6
Lead, silver, diamonds, gla.s.s.
They sound like the accursed, but they"re not: they"re now of the chosen--that is, when they occur in metallic or stony ma.s.ses 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 d.a.m.nable. In the _Report of the British a.s.sociation_, 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 a.s.sociations with the superst.i.tions 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 phosph.o.r.escence 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.
For a circ.u.mstantial account of a ma.s.s 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. a.s.soc._, 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 Chateau-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 a.s.sociation, 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 finger-prints 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 a.s.sertion, 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses, from size of a pea to size of a walnut, at Lobau, Jan. 18, 1835 (_Rept. Brit. a.s.soc._, 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 b.u.mped by cinders.
If their regions be subjacent to Cunard or White Star routes, they"re especially likely to be b.u.mped. 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 b.u.mped. 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. a.s.soc._, 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 b.a.l.l.s 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--
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 d.a.m.ned to break in. In the _Annual Record of Science_, 1875-241, Prof. Daubree is quoted: that ashes that had fallen in the Azores had come from the Chicago fire--