The Book of the Damned

Or the d.a.m.ned 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 waist-line.

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 pa.s.sage 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 b.a.l.l.s, 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 d.a.m.ned 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.

a.s.soc._, 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 c.o.ke:

The person who thought he saw something like cinders, also thought he saw something like c.o.ke, we are told.

_Nature_, 36-119:

Something that "looked exactly like c.o.ke" 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 rea.s.sured 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. a.s.soc._, 1860-73), calls it "a more than doubtful substance"--but again, against rea.s.surance, that is not doubt of authenticity. Greg says that it is like compact charcoal, with particles of sulphur and iron pyrites embedded.

Rea.s.surance rises again:

Prof. Baden-Powell says: "It contains also charcoal, which might perhaps be acquired from matter among which it fell."

This 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.

Rhythm of rea.s.surances and their declines:

According to Dr. Smith, this substance was not merely coated with charcoal; his a.n.a.lysis gives 43.59 per cent carbon.

Our 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.

Resinous substance said to have fallen at Kaba, Hungary, April 15, 1887 (_Rept. Brit. a.s.soc._, 1860-94).

A resinous substance that fell after a fireball? at Neuhaus, Bohemia, Dec. 17, 1824 (_Rept. Brit. a.s.soc._, 1860-70).

Fall, 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).

Substance that fell, Feb. 17, 18, 19, 1841, at Genoa, Italy, said to have been resinous; said by Arago (_OEuvres_, 12-469) to have been bituminous matter and sand.

Fall--during a thunderstorm--July, 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--about five cubic feet of it: substance so soft that it was cuttable with a knife--"after being experimented upon, it left a residue, which gave out a very bituminous smell."

And this inclusion of Lockyer's--so far as findable in all books that I have read--is, in books, about as close as we can get to our desideratum--that coal has fallen from the sky. Dr. Farrington, except with a brief mention, ignores the whole subject of the fall of carbonaceous matter from the sky. Proctor, in all of his books that I have read--is, in books, about as close as we can get to the admission that carbonaceous matter has been found in meteorites "in very minute quant.i.ties"--or my own suspicion is that it is possible to d.a.m.n something else only by losing one's own soul--quasi-soul, of course.

_Sci. Amer._, 35-120:

That the substance that fell at the Cape of Good Hope "resembled a piece of anthracite coal more than anything else."

It's a mistake, I think: the resemblance is to bituminous coal--but it is from the periodicals that we must get our data. To the writers of books upon meteorites, it would be as wicked--by which we mean departure from the characters of an established species--quasi-established, of course--to 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--but we shall shovel data of coal.

And, if over and over, we shall learn of ma.s.ses of soft coal that have fallen upon this earth, if in no instance has it been a.s.serted that the ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 was to respond to all reports of carbonaceous matter falling from the sky, by saying that this d.a.m.ned 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--and beautifully--disregarded that, according to Berthelot, Berzelius, Cloez, Wohler and others these ma.s.ses 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--that to have an opinion upon any subject is to be a Lawrence Smith--because there is no definite subject.

Dr. 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."

As to "minute quant.i.ties" 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:

Carbonaceous matter that fell in 1840, in Tennessee; Cranbourne, Australia, 1861; Montauban, France, May 14, 1864 (twenty ma.s.ses, 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.

_Knowledge_, 4-134:

That, according to M. Daubree, 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 ma.s.s fell, June 30, 1880, in the province Entre Rios, Argentina: that it is "like"

brown coal; that it resembles all the other carbonaceous ma.s.ses that have fallen from the sky.

Something that fell at Grazac, France, Aug. 10, 1885: when burned, it gave out a bituminous odor (_Comptes Rendus_, 104-1771).

Carbonaceous 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).

A combustible carbonaceous substance that fell with sand at Naples, March 14, 1818 (_Amer. Jour. Sci._, 1-1-309).

_Sci. Amer. Sup._, 29-11798:

That, 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 ma.s.s was 2 per cent of an unknown mineral.

Cinders and ashes and slag and c.o.ke and charcoal and coal.

And the things that sometimes deep-sea fishes are b.u.mped by.