Book of the Damned — Chapters 23-24

23 Text-books tell us that the Dhurmsalla meteorites were picked up "soon," or "within half an hour."

Given a little time the conventionalists may argue that these stones were hot when they fell, but that their great interior coldness had overcome the molten state of their surfaces.

According to the Deputy Commissioner of Dhurmsalla, these stones had been picked up "immediately" by passing coolies.

These stones were so cold that they benumbed the fingers.

But they had fallen with a great light.

It is described as "a flame of fire about two feet in depth and nine feet in length."

Acceptably this light was not the light of molten matter.

In this chapter we are very intermediatistic--and unsatisfactory.

To the intermediatist there is but one answer to all questions: Sometimes and sometimes not.

Another form of this intermediatist "solution" of all problems is: Yes and no. Everything that is, also isn't. A positivist attempts to formulate: so does the intermediatist, but with less rigorousness: he accepts but also denies: he may seem to accept in one respect and deny in some other respect, but no real line can be drawn between any two aspects of anything.

The intermediatist accepts that which seems to correlate with something that he has accepted as a dominant.

The positivist correlates with a belief.

In the Dhurmsalla meteorites we have support for our expression that things entering this earth's atmosphere sometimes shine with a light that is not the light of incandescence--or so we account, or offer an expression upon, "thunderstones," or carved stones that have fallen luminously to this earth, in streaks that have looked like strokes of lightning--but we accept, also, that some things that have entered this earth's atmosphere, disintegrate with the intensity of flame and molten matter--but some things, we accept, enter this earth's atmosphere and collapse non-luminously, quite like deep-sea fishes brought to the surface of the ocean.

Whatever agreement we have is an indication that somewhere aloft there is a medium denser than this earth's atmosphere.

I

suppose our stronghold is in that such is not popular belief-- Or the rhythm of all phenomena: Air dense at sea level upon this earth--less and less dense as one ascends--then denser and denser.

A good many bothersome questions arise-- Our attitude: Here are the data: Luminous rains sometimes fall (_Nature_, March 9, 1882; _Nature_, 25-437).

This is light that is not the light of incandescence, but no one can say that these occasional, or rare, rains come from this earth's externality.

We simply note cold light of falling bodies.

For luminous rain, snow, and dust, see Hartwig, _Aerial World_, p. 319. As to luminous clouds, we have more nearly definite observations and opinions: they mark transition between the Old Dominant and the New Dominant.

We have already noted the transition in Prof. Schwedoffs theory of external origin of some hailstones--and the implications that, to a former generation, seemed so preposterous--"droll" was the word--that there are in inter-planetary regions volumes of water--whether they have fishes and frogs in them or not.

Now our acceptance is that clouds sometimes come from external regions, having had origin from super-geographical lakes and oceans that we shall not attempt to chart, just at present--only suggesting to enterprising aviators--and we note that we put it all up to them, and show no inclination to go Columbusing on our own account--that they take bathing suits, or, rather, deep-sea diving-suits along.

So then that some clouds come from inter-planetary oceans--of the Super-Sargasso Sea--if we still accept the Super-Sargasso Sea--and shine, upon entering this earth's atmosphere.

In _Himmel und Erde_, February, 1889--a phenomenon of transition of thirty years ago--Herr O. Jesse, in his observations upon luminous night-clouds, notes the great height of them, and drolly or sensibly suggests that some of them may have come from regions external to this earth.

I suppose he means only from other planets.

But it's a very droll and sensible idea either way.

In general I am accounting for a great deal of this earth's isolation: that it is relatively isolated by circumstances that are similar to the circumstances that make for relative isolation of the bottom of the ocean--except that there is a clumsiness of analogy now.

To call ourselves deep-sea fishes has been convenient, but, in a quasi-existence, there is no convenience that will not sooner or later turn awkward--so, if there be denser regions aloft, these regions should now be regarded as analogues of far-submerged oceanic regions, and things coming to this earth would be like things rising to an attenuated medium--and exploding--sometimes incandescently, sometimes with cold light--sometimes non-luminously, like deep-sea fishes brought to the surface--altogether conditions of inhospitality.

I have a suspicion that, in their own depths, deep-sea fishes are not luminous.

If they are, Darwinism is mere jesuitism, in attempting to correlate them.

Such advertising would so attract attention that all advantages would be more than offset.

Darwinism is largely a doctrine of concealment: here we have brazen proclamation--if accepted.

Fishes in the Mammoth Cave need no light to see by.

We might have an expression that deep-sea fishes turn luminous upon entering a less dense medium--but models in the American Museum of Natural History: specialized organs of luminosity upon these models.

Of course we do remember that awfully convincing "dodo," and some of our sophistications we trace to him--at any rate disruption is regarded as a phenomenon of coming from a dense to a less dense medium.

An account by M. Acharius, in the _Transactions of the Swedish Academy of Sciences_, 1808-215, translated for the _North American Review_, 3-319: That M. Acharius, having heard of "an extraordinary and probably hitherto unseen phenomenon," reported from near the town of Skeninge, Sweden, investigated: That, upon the 16th of May, 1808, at about 4 P. M.

, the sun suddenly turned dull brick-red.

At the same time there appeared, upon the western horizon, a great number of round bodies, dark brown, and seemingly the size of a hat crown.

They passed overhead and disappeared in the eastern horizon.

Tremendous procession.

It lasted two hours.

Occasionally one fell to the ground.

When the place of a fall was examined, there was found a film, which soon dried and vanished.

Often, when approaching the sun, these bodies seemed to link together, or were then seen to be linked together, in groups not exceeding eight, and, under the sun, they were seen to have tails three or four fathoms long.

Away from the sun the tails were invisible.

Whatever their substance may have been, it is described as gelatinous--"soapy and jellied."

I place this datum here for several reasons.

It would have been a good climax to our expression upon hordes of small bodies that, in our acceptance, were not seeds, nor birds, nor ice-crystals: but the tendency would have been to jump to the homogeneous conclusion that all our data in that expression related to this one kind of phenomena, whereas we conceive of infinite heterogeneity of the external: of crusaders and rabbles and emigrants and tourists and dragons and things like gelatinous hat crowns.

Or that all things, here, upon this earth, that flock together, are not necessarily sheep, Presbyterians, gangsters, or porpoises.

The datum is important to us, here, as indication of disruption in this earth's atmosphere--dangers in entering this earth's atmosphere.

I think, myself, that thousands of objects have been seen to fall from aloft, and have exploded luminously, and have been called "ball lightning."

"As to what ball lightning is, we have not yet begun to make intelligent guesses."

(_Monthly Weather Review_, 34-17. ) In general, it seems to me that when we encounter the opposition "ball lightning" we should pay little attention, but confine ourselves to guesses that are at least intelligent, that stand phantom-like in our way.

We note here that in some of our acceptances upon intelligence we should more clearly have pointed out that they were upon the intelligent as opposed to the instinctive.

In the _Monthly Weather Review_, 33-409, there is an account of "ball lightning" that struck a tree.

It made a dent such as a falling object would make.

Some other time I shall collect instances of "ball lightning," to express that they are instances of objects that have fallen from the sky, luminously, exploding terrifically.

So bewildered is the old orthodoxy by these phenomena that many scientists have either denied "ball lightning" or have considered it very doubtful.

I refer to Dr. Sestier's list of one hundred and fifty instances, which he considered authentic.

In accord with our disaccord is an instance related in the _Monthly Weather Review_, March, 1887--something that fell luminously from the sky, accompanied by something that was not so affected, or that was dark: That, according to Capt. C. D.

Sweet, of the Dutch bark, _J.

P.

A.

_, upon March 19, 1887, N. 37 deg.

39', W.

57 deg.

00', he encountered a severe storm.

He saw two objects in the air above the ship.

One was luminous, and might be explained in several ways, but the other was dark.

One or both fell into the sea, with a roar and the casting up of billows.

It is our acceptance that these things had entered this earth's atmosphere, having first crashed through a field of ice--"immediately afterward lumps of ice fell."

One of the most astonishing of the phenomena of "ball lightning" is a phenomenon of many meteorites: violence of explosion out of all proportion to size and velocity.

We accept that the icy meteorites of Dhurmsalla could have fallen with no great velocity, but the sound from them was tremendous.

The soft substance that fell at the Cape of Good Hope was carbonaceous, but was unburned, or had fallen with velocity insufficient to ignite it.

The tremendous report that it made was heard over an area more than seventy miles in diameter.

That some hailstones have been formed in a dense medium, and violently disintegrate in this earth's relatively thin atmosphere: _Nature_, 88-350: Large hailstones noted at the University of Missouri, Nov.

11, 1911: they exploded with sounds like pistol shots.

The writer says that he had noticed a similar phenomenon, eighteen years before, at Lexington, Kentucky.

Hailstones that seemed to have been formed in a denser medium: when melted under water they gave out bubbles larger than their central air spaces.

(_Monthly Weather Review_, 33-445. ) Our acceptance is that many objects have fallen from the sky, but that many of them have disintegrated violently.

This acceptance will co-ordinate with data still to come, but, also, we make it easy for ourselves in our expressions upon super-constructions, if we're asked why, from thinkable wrecks of them, girders, plates, or parts recognizably of manufactured metal have not fallen from the sky.

However, as to composition, we have not this refuge, so it is our expression that there have been reported instances of the fall of manufactured metal from the sky.

The meteorite of Rutherford, North Carolina, is of artificial material: mass of pig iron.

It is said to be fraudulent.

(_Amer.

Jour.

Sci.

_, 2-34-298. ) The object that was said to have fallen at Marblehead, Mass.

, in 1858, is described in the _Amer.

Jour.

Sci.

_, 2-34-135, as "a furnace product, formed in smelting copper ores, or iron ores containing copper."

It is said to be fraudulent.

According to Ehrenberg, the substance reported by Capt. Callam to have fallen upon his vessel, near Java, "offered complete resemblance to the residue resulting from combustion of a steel wire in a flask of oxygen."

(Zurcher, _Meteors_, p. 239. ) _Nature_, Nov.

21, 1878, publishes a notice that, according to the _Yuma Sentinel_, a meteorite that "resembles steel" had been found in the Mohave Desert.

In _Nature_, Feb.

15, 1894, we read that one of the meteorites brought to the United States by Peary, from Greenland, is of tempered steel.

The opinion is that meteoric iron had fallen in water or snow, quickly cooling and hardening.

This does not apply to composition.

Nov.

5, 1898, _Nature_ publishes a notice of a paper by Prof. Berwerth, of Vienna, upon "the close connection between meteoric iron and steel-works' steel."

At the meeting of Nov.

24, 1906, of the Essex Field Club, was exhibited a piece of metal said to have fallen from the sky, Oct.

9, 1906, at Braintree.

According to the _Essex Naturalist_, Dr. Fletcher, of the British Museum, had declared this metal to be smelted iron--"so that the mystery of its reported 'fall' remained unexplained."

24 We shall have an outcry of silences.

If a single instance of anything be disregarded by a System--our own attitude is that a single instance is a powerless thing.

Of course our own method of agreement of many instances is not a real method.

In Continuity, all things must have resemblances with all other things.

Anything has any quasi-identity you please.

Some time ago conscription was assimilated with either autocracy or democracy with equal facility.

Note the need for a dominant to correlate to.

Scarcely anybody said simply that we must have conscription: but that we must have conscription, which correlates with democracy, which was taken as a base, or something basically desirable.

Of course between autocracy and democracy nothing but false demarcation can be drawn.

So I can conceive of no subject upon which there should be such poverty as a single instance, if anything one pleases can be whipped into line.

However, we shall try to be more nearly real than the Darwinites who advance concealing coloration as Darwinism, and then drag in proclaiming luminosity, too, as Darwinism.

I think the Darwinites had better come in with us as to the deep-sea fishes--and be sorry later, I suppose.

It will be amazing or negligible to read all the instances now to come of things that have been seen in the sky, and to think that all have been disregarded.

My own opinion is that it is not possible, or very easy, to disregard them, now that they have been brought together--but that, if prior to about this time we had attempted such an assemblage, the Old Dominant would have withered our typewriter--as it is the letter "e" has gone back on us, and the "s" is temperamental.

"Most extraordinary and singular phenomenon," North Wales, Aug.

26, 1894; a disk from which projected an orange-colored body that looked like "an elongated flatfish," reported by Admiral Ommanney (_Nature_, 50-524); disk from which projected a hook-like form, India, about 1838;

diagram of it given; disk about size of the moon, but brighter than the moon; visible about twenty minutes; by G. Pettit, in Prof. Baden-Powell's Catalogue (_Rept.

Brit.

Assoc.

_, 1849); very brilliant hook-like form, seen in the sky at Poland, Trumbull Co. , Ohio, during the stream of meteors, of 1833; visible more than an hour: large luminous body, almost stationary "for a time"; shaped like a square table; Niagara Falls, Nov.

13, 1833 (_Amer.

Jour.

Sci.

_, 1-25-391);

something described as a bright white cloud, at night, Nov.

3, 1886, at Hamar, Norway; from it were emitted brilliant rays of light; drifted across the sky; "retained throughout its original form" (_Nature_, Dec.

16, 1886-158); thing with an oval nucleus, and streamers with dark bands and lines very suggestive of structure; New Zealand, May 4, 1888 (_Nature_, 42-402); luminous object, size of full moon, visible an hour and a half, Chili, Nov.

5, 1883 (_Comptes Rendus_, 103-682); bright object near sun, Dec.

21, 1882 (_Knowledge_, 3-13); light that looked like a great flame, far out at sea, off Ryook Phyoo, Dec.

2, 1845 (_London Roy.

Soc.

Proc.

_, 5-627); something like a gigantic trumpet, suspended, vertical, oscillating gently, visible five or six minutes, length estimated at 425 feet, at Oaxaca, Mexico, July 6, 1874 (_Sci.

Am.

Sup.

_, 6-2365); two luminous bodies, seemingly united, visible five or six minutes, June 3, 1898 (_La Nature_, 1898-1-127); thing with a tail, crossing moon, transit half a minute, Sept.

26, 1870 (London _Times_, Sept.

30, 1870); object four or five times size of moon, moving slowly across sky, Nov.

1, 1885, near Adrianople (_L'Astronomie_, 1886-309); large body, colored red, moving slowly, visible 15 minutes, reported by Coggia, Marseilles, Aug.

1, 1871 (_Chem.

News_, 24-193);

details of this observation, and similar observation by Guillemin, and other instances by de Fonville (_Comptes Rendus_, 73-297, 755); thing that was large and that was stationary twice in seven minutes, Oxford, Nov.

19, 1847; listed by Lowe (_Rec.

Sci.

_, 1-136); grayish object that looked to be about three and a half feet long, rapidly approaching the earth at Saarbruck, April 1, 1826; sound like thunder; object expanding like a sheet (_Am.

Jour.

Sci.

_, 1-26-133; _Quar.

Jour.

Roy.

Inst.

_, 24-488); report by an astronomer, N. S.

Drayton, upon an object duration of which seemed to him extraordinary; duration three-quarters of a minute, Jersey City, July 6, 1882 (_Sci.

Amer.

_, 47-53); object like a comet, but with proper motion of 10 degrees an hour; visible one hour;

reported by Purine and Glancy from the Cordoba Observatory, Argentina, March 14, 1916 (_Sci.

Amer.

_, 115-493); something like a signal light, reported by Glaisher, Oct.

4, 1844; bright as Jupiter, "sending out quick flickering waves of light" (_Year Book of Facts_, 1845-278).

I think that with the object known as Eddie's "comet" passes away the last of our susceptibility to the common fallacy of personifying.

It is one of the most deep-rooted of positivist illusions--that people are persons.

We have been guilty too often of spleens and spites and ridicules against astronomers, as if they were persons, or final unities, individuals, completenesses, or selves--instead of indeterminate parts.

But, so long as we remain in quasi-existence, we can cast out illusion only with some other illusion, though the other illusion may approximate higher to reality.

So we personify no more--but we super-personify.

We now take into full acceptance our expression that Development is an Autocracy of Successive Dominants--which are not final--but which approximate higher to individuality or self-ness, than do the human tropisms that irresponsibly correlate to them.

Eddie reported a celestial object, from the Observatory at Grahamstown, South Africa.

It was in 1890. The New Dominant was only heir presumptive then, or heir apparent but not obvious.

The thing that Eddie reported might as well have been reported by a night watchman, who had looked up through an unplaced sewer pipe.

It did not correlate.

The thing was not admitted to _Monthly Notices_.

I think myself that if the Editor had attempted to let it in--earthquake--or a mysterious fire in his publishing house.

The Dominants are jealous gods.

In _Nature_, presumably a vassal of the new god, though of course also plausibly rendering homage to the old, is reported a comet-like body, of Oct.

27, 1890, observed at Grahamstown, by Eddie.

It may have looked comet-like, but it moved 100 degrees while visible, or one hundred degrees in three-quarters of an hour.

See _Nature_, 43-89, 90. In _Nature_, 44-519, Prof. Copeland describes a similar appearance that he had seen, Sept.

10, 1891. Dreyer says (_Nature_, 44-541) that he had seen this object at the Armagh Observatory.

He likens it to the object that was reported by Eddie.

It was seen by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, Sept.

11, 1891, in Nova Scotia.

But the Old Dominant was a jealous god.

So there were different observations upon something that was seen in November, 1883. These observations were Philistines in 1883. In the _Amer.

Met.

Jour.

_, 1-110, a correspondent reports having seen an object like a comet, with two tails, one up and one down, Nov.

10 or 12, 1883. Very likely this phenomenon should be placed in our expression upon torpedo-shaped bodies that have been seen in the sky--our data upon dirigibles, or super-Zeppelins--but our attempted classifications are far from rigorous--or are mere gropes.

In the _Scientific American_, 50-40, a correspondent writes from Humacao, Porto Rico, that, Nov.

21, 1883, he and several other--persons--or persons, as it were--had seen a majestic appearance, like a comet.

Visible three successive nights: disappeared then.

The Editor says that he can offer no explanation.

If accepted, this thing must have been close to the earth.

If it had been a comet, it would have been seen widely, and the news would have been telegraphed over the world, says the Editor.

Upon page 97 of this volume of the _Scientific American_, a correspondent writes that, at Sulphur Springs, Ohio, he had seen "a wonder in the sky," at about the same date.

It was torpedo-shaped, or something with a nucleus, at each end of which was a tail.

Again the Editor says that he can offer no explanation: that the object was not a comet.

He associates it with the atmospheric effects general in 1883. But it will be our expression that, in England and Holland, a similar object was seen in November, 1882. In the _Scientific American_, 40-294, is published a letter from Henry Harrison, of Jersey City, copied from the _New York Tribune_: that upon the evening of April 13, 1879, Mr. Harrison was searching for Brorsen's comet, when he saw an object that was moving so rapidly that it could not have been a comet.

He called a friend to look, and his observation was confirmed.

At two o'clock in the morning this object was still visible.

In the _Scientific American Supplement_, 7-2885, Mr. Harrison disclaims sensationalism, which he seems to think unworthy, and gives technical details: he says that the object was seen by Mr. J.

Spencer Devoe, of Manhattanville.