exclusion-imagination known as stupidity, but unjustly, because there is no real stupidity, thinks he can think of a good-sized stone that had for many years been in a cultivated field, but that had never been seen before\u2014had never interfered with plowing, for instance. He is earnest and unjarred when he writes that this stone weighs 200 pounds. My own notion, founded upon my own experience in seeing, is that a block of stone weighing 500 pounds might be in one's parlor twenty years, virtually unseen\u2014but not in an old cultivated field, where it interfered with plowing\u2014not anywhere\u2014if it interfered.\nDr. Hahn said that he had found fossils in meteorites. There is a description of the corals, sponges, shells, and crinoids, all of them microscopic, which he photographed, in Popular Science, 20-83.\nDr. Hahn was a well-known scientist. He was better known after that.\nAnybody may theorize upon other worlds and conditions upon them that are similar to our own conditions: if his notions be presented undisguisedly as fiction, or only as an \"interesting hypothesis,\" he'll stir up no prude rages.\nBut Dr. Hahn said definitely that he had found fossils in specified meteorites: also he published photographs of them. His book is in the New York Public Library. In the reproductions every feature of some of the little shells is plainly marked. If they're not shells, neither are things under an oyster-counter. The striations are very plain: one sees even the hinges where bivalves are joined.\nProf. Lawrence Smith (Knowledge, 1-258):\n\"Dr. Hahn is a kind of half-insane man, whose imagination has run away with him.\"\nConservation of Continuity.\nThen Dr. Weinland examined Dr. Hahn's specimens. He gave his opinion that they are fossils and that they are not crystals of enstatite, as asserted by Prof. Smith, who had never seen them. The damnation of denial and the damnation of disregard: After the publication of Dr. Weinland's findings\u2014silence.","title":"The Book of the Damned: 6","type":"page"}