Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 1

A naked man in a city street—the track of a horse in volcanic mud—the mystery of reindeer’s ears—a huge, black form, like a whale, in the sky, and it drips red drops as if attacked by celestial swordfishes—an appalling cherub appears in the sea—

Confusions.

Showers of frogs and blizzards of snails—gushes of periwinkles down from the sky—

The preposterous, the grotesque, the incredible—and why, if I am going to tell of hundreds of these, is the quite ordinary so regarded?

An unclothed man shocks a crowd—a moment later, if nobody is generous with an overcoat, somebody is collecting handkerchiefs to knot around him.

A naked fact startles a meeting of a scientific society—and whatever it has for loins is soon diapered with conventional explanations.

Chaos and muck and filth—the indeterminable and the unrecordable and the unknowable—and all men are liars—and yet—

Wigwams on an island—sparks in their columns of smoke.

Centuries later—the uncertain columns are towers. What once were fluttering sparks are the motionless lights of windows. According to critics of Tammany Hall, there has been monstrous corruption upon this island: nevertheless, in the midst of it, this regularization has occurred. A woodland sprawl has sprung to stony attention.

The Princess Caraboo tells, of herself, a story, in an unknown language, and persons who were themselves liars have said that she lied, though nobody has ever known what she told. The story of Dorothy Arnold has been told thousands of times, but the story of Dorothy Arnold and the swan has not been told before. A city turns to a crater, and casts out eruptions, as lurid as fire, of living things—and where Cagliostro came from, and where he went, are so mysterious that only historians say they know—venomous snakes crawl on the sidewalks of London—and a star twinkles—

But the underlying oneness in all confusions.

An onion and a lump of ice—and what have they in common?

Traceries of ice, millions of years ago, forming on the surface of a pond—later, with different materials, these same forms will express botanically. If something had examined primordial frost, it could have predicted jungles. Times when there was not a living thing on the face of this earth—and, upon pyrolusite, there were etchings of forms that, after the appearance of cellulose, would be trees. Dendritic sketches, in silver and copper, prefigured ferns and vines.

Mineral specimens now in museums—calcites that are piles of petals—or that long ago were the rough notes of a rose. Scales, horns, quills, thorns, teeth, arrows, spears, bayonets—long before they were the implements and weapons of living things they were mineral forms. I know of an ancient sketch that is today a specimen in a museum—a colorful, little massacre that was composed of calcites ages before religion was dramatized—pink forms impaled upon mauve spears, sprinkled with drops of magenta. I know of a composition of barytes that appeared ages before the Israelites made what is said to be history—blue waves heaped high on each side of a drab streak of forms like the horns of cattle, heads of asses, humps of camels, turbans, and upheld hands.

Underlying oneness—

A new star appears—and just how remote is it from drops of water, of unknown origin, falling on a cottonwood tree, in Oklahoma? Just what have the tree and the star to do with the girl of Swanton Novers, upon whom gushed streams of oils? And why was a clergyman equally greasy? Earthquakes and droughts and the sky turns black with spiders, and, near Trenton, N. J., something pegged stones at farmers. If lights that have been seen in the sky were upon the vessels of explorers from other worlds—then living in New York City, perhaps, or in Washington, D. C., perhaps, there are inhabitants of Mars, who are secretly sending reports upon the ways of this world to their governments?

A theory feels its way through surrounding ignorance—the tendrils of a vine feel their way along a trellis—a wagon train feels its way across a prairie—

Underlying oneness—

Projections of limonite, in a suffusion of smoky quartz—it will be ages before this little mineral sketch can develop into the chimneys and the smoke of Pittsburgh. But it reproduces when a volcano blasts the vegetation on a mountain, and smoke-forms hang around the stumps of trees. Broken shafts of an ancient city in a desert—they are projections in the tattered gusts of a sandstorm. It’s Napoleon Bonaparte’s retreat from Moscow—ragged bands, in the grimy snow, stumbling amidst abandoned cannon.

Maybe it was only coincidence—or what may there be to Napoleon’s own belief that something was supervising him? Suppose it is that, in November, 1812, Napoleon’s work, as a factor in European readjustments, was done. There was no military power upon this earth that could remove this one, whose work was done. There came coldness so intense that it destroyed the Grand Army.

Human knowledge—and its fakes and freaks. An astronomer, insulated by his vanity, seemingly remote from the flops and frailties of everybody else, may not be so far away as he thinks he is. He calculates where an undiscovered planet will be seen. “Lo!”—as the astronomers like to say—it is seen. But, for some very distressing, if not delightful, particulars, see, later, an account of Lowell’s planet. Stars are said to be trillions of miles away, but there are many alleged remotenesses that are not so far away as they are said to be.

The Johnstown flood, and the smash of Peru, and the little nigger that was dragged to a police station—

******************

Terrified horses, up on their hind legs, hoofing a storm of frogs.

Frenzied springboks, capering their exasperations against frogs that were tickling them.

Storekeepers, in London, gaping at frogs that were tapping on their window panes.

We shall pick up an existence by its frogs.

Wise men have tried other ways. They have tried to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.

I have collected 294 records of showers of living things.

Have I?

Well, there’s no accounting for the freaks of industry.

It is the profound conviction of most of us that there never has been a shower of living things. But some of us have, at least in an elementary way, been educated by surprises out of much that we were “absolutely sure” of, and are suspicious of a thought, simply because it is a profound conviction.

I got the story of the terrified horses in the storm of frogs from Mr. George C. Stoker, of Lovelock, Nev. Mr. John Reid, of Lovelock, who is known to me as a writer upon geological subjects, vouches for Mr. Stoker, and I vouch for Mr. Reid. Mr. Stoker vouches for me. I have never heard of anything—any pronouncement, dogma, enunciation, or pontification—that was better substantiated.

What is a straight line? A straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Well, then, what is a shortest distance between two points? That is a straight line. According to the test of ages, the definition that a straight line is a straight line cannot be improved upon. I start with a logic as exacting as Euclid’s.

Mr. Stoker was driving along the Newark Valley, one of the most extensive of the desert regions of Nevada. Thunderstorm. Down came frogs. Up on their hind legs went the horses.

The exasperated springboks. They were told of, in the Northern News (Vryburg, Transvaal) March 21, 1925, by Mr. C. J. Grewar, of Uitenhage. Also I have a letter from Mr. Grewar.

The Flats—about 50 miles from Uitenhage—springboks leaping and shaking themselves unaccountably. At a distance, Mr. Grewar could conceive of no explanation of such eccentricities. He investigated, and saw that a rain of little frogs and fishes had pelted the springboks. Mr. Grewar heard that some time before, at the same place, there had been a similar shower.

Coffins have come down from the sky: also, as everybody knows, silk hats and horse collars and pajamas. But these things have come down at the time of a whirlwind. The two statements that I start with are that no shower exclusively of coffins, nor of marriage certificates, nor of alarm clocks has been recorded: but that showers exclusively of living things are common. And yet the explanation by orthodox scientists who accept that showers of living things have occurred is that the creatures were the products of whirlwinds. The explanation is that little frogs, for instance, fall from the sky, unmixed with anything else, because, in a whirlwind, the creatures were segregated, by differences in specific gravity. But when a whirlwind strikes a town, away go detachables in a monstrous mixture, and there’s no findable record of washtubs coming down in one place, all the town’s cats in one falling battle that lumps its infelicities in one place, and all the kittens coming down together somewhere else, in a distant bunch that miaows for its lump of mothers.

See London newspapers, Aug. 18 and 19, 1921—innumerable little frogs that appeared, during a thunderstorm, upon the 17th, in streets of the northern part of London.

I have searched in almost all London newspapers, and in many provincial newspapers, and in scientific publications. There is, find-able by .me, no mention of a whirlwind upon the 17th of August, and no mention of a fall from the sky of anything else that might be considered another segregated discharge from a whirlwind, if there had been a whirlwind.

A whirlwind runs amok, and is filled with confusions: and yet to the incoherences of such a thing have been attributed the neatest of classifications. I do not say that no wind ever scientifically classifies objects. I have seen orderly, or logical, segregations by wind-action. I ask for records of whirlwinds that do this. There is no perceptible science by a whirlwind, in the delivery of its images. It rants trees, doors, frogs, and parts of cows. But living things have fallen from the sky, or in some unknown way have appeared, and have arrived homogeneously. If they have not been segregated by winds, something has selected them.

There have been repetitions of these arrivals. The phenomenon of repetition, too, is irreconcilable with the known ways of whirlwinds. There is an account, in the London Daily News, Sept. 5, 1922, of little toads, which for two days had been dropping from the sky, at Chalon-sur-Saône, France.

Lies, yarns, hoaxes, mistakes—what’s the specific gravity of a lie, and how am I to segregate?

That could be done only relatively to a standard, and I have never heard of any standard, in any religion, philosophy, science, or complication of household affairs that could not be made to fit any requirement. We fit standards to judgments, or break any law that it pleases us to break, and fit to the fracture some other alleged law that we say is higher and nobler. We have conclusions, which are the products of senility or incompetence or credulity, and then argue from them to premises. We forget this process, and then argue from the premises, thinking we began there.

There are accounts of showering things that came from so far away that they were unknown in places where they arrived.

If only horses and springboks express emotions in these matters, we’ll be calm thinking that even living things may have been transported to this earth from other worlds.

Philadelphia Public Ledger, Aug. 8, 1891—a great shower of fishes, at Seymour, Ind. They were unknown fishes. Public Ledger, Feb. 6, 1890—a shower of fishes, in Montgomery County, California. “The fishes belong to a species altogether unknown here.” New York Sun, May 29, 1892—a shower, at Coalburg, Alabama, of an enormous number of eels that were unknown in Alabama. Somebody said that he knew of such eels, in the Pacific Ocean. Piles of them in the streets—people alarmed—farmers coming with carts, and taking them away for fertilizing material.

Our subject has been treated scientifically, or too scientifically. There have been experiments. I have no more of an ill opinion of experimental science than I have of everything else, but I have been an experimenter, myself, and have impressions of the servile politeness of experiments. They have such an obliging, or ingratiating, way that there’s no trusting the flatterers. In the Redruth (Cornwall, England) Independent, Aug. 13, and following issues, 1886, correspondents tell of a shower of snails near Redruth. There were experiments. One correspondent, who believed that the creatures were sea snails, put some in salt water. They lived. Another correspondent, who believed that they were not sea snails, put some in salt water. They died.

I do not know how to find out anything new without being offensive. To the ignorant, all things are pure: all knowledge is, or implies, the degradation of something. One who learns of metabolism, looks at a Venus, and realizes she’s partly rotten. However, she smiles at him, and he renews his ignorance. All things in the sky are pure to those who have no telescopes. But spots on the sun, and lumps on the planets—and, being a person of learning, or, rather, erudition, myself, I’ve got to besmirch something, or nobody will believe I am—and I replace the pure, blue sky with the wormy heavens

London Evening Standard, Jan. 3, 1924—red objects falling with snow at Halmstead, Sweden.

They were red worms, from one to four inches in length. Thousands of them streaking down with the snowflakes—red ribbons in a shower of confetti—a carnival scene that boosts my discovery that meteorology is a more picturesque science than most persons, including meteorologists, have suspected—and I fear me that my attempt to besmirch has not been successful, because the worms of heaven seem to be a jolly lot. However, I cheer up at thought of chances to come, because largely I shall treat of human nature.

But how am I to know whether these things fell from the sky in Sweden, or were imagined in Sweden?

I shall be scientific about it. Said Sir Isaac Newton—or virtually said he—”If there is no change in the direction of a moving body, the direction of a moving body is not changed.” “But,” continued he, “if something be changed, it is changed as much as it is changed.” So red worms fell from the sky, in Sweden, because from the sky, in Sweden, red worms fell. How do geologists determine the age of rocks? By the fossils in them. And how do they deter mine the age of the fossils? By the rocks they’re in. Having started with the logic of Euclid, I go on with the wisdom of a Newton.

New Orleans Daily Picayune, Feb. 4, 1892—enormous numbers of unknown brown worms that had fallen from the sky, near Clifton, Indiana. San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 14, 1892—myriads of unknown scarlet worms—somewhere in Massachusetts—not seen to fall from the sky, but found, covering several acres, after a snowstorm.

It is as if with intelligence, or with the equivalence of intelligence, something has specialized upon transporting, or distributing, immature and larval forms of life. If the gods send worms, that would be kind if we were robins.

In Insect Life, 1892, p. 335, the Editor, Prof. C. V. Riley, tells of four other mysterious appearances of worms, early in the year 1892. Some of the specimens he could not definitely identify. It is said that at Lancaster, Pa., people in a snowstorm caught falling worms on their umbrellas.

The wise men of our tribes have tried to find God in a poem, or in whatever they think they mean by a moral sense in people, or in inscriptions in a book of stone, which by one of the strangest freaks of omission is not now upon exhibition in from fifteen to twenty synagogues in Asia Minor, and all up and down Italy—

Crabs and periwinkles—

Ordinary theologians have overlooked crabs and periwinkles—

Or mystery versus the fishmonger.

Upon May 28, 1881, near the city of Worcester, England, a fishmonger, with a procession of carts, loaded with several kinds of crabs and periwinkles, and with a dozen energetic assistants, appeared at a time when nobody on a busy road was looking. The fishmonger and his assistants grabbed sacks of periwinkles, and ran in a frenzy, slinging the things into fields on both sides of the road. They raced to gardens, and some assistants, standing on the shoulders of other assistants, had sacks lifted to them, and dumped sacks over the high walls. Meanwhile other assistants, in a dozen carts, were furiously shoveling out periwinkles, about a mile along the road. Also, meanwhile, several boys were busily mixing in crabs. They were not advertising anything. Above all there was secrecy. The cost must have been hundreds of dollars. They appeared without having been seen on the way, and they melted away equally mysteriously. There were houses all around, but nobody saw them.

Would I be so kind as to tell what, in the name of some slight approximation to sanity, I mean by telling such a story?

But it is not my story. The details are mine, but I have put them in, strictly in accordance with the circumstances. There was, upon May 28, 1881, an occurrence near Worcester, and the conventional explanation was that a fishmonger did it. Inasmuch as he did it unobserved, if he did it, and inasmuch as he did it with tons upon acres, if he did it, he did it as I have described, if he did it.

In Land and Water, June 4, 1881, a correspondent writes that, in a violent thunderstorm, near Worcester, tons of periwinkles had come down from the sky, covering fields and a road, for about a mile. In the issue of June 11th, the Editor of Land and Water writes that specimens had been sent to him. He notes the mysterious circumstance, or the indication of a selection of living things, that appears in virtually all the accounts. He comments upon an enormous fall of sea creatures, unaccompanied by sand, pebbles, other shells, and seaweed.

In the Worcester Daily Times, May 30, it is said that, upon the 28th, news had reached Worcester of a wonderful fall from the sky of periwinkles on Cromer Gardens Road, and spread far around in fields and gardens. Mostly, people of Worcester were incredulous, but some had gone to the place. Those who had faith returned with periwinkles.

Two correspondents then wrote that they had seen the periwinkles upon the road before the storm, where probably a fishmonger had got rid of them. So the occurrence conventionalized, and out of these surmises arose the story of the fishmonger, though it has never been told before, as I have told it.

Mr. J. Lloyd Bozward, a writer whose notes on meteorological subjects are familiar to readers of scientific periodicals of this time, was investigating, and his findings were published in the Worcester Evening Post, June 9th. As to the story of the fishmonger, note his statement that the value of periwinkles was 16 shillings a bushel. He says that a wide area on both sides of the road was strewn with periwinkles, hermit crabs, and small crabs of an unascertained species. Worcester is about 30 miles from the mouth of the River Severn, or, say, about 50 miles from the sea. Probably no fishmonger in the world ever had, at one time, so many periwinkles, but as to anybody having got rid of a stock, because of a glutted market, for instance, Mr. Bozward says: “Neither upon Saturday, the 28th, nor Friday, the 27th, was there such a thing procurable in Worcester as a live periwinkle.” Gardens as well as fields were strewn. There were high walls around these gardens. Mr. Bozward tells of about 10 sacks of periwinkles, of a value of about £20, in the markets of Worcester, that, to his knowledge, had been picked up. Crowds had filled pots and pans and bags and trunks before he got to the place. “In Mr. Maund’s garden, two sacks were filled with them.” It is his conclusion that the things fell from the sky during the thunderstorm. So his is the whirlwind-explanation.

There are extraordinary occurrences, and conventionalization cloaks them, and the more commonplace the cloakery, the more satisfactory. Periwinkles appear upon a tract of land, through which there is a road. A fishmonger did it.

But the crabs and the fishmonger—and if the fishmonger did the periwinkles, did he do the crabs, if he did it?

Or the crabs and the whirlwind—and, if the periwinkles were segregated from pebbles and seaweed, why not from the crabs, if segregation did it?

The strongest point for the segregationists is in their own mental processes, which illustrate that segregations, whether by wind action, or not, do occur. If they have periwinkles and crabs to explain, and, say, that with a story of a fishmonger, or of a whirlwind, they can explain the periwinkles, though so they cannot explain the crabs, a separation of data occurs in their mentalities They forget the crabs and tell of the periwinkles.

Chapter 2

Frogs and fishes and worms—and these are the materials of our expression upon all things.

Hops and flops and squirms—and these are the motions.

But we have been considering more than matter and motion, to start with: we have been considering attempts by scientists to explain them. By explanation, I mean organization. There is more than matter and motion in our existence: there is organization of matter and motion.

Nobody takes a little clot that is central in a disease germ, as Absolute Truth; and the latest scientific discovery is only something for ideas to systematize around. But there is this systematization, or organization, and we shall have to consider it.

There is no more meaning—though that may be utmost meaning—to arrangements of observations, than there is to arrangements of protoplasm in a microbe, but it must be noted that scientific explanations do often work out rather well—but say in medical treatments, if ailments are mostly fancied; or in stock-market transactions, except in a crisis; or in expert testimony in the courts, except when set aside by other expert testimony—

But they are based upon definitions—

And in phenomenal existence there is nothing that is independent of everything else. Given that there is Continuity, everything is a degree or aspect of whatever everything else is. Consequently there is no way of defining anything, except in terms of itself. Try any alleged definition. What is an island? An island is a body of land completely surrounded by water. And what is a body of land that is completely surrounded by water?

Among savage tribesmen, there is a special care for, or even respectfulness for, the mentally afflicted. They are regarded as in some obscure way representing God’s chosen. We recognize the defining of a thing in terms of itself, as a sign of feeble-mindedness. All scientists begin their works with just such definitions, implied, if not stated. And among our tribes there is a special care for, or even respectfulness for, scientists.

It will be an expression of mine that there is a godness in this idiocy. But, no matter what sometimes my opinion may be, I am not now writing that God is an Idiot. Maybe he, or it, drools comets and gibbers earthquakes, but the scale would have to be considered at least super-idiocy.

I conceive, or tell myself that I conceive, that if we could have a concept of our existence as a whole, we could have a kind of understanding of it, rather akin to what, say, cells in an animal organism could have of what is a whole to them, if they should not be mere scientists, trying to find out what a bone is, or the flow of blood in a vein is, in itself; but if they could comprehend what the structures and functions of the Organism are, in terms of Itself.

The attempted idea of Existence as Organism is one of the oldest of the pseudo-thoughts of philosophy. But the idea in this book is not metaphysical. Metaphysical speculations are attempts to think unthinkably, and it is quite hard enough to think thinkably. There can be nothing but bafflement for anybody who tries to think of Existence as Organism: our attempt will be to think of an existence as an organism. Having a childish liking for a little rhetoric, now and then, I shall call it God.

Our expressions are in terms of Continuity. If all things merge away into one another, or transmute into one another, so that nothing can be defined, they are of a oneness, which may be the oneness of one existence. I state that, though I accept that there is continuity, I accept that also there is discontinuity But there is no need, in this book, to go into the subject of continuity-discontinuity, because no statement that I shall make, as a monist, will be set aside by my pluralism. There is a Oneness that both submerges and individualizes.

By the continuity of all things we have, with a hop and a flop and a squirm, jumped from frogs toward finality. We have rejected whirlwinds and the fishmonger, and have incipient notions upon a selectiveness and an intelligent, or purposeful, distribution of living things.

What is selecting and what is distributing?

The old-fashioned theologian thinks of a being, with the looks of himself, standing aside somewhere and directing operations.

What, in any organism, is selecting and distributing—say, oxygen in lungs, and materials in stomachs?

The organism itself.

If we can think of our existence as a conceivable-sized formation—perhaps one of countless things, beings, or formations in the cosmos—we have graspableness, or we have the outlines and the limits within which to think.

We look up at the stars. The look is of a revolving shell that is not far away. And against such a view there is no opposition except by an authoritative feeble-mindedness, which most of us treat respectfully, because such is the custom in all more or less savage tribes.

Mostly in this book I shall specialize upon indications that there exists a transportory force that I shall call Teleportation. I shall be accused of having assembled lies, yarns, hoaxes, and superstitions. To some degree I think so, myself. To some degree I do not. I offer the data.

Chapter 3

The subject of reported falls from the sky, of an edible substance, in Asia Minor, is confused, because reports have been upon two kinds of substances. It seems that the sugar-like kind cannot be accepted. In July, 1927, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem sent an expedition to the Sinai Peninsula to investigate reported showers of “manna.” See the New York Times, Dec. 4, 1927. Members of the expedition found what they called “manna” upon leaves of tamarisk trees, and on the ground underneath, and explained that it was secreted by insects. But the observations of this expedition have nothing to do with data, or stories, of falls from the sky of fibrous, convoluted lumps of a substance that can be ground into an edible flour. A dozen times, since early in the 19th century—and I have no definitely dated data upon still earlier occurrences—have been reported showers of “manna” in Asia Minor.

An early stage within the shell of an egg—and a protoplasmic line of growth feels out through surrounding substance—and of itself it has no means of subsistence, or of itself it is lost. Nourishment and protection and guidance come to it from the whole.

Or, in wider existence—several thousand years ago—a line of fugitives feels out in a desert. It will be of use to coming social organizations. But in the desert, it is unprovided for and is withering. Food falls from the sky.

It is one of the most commonplace of miracles. Within any womb an embryonic thing is unable to provide for itself, but “manna” is sent to it. Given an organic view of an existence, we think of the supervision of a whole upon its parts.

Or that once upon a time, a whole responded to the need of a part, and then kept on occasionally showering “manna” thousands of years after a special need for it had ceased. This looks like stupidity. It is in one of my moments of piety that I say this, because, though in our neo-theology there is no worship, I note that in this conception of what we may call godness, I supply grounds for devotions. Let a god change anything, and there will be reactions of evil as much as of good. Only stupidity can be divine.

Or occasional falls of “manna,” to this day, in Asia Minor, may be only one factor in a wider continuance. It may be that an Organism, having once showered a merely edible substance upon its chosen phenomena, has been keeping this up, as a symbol of favoritism, by which said chosen phenomena have been receiving abundances of “manna” in many forms, ever since.

The substance that occasionally falls from the sky, in Asia Minor, comes from far away. The occurrences are far apart, in time, and always the substance is unknown where it falls, and its edibleness is sometimes found out by the sight of sheep eating it. Then it is gathered and sold in the markets. We are told that it has been identified as a terrestrial product. We are told that these showers are aggregations of Lecanora esculenta, a lichen that grows plentifully in Algeria. We are told that whirlwinds catch up these lichens, lying loose, or easily detachable, on the ground. But note this:

There have been no such reported showers in Algeria.

There have been no such reported showers in places between Algeria and Asia Minor.

The nearest similarity that I can think of is of tumble weeds, in the Western States, though tumble weeds are much larger. Well, then, new growths of them, when they’re not much larger. But I have never heard of a shower of tumble weeds. Probably the things are often carried far by whirlwinds, but only scoot along the ground. A story that would be similar to stories of lichens, from Algeria, falling in Asia Minor, would be of tumble weeds, never falling in showers, in Western States, but repeatedly showering in Ontario, Canada, having been carried there by whirlwinds.

Out of a dozen records, I mention that, in Nature, 43-255, and in La Nature, 36-82, are accounts of one of the showers, in Asia Minor. The Director of the Central Dispensary of Bagdad had sent to France specimens of an edible substance that had fallen from the sky, at Meridin, and at Diarbekis (Turkey in Asia) in a heavy rain, the last of May, 1890. They were convoluted lumps, yellow outside and white inside. They were ground into flour from which excellent bread was made. According to the ready-made convention, botanists said that the objects were specimens of Lecanora esculenta, lichens that had been carried in a whirlwind.

London Daily Mail, Aug. 13, 1913—that streets in the town of Kirkmanshaws, Persia, had been covered with seeds, which the people thought were the manna of biblical times. The Royal Botanical Society had been communicated with, and had explained that the objects had been carried from some other part of this earth’s surface by a whirlwind. “They were white in substance, and of a consistency of Indian corn.”

I believe nothing. I have shut myself away from the rocks and wisdoms of ages, and from the so-called great teachers of all time, and perhaps because of that isolation I am given to bizarre hospitalities. I shut the front door upon Christ and Einstein, and at the back door hold out a welcoming hand to little frogs and periwinkles. I believe nothing of my own that I have ever written. I cannot accept that the products of minds are subject-matter for beliefs. But I accept, with reservations that give me freedom to ridicule the statement at any other time, that showers of an edible substance that has not been traced to an origin upon this earth, have fallen from the sky, in Asia Minor.

There have been suggestions that unknown creatures and unknown substances have been transported to this earth from other fertile worlds, or from other parts of one system, or organism, a composition of distances that are small relatively to the unthinkable spans that astronomers think they can think of.

There have been suggestions of a purposeful distribution in this existence. Purpose in Nature is thinkable, without conventional theological interpretations, if we can conceive of our existence, or the so-called solar system, and the stars around, as one organic state, formation, or being.

I can make no demarcation between the organic, or the functional, and the purposeful. When, in an animal-organism, osteoblasts appear and mend a broken bone, they represent purpose, whether they know what they’re doing or not. Any adaptation may be considered an expression of purpose, if by purpose we mean nothing but intent upon adaptation. If we can think of our whole existence, perhaps one of countless organisms in the cosmos, as one organism, we can call its functions and distributions either organic or purposeful, or mechanically purposeful.

Chapter 4

Over the town of Noirfontaine, France, one day in April, 1842, there was a cloudless sky, but drops of water were falling. See back to data upon repetitions. The water was falling, as if from a fixed appearing-point, somewhere above the ground, to a definite area beneath. The next day water was still falling upon this one small area, as mysteriously as if a ghost aloft were holding the nozzle of an invisible’ hose.

I take this account from the journal of the French Academy of Sciences (Comptes Rendus), vol. 14, p. 664.

What do I mean by that?

I don’t mean anything by that. At the same time, I do mean something by the meaninglessness of that. I mean that we are in the helpless state of a standardless existence, and that the appeal to authority is as much of a wobble as any other of our insecurities.

Nevertheless, though I know of no standards by which to judge anything, I conceive—or accept the idea—of something that is The Standard, if I can think of our existence as an Organism. If human thought is a growth, like all other growths, its logic is without foundation of its own, and is only the adjusting constructiveness of all other growing things. A tree cannot find out, as it were, how to blossom, until comes blossom-time. A social growth cannot find out the use of steam engines, until comes steam-engine-time. For whatever is supposed to be meant by progress, there is no need in human minds for standards of their own: this is in the sense that no part of a growing plant needs guidance of its own devising, nor special knowledge of its own as to how to become a leaf or a root. It needs no base of its own, because the relative wholeness of the plant is relative baseness to its parts. At the same time, in the midst of this theory of submergence, I do not accept that human minds are absolute nonentities, just as I do not accept that a leaf, or a root, of a plant, though so dependent upon a main body, and so clearly only a part, is absolutely without something of an individualizing touch of its own.

It is the problem of continuity-discontinuity, which perhaps I shall have to take up sometime.

However—

London Times, April 26, 1821—that the inhabitants of Truro, Cornwall, were amused, astonished, or alarmed, “according to nerve and judgment,” by arrivals of stones, from an unfindable source, upon a house in Carlow Street. The mayor of the town visited the place, and was made so nervous by the rattling stones that he called out a military guard. He investigated, and the soldiers investigated, and the clatter of theorists increased the noise. Times, May 1—stones still rattling, theorists still clattering, but nothing found out.

Flows of frogs—flows of worms—flows of water—flows of stones—just where do we expect to draw a line? Why not go on to thinking that there have been mysterious transportations of human beings?

We’ll go on.

A great deal of the opposition to our data is connotative. Most likely when Dr. Gilbert rubbed a rod and made bits of paper jump on a table, the opposition to his magic was directed not so much against what he was doing as against what it might lead to. Witchcraft always has a hard time, until it becomes established and changes its name.

We hear much of the conflict between science and religion, but our conflict is with both of these. Science and religion always have agreed in opposing and suppressing the various witchcrafts. Now that religion is inglorious, one of the most fantastic of transferences of worships is that of glorifying science, as a beneficent being. It is the attributing of all that is of development, or of possible betterment to science. But no scientist has ever upheld a new idea, without bringing upon himself abuse from other scientists. Science has done its utmost to prevent whatever Science has done.

There are cynics who deny the existence of human gratitude. But it seems that I am no cynic. So convinced am I of the existence of gratitude that I see in it one of our strongest oppositions. There are millions of persons who receive favors that they forget: but gratitude does exist, and they’ve got to express it somewhere. They take it out by being grateful to science for all that science has done for them, a gratitude, which, according to their dull perceptions won’t cost them anything. So there is economic indignation against anybody who is disagreeable to science. He is trying to rob the people of a cheap gratitude.

I like a bargain as well as does anybody else, but I can’t save expenses by being grateful to Science, if for every scientist who has perhaps been of benefit to me, there have been many other scientists who have tried to strangle that possible benefit. Also, if I’m dead broke, I don’t get benefits to be grateful for.

Resistance to notions in this book will come from persons who identify industrial science, and the good of it, with the pure, or academic, or aristocratic sciences that are living on the repute of industrial science. In my own mind there is distinguishment between a good watchdog and the fleas on him. If the fleas, too, could be taught to bark, there’d be a little chorus that would be of some tiny value. But fleas are aristocrats.

London Times, Jan. 13, 1843—that, according to the Courrier de l’Isère, two little girls, last of December, 1842, were picking leaves from the ground, near Clavaux (Livet), France, when they saw stones falling around them. The stones fell with uncanny slowness. The children ran to their homes, and told of the phenomenon, and returned with their parents. Again stones fell, and with the same uncanny slowness. It is said that relatively to these falls the children were attractive agents. There was another phenomenon, an upward current, into which the children were dragged, as if into a vortex. We might have had data of mysterious disappearances of children, but the parents, who were unaffected by the current, pulled them back.

In the Toronto Globe, Sept. 9, 1880, a correspondent writes that he had heard reports of most improbable occurrences upon a farm, near the township of Wellesley, Ontario. He went to the place, to interview the farmer, Mr. Manser. As he approached the farmhouse, he saw that all the windows were boarded up. He learned that, about the end of July, windows had begun to break, though no missiles had been seen. The explanation by the incredulous was that the old house was settling. It was a good explanation, except for what it overlooked. To have any opinion, one must overlook something. The disregard was that, quite as authentic as the stories of breaking windows, were stories of falls of water in the rooms, having passed through walls, showing no trace of such passage. It is said that water had fallen in such volumes, from appearing-points in rooms, that the furniture of the house had been moved to a shed. In all our records openness of phenomena is notable. The story is that showers fell in rooms, when the farmhouse was crowded with people. For more details see the Halifax Citizen, September 13.

I omit about sixty instances of seeming teleportations of stones and water, of which I have records. Numerousness hasn’t any meaning, as a standard to judge by.

The simplest cases of seeming teleportations are flows of stones, into open fields, doing no damage, not especially annoying anybody, and in places where there were no means of concealment for mischievous or malicious persons. There is a story of this kind, in the New York Sun, June 22, 1884. June 16th—a farm near Trenton, N. J.—two young men, George and Albert Sanford, hoeing in a field—stones falling. There was no building anywhere near, and there was not even a fence behind which anybody could hide. The next day stones fell again. The young men dropped their hoes and ran to Trenton, where they told of their experiences. They returned with forty or fifty amateur detectives, who spread out and tried to observe something, or more philosophically sat down and arrived at conclusions without observing anything. Crowds came to the cornfield. In the presence of crowds, stones continued to fall from a point overhead. Nothing more was found out.

A pig and his swill—

Or Science and data—

Or that the way of a brain is only the way of a belly—

We can call the process that occurs in them either assimilative or digestive. The mind-worshiper might as well take guts for his god.

For many strange occurrences there are conventional explanations. In the mind of a conventionalist, reported phenomena assimilate with conventional explanations. There must be disregards. The mind must reject some data. This process, too, is both alimentary and mental.

The conventional explanation of mysterious flows of stones is that they are peggings by neighbors. I have given data as I have found them. Maybe they are indigestible. The conventional explanation of mysterious flows of water is that they are exudations from insects. If so there must sometimes be torrential bugs.

New York Sun, Oct. 30, 1892—that, day after day, in Oklahoma, where for weeks there had been a drought, water was falling upon a large cottonwood tree, near Stillwater. A conventionalist visited this tree. He found insects. In Insect Life, 5-204, it is said that the Stillwater mystery had been solved. Dr. Neel, Director of the Agricultural Experimental Station, at Stillwater, had gone to the tree, and had captured some of the insects that were causing the precipitation. They were Proconia undata Fab.

And how am I going to prove that this was a senseless, or brutal, or anyway mechanical, assimilation?

We don’t have proofs. We have expressions.

Our expression is that this precipitation in Oklahoma was only one of perhaps many. We find three other recorded instances, at this time, and if they be not attributable to exudations from insects—but we’ll not prove anything. There is a theorem that Euclid never attempted. That is to take Q. E. D. as a proposition.

In Science, 21-94, Mr. H. Chaplin, of Ohio University, writes that, in the town of Akron, Ohio—about while water was falling upon a tree in Oklahoma—there had been a continuous fall of water, during a succession of clear days. Members of the faculty of Ohio University had investigated, but had been unable to solve the problem. There was a definite and persisting appearing-point from which to a small area near a brickyard, water was falling. Mr. Chaplin, who had probably never heard of similar occurrences far from damp places, thought that vapors from this brickyard were rising, and condensing, and falling back. If so there would often be such precipitations over ponds and other bodies of water.

About the same time, water was mysteriously appearing at Martinsville, Ohio, according to the Philadelphia Public Ledger, Oct. 19, 1892. Behind a house, a mist was falling upon an area not more than a dozen feet square. St. Louis Globe-Democrat, November 19—that, in Water Street, Brownsville, Pa., there was a garden, in which was a peach tree, upon which water was falling. As to the insect-explanation, we note the statement that the water “seemed to fall from some height above the tree, and covered an area about 14 feet square.”

For all I know, some trees may have occult powers. Perhaps some especially gifted trees have power to transport water, from far away, in times of need. I noted the drought in Oklahoma, and then I looked up conditions in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Rainfall was below normal. In Ohio, according to the Monthly Weather Review, of November, there was a drought. A watery manna came to chosen trees.

There is no sense in trying to prove anything, if all things are continuous, so that there isn’t anything, except the inclusive of all, which may be Something. But aesthetically, if not scientifically, there may be value in expressions, and we’ll have variations of our theme. There were, in places far apart, simultaneous flows of water from stationary appearing-points, in and around Charleston, S. C., in the period of the long series of earthquake shocks there. Later I shall touch more upon an idea that will be an organic interpretation of falls of water in places that have been desolated by catastrophes. About the middle of September, 1886, falling water from “a cloudless sky,” never falling outside a spot 25 feet wide, was reported from Dawson, Ga. This shower was not intermittent. Of course the frequently mentioned circumstance of the “cloudless sky” has no significance. Water falling all the way from the sky, even at times of the slightest breezes, cannot be thought of as localizing strictly upon an area a few yards in diameter. We think of appearing-points a short distance above the ground. Then showers upon a space 10 feet square were reported from Aiken, S. C. There were similar falls of water at Cheraw, S. C. For particulars, see the Charleston News and Courier, October 8, 21, 25, 26. For an account of falls of water, “from a cloudless sky,” strictly to one point, in Charlotte, N. C., according to investigations by a meteorologist, see the Monthly Weather Review, October, 1886. In the New York Sun, October 24, it is said that, for 14 days, water had been falling from “a cloudless sky,” to a point in Chesterfield County, S. C., falling so heavily that streams of it had gushed from roof pipes.

Then came news that water was falling from a point in Charleston.

Several days before, in the News and Courier, had been published the insect-explanation of falls of water. In the News and Courier, November 5, a reporter tells that he had visited the place in Charleston, where it was said that water was falling, and that he had seen a fall of water. He had climbed a tree to investigate. He had seen insects.

But there are limits to what can be attributed, except by the most desperate explainers, to insects.

In the Monthly Weather Review, August, 1886, it is said that, in Charleston, September 4th, three showers of hot stones had been reported.

“An examination of some of these stones, shortly after they had fallen, forced the conviction that the public was being made the victim of a practical joke.”

How an examination of stones could demonstrate whether they had been slung humorously or not, is more than whatever brains I have can make out. Upon September 4th, Charleston was desolated. The great earthquake had occurred upon August 31st, and continuing shocks were terrorizing the people. Still, I’d go far from my impressions of what we call existence, if I’d think that terror, or anything else, was ever homogeneous at Charleston, or anywhere else. Battles and shipwrecks, and especially diseases, are materials for humorists, and the fun of funerals never will be exhausted. I don’t argue that in the midst of desolation and woe, at Charleston, there were no jokers. I tell a story as I found it recorded in the Charleston News and Courier, September 6, and mention my own conclusion, which is that wherever jocular survivors of the catastrophe may have been cutting up capers, they were not concerned in this series of occurrences.

At 2:30 o’clock, morning of September 4th, stones, which were found to be “warm,” fell near the News and Courier building, some of them bounding into the press room. Five hours later, when there was no darkness to hide mischievous survivors, more stones fell. It was a strictly localized repetition, as if one persisting current of force. At 1:30 o’clock in the afternoon again stones fell, and these were seen, coming straight down from a point overhead. If any conviction was forced, it was forced in the same old way as that in which for ages convictions have been forced, and that is by forcing agreements with prior convictions. Other details were published in the Richmond Whig: it was told that the stones, which were flint pebbles, ranging from the size of a grape to the size of a hen’s egg, had fallen upon an area of 75 square feet, and that about a gallon of them had been picked up. In A Descriptive Narrative of the Earthquake of August 31, 1886, Carl McKinley, an editor of the News and Courier, tells of two of these showers of stones, which, according to him, “undoubtedly fell.”

The localized repetitions of showers of stones are so much like the localized repetitions of showers of water, that one, inclusive explanation, or expression, is called for. Insects did them? Or the fishmonger of Worcester had moved to South Carolina?

A complication has been developing. Little frogs fell upon Mr. Stoker and his horses, but we had no reason to think that either Mr. Stoker or his horses had anything to do with bringing about the precipitation. But the children of Clavaux did seem to have something to do with showers of stones, and trees did seem to have something to do with the precipitations of water.

Rand Daily Mail, May 29, 1922—that Mr. D. Neaves, living near Roodeport, employed as a chemist in Johannesburg, having for several months endured showers of stones, had finally reported to the police. Five constables, having been sent to the place, after dark, had hardly taken positions around the house, when a stone crashed on the roof. Phenomena were thought to associate with the housemaid, a Hottentot girl. She was sent into the garden, and stones fell vertically around her. This is said to have been one of the most mysterious of the circumstances: stones fell vertically, so that there was no tracing of them to an origin. Mr. Neaves’ home was an isolated building, except for outhouses. These outhouses were searched, but nothing to suspect was found. The stones continued to fall from an unknown source.

Police Inspector Cummings took charge. He ordered all members of the family, servants, and newspaper men to remain in the house for a while: so everybody was under inspection. Outside were constables, and all around were open fields, with no means of concealment. Stones fell on the roof. Watched by the police, the Hottentot girl went to the well. A large stone fell near her. She ran back to the house, and a stone fell on the roof. It is said that everything that could be done was done, and that the cordon of police was complete. More stones fell. Convinced that in some way the girl was implicated, the Inspector tied her hands. A stone fell on the roof.

Then everything was explained. A “civilian,” concealed in one of the outhouses, had been caught throwing a stone. If so, whoever wrote this account did not mention the name of the culprit, and it is not said that the police made any trouble for him for having made them work.

Then everything was explained again. It was said that the girl, Sara, had been taken to the police station, where she had confessed. “It is understood that Sara admits being a party to all the stone-throwing, and has implicated two other children and a grown native. So ends the Roodeport ghost story, shorn of all its alleged supernatural trappings.”

Though usually we do not think piously of the police, their stations are confessionals. But they’re confessionals more in a scientific than in a religious sense. When a confessor holds a club over a conscience, he can bully statements with the success of any scientist who slugs data with a theory. There is much brutality in police stations and in laboratories, but I can’t say that we’re trying to reform anything; and if there never has been a Newton, or a Darwin, or an Einstein—or a Moses, or a Christ, or a St. Augustine—who has practiced other than the third degree upon circumstances, I fear me that sometimes we are not innocent of one or two degrees, ourselves.

However, the story reads more as if the girl had been taken to a barber shop. Her story was shorn, we read. It was clipped bald of all details, such as the cordon of police, search of the outhouses, and the taking of precautions, such as will not fit in with this yarn of the tricky kids. In this book we shall note much shearing.

The writer, in the Monthly Weather Review, is not the only clipper who forces a conviction, when he can. There was a case, in another part of South Africa, not long before the bombardments at Roodeport began. In the Klerksdorp Record, Nov. 18, 1921, it is said that for several weeks there had been “mysterious stonethrowing by invisible agencies” at the houses of Mr. Gibbon Joseph and Mr. H. J. Minnaar, in North Street. A detective was put upon the case. He was a logician. It was a ghost story, or it was a case of malicious mischief. He could not pinch a ghost. So he accused two Negroes, and arrested them. The Negroes were tried upon testimony given by two boys of their race. But the boys contradicted each other, and it was brought out that they were lying. They admitted that the logical detective had promised them five shillings to substantiate his syllogisms.

In the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 12-260, is published a letter from Mr. W. G. Grottendieck, telling that, about one o’clock, one morning in September, 1903, at Dortrecht, Sumatra, he was awakened by hearing something fall on the floor of his room. Sounds of falling objects went on. He found that little, black stones were falling, with uncanny slowness, from the ceiling, or the roof, which was made of large, overlapping, dried leaves. Mr. Grottendieck writes that these stones were appearing near the inside of the roof, not puncturing the material, if through this material they were passing. He tried to catch them at the appearing-point, but, though they moved with extraordinary slowness, they evaded him. There was a coolie boy, asleep in the house, at the time. “The boy certainly did not do it, because at the time that I bent over him, while he was sleeping on the floor, there fell a couple of stones.” There was no police station handy, and this story was not finished off with a neat and fashionable cut.

I point out that these stories of flows of stones are not conventional stories, and are not well known. Their details are not standardized, like “clanking chains” in ghost stories, and “eyes the size of saucers,” in sea serpent yarns. Somebody in France, in the year 1842, told of slow-moving stones, and somebody in Sumatra, in the year 1903, told of slow-moving stones. It would be strange, if two liars should invent this circumstance—

And that is where I get, when I reason.

If strangeness be a standard for unfavorable judgment, I damn at a swipe most of this book.

But damnation is nothing to me. I offer the data. Suit yourself. Nobody can investigate the reported phenomena that we’re taking up, without noticing the number of cases in which boys and girls, but a great preponderance of girls, appear. An explanation by those who disregard a great deal—or disregard normally—is that youngsters are concerned so much, because it is their own mischief. Poltergeist-phenomena, or teleportations of objects, in the home of Mr. Frost, 8 Ferrostone-road, Hornsey, London, for several months, early in the year 1921, cannot be so explained. There were three children. Phenomena so frightened one of them that, in a nervous breakdown, she died (London Daily Express, April 2, 1921). Another, in a similar condition, was taken to the Lewisham (London) Hospital (London Daily News, April 30, 1921).

In attempting to rationalize various details that we have come upon, or to assimilate them, or to digest them, the toughest meal is swallowing statements upon mysterious appearances in closed rooms, or passages of objects and substances through walls of houses, without disturbing the material of the walls. Oh, yes, I have heard of “the fourth dimension,” but I am going to do myself some credit by not lugging in that particular way of showing that I don’t know what I’m writing about. There’s a story in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Jan. 27, 1888—large stones that were appearing and “falling slowly” in closed rooms in the home of Mr. P. C. Martin, Caldwell County, N. C. Madras (India) Mail, March 5, 1888—pieces of brick that, in the presence of many investigators, were falling in a schoolroom, in Pondicherry.

I can understand this phenomenon, or alleged phenomenon, of appearances in closed rooms, no more than I can understand the passage of a magnetic field of force through the wall of a house, without disturbing the material. But lines of this force do not transport objects through a dense material. Then I think of X-rays, which do something like this, if it be accepted that X-rays are aggregations of very small objects, or particles. X-rays do, or sometimes do, disturb materials penetrated by them, but this disturbance is not evident until after long continuance.

If there is Teleportation, it is in two orders, or fields: electric and non-electric—or phenomena that occur during thunderstorms, and phenomena that occur under “a cloudless sky,” and in houses. In the hosts of stories that I have gathered—but with which I have not swamped this book—of showers of living things, the rarest of all statements is of injury to the falling creatures. Then, from impressions that have arisen from other data, we think that the creatures may not have fallen all the way from the sky, but may have fallen from appearing-points not high above the ground—or may have fallen a considerable distance under a counter-gravitational influence.

I think that there may be a counter-gravitational influence upon transported objects, because of the many agreeing accounts—more than I have told of—of slow-falling stones, by persons who had probably never heard of other stories of slow-falling stones, and because I have come upon records of similar magic, or witchcraft, in what will be accepted as sane and sober meteorological observations.

See the Annual Register, 1859-70—an account by Mr. E. J. Lowe, a meteorologist and an astronomer, of a fall of hailstones, at Nottingham, England, May 29, 1859. Though the objects were more than an inch across, they fell slowly. In September, 1873, near Clermont-Ferrand, France, according to La Nature, 7-289, hailstones, measuring from an inch to an inch and a half across, fell. They were under an unknown influence. Notwithstanding their size, they fell so slowly that they did no damage. Some fell upon roofs, and rebounded, and it was as if these shook off the influence. Those that rebounded then fell faster than fell those that came down in an unbroken fall. For other records of this phenomenon, see Nature, 36-445; Illustrated London News, 34-546; Bull. Soc. Astro. de France, June 19, 1900.

If in the general electric conditions of a thunderstorm there be sometimes a counter-gravitational effect upon objects, somebody might find out how counter-gravitationally to electrify aircraft and aviators. If all work is opposition to gravitation, somebody may make a big discovery of benefit to general laziness. Elevators in skyscrapers might be run with half the power now needed. Here is an idea that may revolutionize industry, but just now I am too busy revolutionizing everything else, and I give this idea to the world, with the generosity of somebody who bestows something that isn’t any good to him.

But mysterious disappearances?

Our data have been upon mysterious appearances.

If I could appeal to what used to be supposed to be known as common sense, I’d ask whether something that mysteriously appears somewhere had not mysteriously disappeared somewhere else.

Annals of Electricity, 6-499—Liverpool, May 11, 1842—”not a breath of air.” Suddenly clothes on lines on a common shot upward. They moved away slowly. Smoke from chimneys indicated that above ground there was a southward wind, but the clothes moved away northward.

There was another instance, a few weeks later. London Times, July 5, 1842—a bright, clear day, at Cupar, Scotland, June 30th—women hanging out clothes on a common. There was a sharp detonation, and clothes on lines shot upward. Some fell to the ground, but others went on and vanished. There was a seeming of selection, which, because of possible bearing upon various observations of ours interests me. Though this was a powerful force, nothing but the clothes it seized was affected. I wonder about the detonation, largely because it is in agreement with a detail of still another story.

The closeness in time of these two occurrences attracts my attention. They were a few weeks apart, and I have no other such record, until seventy-seven years later. A sensible suggestion is that somebody, in Cupar, having read the Liverpool story, had faked a similar story from his town. A suggestion that is not so sensible is that, in this year 1842, somebody had learned the secrets of teleportation, and to avoid attracting much attention in any one place was experimenting in places far apart. It seems likely enough to me that, if there be teleportation, human beings may have come upon knowledge of it, and may have used it.

“Likely enough?” a spiritualist would say. “Has he never heard of apports?”

But whether it’s narrowness and bigotry, upon my part, or not, I do not go to séances for data. I have collected notes upon “mysterious robberies,” wondering whether a teleportative power has ever been used criminally. As to apports, if a medium could transport sea shells from the sea to his cabinet, he could abstract funds from a bank to his pocket. If he could, but would not, how account for his being a medium? Looking through newspapers, I have had a searching eye for something like an account of a medium, who had become mysteriously rich, in a town where there had been shortages of funds: clerks accused of embezzlement, and convicted, but upon evidence that was not altogether satisfactory. Although usually I can find data to “prove” anything that I want to “prove,” I have come upon no such account, and I am skeptical as to apports, and think that mediums are like most of the rest of us, who are not criminals, having no exceptional abilities. However, there may be criminal adepts who are not known mediums.

There was, in June, 1919, at Islip, Northampton, England, an occurrence like the occurrences at Liverpool and Cupar. London Daily Express, June 12, 1919—a loud detonation—basketful of clothes shooting into the air. Then the clothes came down. There may be ineffective teleportative seizures.

London Daily Mail, May 6, 1910—phenomena near Cantillana, Spain. From ten o’clock in the morning until noon, May 4th, stones shot up from a spot in the ground. Loud detonations were heard. “Traces of an extinct volcano are visible at the spot, and it is believed that a new crater is being formed.” But there is no findable record of volcanic activity in Spain, at this time—nor at any other time. I am reminded of the loud noises that often accompany poltergeist disturbances.

In Niles’ Weekly Register, Nov. 4, 1815, there is an account of stones that had been watched rising in a field, near Marbleton, Ulster County, New York—that these stones had been seen to rise three or four feet from the ground, then moving horizontally, from thirty to sixty feet.

Out in open fields, there have been showers of water, strictly localized, and of unknown origin. A Dr. Neel will be heard from. He has captured, not indefinitely alluded to insects, but Proconia undata Fab. Every mystery has its fishmonger. Considered figuratively, he need not be a seller of fish. His name may be Smith, or O’Brien, or it may be Proconia Undata Fab.

But presumably in the wintertime, in England, members of the Proconia family are not busy and available for explanations. In the Chorley (Lancashire) Standard, Feb. 15, 1873, is a story of excitement in the town of Eccleston. At Bank House, occupied by two elderly women and their niece, streams of water started falling, about the first of February, seemingly from ceilings. Furniture was soaked, and the occupants of the house were alarmed. The falls seemed to come from the ceiling, but “probably the most singular feature of the affair is that ceilings were apparently quite dry.” See back to Mr. Grottendieck’s story of objects that were appearing near a ceiling, or roof, with no signs of penetrating the material. Workmen had been called to the house, and had investigated, but were unable to explain. Openness again. House packed with neighbors, watching the showers. These data would make trouble for spiritualistic mediums and their requirements for special, or closed, conditions, and at least semi-darkness, if mediums were bothered by more than unquestioning or, occasionally politely questioning, faith. If some of them have been knocked about a bit, they were relatively few. Nobody in this house sat in a cabinet. Nobody was a logician. Nobody reasonably argued that chemists, for instance, must have special conditions, or their reactions will not work out. “For instance,” said nobody, “how could you develop a photograph, except in the special conditions of darkness, or semi-darkness?”

The look to me is that, throughout what is loosely called Nature, teleportation exists, as a means of distribution of things and materials, and that sometimes human beings have command, mostly unconsciously, though perhaps sometimes as a development from research and experiment, of this force. It is said that in savage tribes there are “rain makers,” and it may be that among savages there are teleportationists. Some years ago, I’d have looked superior, if anybody had said this to me but a good many of us are not so given to the “tut-tut!” as we used to be. It may be that in civilized communities, because of their storages, a power to attract flows of water, being no longer needed, has virtually died out, still appearing occasionally, however.

It could be that, in reading what most persons think are foolish little yarns of falling stones, we are, visionarily, in the presence of cosmic constructiveness—or that once upon a time this whole earth was built up by streams of rocks, teleported from other parts of an existence. The crash of falling islands—the humps of piling continents—and then the cosmic humor of it all—or utmost spectacularity functioning, then declining, and surviving only as a vestige—or that the force that once heaped the peaks of the Rocky Mountains now slings pebbles at a couple of farmers, near Trenton, N. J.

So I’d conceive of the existence of a force, and the use of it, unconsciously mostly, by human beings. It may be that, if somebody, gifted with what we think we mean by “agency,” fiercely hates somebody else, he can, out of intense visualizations, direct, by teleportation, bombardments of stones upon his enemy.

Water falls on a tree, in Oklahoma. It is told of in an entomological magazine. Water falls in a house in Eccleston. I read that in a spiritualists’ periodical, though I went to a newspaper for the data. These are the isolations, or the specializations, of conventional treatments. I tell of water falling upon a tree, in Oklahoma, and of water falling in a house, in Eccleston, and think that both phenomena are manifestations of one force. It is my attempt to smash false demarcations: to take data away from narrow and exclusive treatments by spiritualists, astronomers, meteorologists, entomologists: also denying the validity of usurpations of words and ideas by metaphysicians and theologians. But my interest is not only that of a unifier: it is in bringing together seeming incongruities, and finding that they have affinity. I am very much aware of the invigoration of products of ideas that are foreign to each other, if they mate. This is exogamy, practiced with thoughts—to fertilize a volcanic eruption with a storm of frogs—or to mingle the fall of an edible substance from the sky with the unexplained appearance of Cagliostro. But I am a pioneer and no purist, and some of these stud-stunts of introducing vagabond ideas to each other may have about the eugenic value of some of the romances in houses of ill fame. I cannot expect to be both promiscuous and respectable. Later, most likely, some of these unions will be properly licensed.

Sometimes, in what I call “teleportations,” there seems to be “agency” and sometimes not. That the “agency” is not exclusively human, and has nothing to do with “spirits of the departed” is indicated, I suppose, if we accept that sometimes there are “occult powers” of trees. Some other time I may be able more clearly to think out an expression upon flows of pigeons to their homes, and flows of migratory birds, as teleportative, or quasi-teleportative. My suggestion as to the frequently reported “agency” of children, is that “occult forces” were, in earlier times of human affairs, far more prevalent, and far more necessary to the help and maintenance of human communities than they are now, with political and economic mechanisms somewhat well-established, or working, after a fashion; and that, wherein children are atavistic, they may be in rapport with forces that mostly human beings have outgrown.

Though just at present I am no darling of the popes, I expect to end up holy, some other time, with a general expression that all stories of miracles are not lies, or are not altogether lies; and that in the primitive conditions of the Middle Ages there were hosts of occurrences that now, considerably, though not altogether, have been outgrown. Anybody who broadly accepts the doctrine of relativity should accept that there are phenomena that exist relatively to one age, that do not, or do not so pronouncedly, exist in another age. I more or less accept a great deal that religionists piously believe. As I see myself, I represent a modernization of the old-fashioned atheist, who so sweepingly denied everything that seemed to interfere with his disbeliefs.

There are of course other explanations of the “occult powers” of children. One is that children, instead of being atavistic, may occasionally be far in advance of adults, foreshadowing coming human powers, because their minds are not stifled by conventions. After that, they go to school and lose their superiority. Few boy-prodigies have survived an education.

The outstanding suggestion, which, however, like many other suggestions, I cannot now develop, is that, if Teleportation exists, it may be used. It may be criminally used, or it may be used commercially. Cargoes, without ships, and freights, without trains, may be of the traffics of the future. There may be teleportative voyages from planet to planet.

Altogether, so many of our data are bound up with jokes, hoaxes, and flippant treatments that I think of the toy and play genesis of many practical inventions. Billions of dollars are today seriously drawing dividends from toys and games that were put to work. Billions of laughs and jeers have preceded solemn expressions of satisfaction with fat bank accounts. But this is only reasoning, and is nothing but logic and argument, and there have been billions of laughs that never turned into anything more satisfactory—though where do I get the idea that there is anything more satisfactory than a laugh?

If, in other worlds, or in other parts of one relatively little existence, there be people who are far ahead of terrestrians, perhaps, teleportatively, beings from other places have come to this earth. And have seen nothing to detain them. Or perhaps some of the more degraded ones have felt at home here, and have hung around, or have stayed here. I’d think of these fellows as throw-backs: concealing their origin, of course; having perhaps only a slightly foreign appearance; having affinity with our barbarisms, which their own races had cast off. I’d think of a feeling for this earth, in other worlds, as corresponding to the desire of most of us, now and then, to go to a South Sea Island and be degraded. Throw-backs, translated to this earth, would not, unless intensely atavistic, take to what we regard as vices, but to what their own far-advanced people regard as perhaps unmentionable, or anyway, unprintable, degradations. They would join our churches, and wallow in pews. They’d lose all sense of decency and become college professors. Let a fall start, and the decline is swift. They’d end up as members of Congress.

There is another view, for which I am now gathering material—New York Times, Dec. 6, 1930—”Scores die; 300 stricken by poison fog in Belgium; panic grips countryside. Origin complete mystery. War scenes recalled.” It may be that it was war.

Mostly, explanations by the scientists were just about what one would expect, but, in the New York Telegram, December 6, Prof. H. H. Sheldon was quoted—”If there is a widespread, lethal fog in the Meuse Valley, the conclusion of science would be that it is being deliberately caused by men or women.”

It may be that inhabitants of other worlds, or other parts of one, organic existence, have declared war upon this earth, and have discharged down here, sometimes under cover of fogs, volumes of poisonous gases. I have other records that may indicate something of this kind, but, reluctantly, I give up this interesting notion, as applied to the occurrence of Dec. 5, 1930, because it associates with another phenomenon, of which I shall tell later.

Only two weeks after the tragedy in Belgium, appeared the fishmonger. The writer of an editorial, in the New York Herald Tribune, Dec. 19, 1930, started the conventionalizing and the minimizing and the obscurizing that always cloak events that are inconsistent with a main norm of supposed knowledge. “One may suspect that a sensational newspaper man, counting up the deaths, some dark day, in the smoky steel towns on the Allegheny River, could produce a story not far behind that from Belgium.”

Seventy-seven men and women were struck dead in Belgium. Oh, there’s always some commonplace explanation for these occurrences, if we only use our common sense.

Chapter 5

Upon the 9th of January, 1907, Mr. McLaughlin, of the town of Magilligan, County Derry, Ireland, hadn’t a red light. Neither had his sister, nor his niece, nor his maidservant. They hadn’t a cabinet. But a show was staged at their house, as if they knew altogether too much about phosphorescent paint, and as if Mr. McLaughlin bought false whiskers. There were phenomena in sunlight, and there was an atmosphere as unmystical as pigs and neighbors. If any spiritualistic medium can do stunts, there is no more need for special conditions than there is for a chemist to turn down lights, start operations with a hymn, and ask whether there’s any chemical present that has affinity with something named Hydrogen.

Mr. McLaughlin had cleaned soot from the chimney. I wonder what relation there may be. It is said that immediately afterward, phenomena began. There were flows of soot from undetectable sources, in rooms, and from room to room, independent of drafts, sometimes moving against drafts. Also there were flows of stones, or bombardments. About thirty panes of glass were broken by stones, in the daytime, some of them in the presence of neighbors. This is the story, as it was told by reporters of the Derry Journal and the Coleraine Constitution, who had been sent to investigate. Probably there was a girl, aged 14 or 15, in this house, but as to the ages of Mr. McLaughlin’s niece and maidservant, I could not learn particulars.

The conventionally scientific, or fishmongerish, thing to do would be to think of some commonplace explanation of the soot, and forget the stones. There would not be so much science, if people had good memories. The flows of stones can be explained as peggings by neighbors, if the soot be forgotten.

Our data have been bullied by two tyrannies. On one side, the spiritualists have arbitrarily taken over strange occurrences, as manifestations of “the departed.” On the other side, conventional science has pronounced against everything that does not harmonize with its systematizations. The scientist goes investigating, about as, to match ribbons, a woman goes shopping. The spiritualist stuffs the maws of his emotions. One is too dainty, and the other is gross. Perhaps, between these two, we shall some day be considered models of well-bred behavior.

Showers of frogs and worms and periwinkles—and now it’s showers of nails. St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Oct. 16, 1888—dispatch from Brownsville, Texas—that, on the night of the 12th, the lighthouse, at Point Isabel, occupied by Mrs. Schreiber, widow of the keeper, who had departed not long before, had been struck by a rain of nails. The next night, about dark, came another shower of nails. More variety—also down pelted clods of earth and oyster shells. Bombardments continued. People gathered and saw showers, mostly of nails, but could not find out where they were coming from.

In Human Nature, March, 1871, is a story of flows of corn that were passing from a locked crib, in Buchanan, Virginia. But, in this case, it was said that apparitions were seen, and mostly, at least so far as apparitions are concerned, our accounts are not ghost stories.

There have been mysterious showers of money, in public places. I have gravely copied accounts from newspapers, but there must have been something the matter with my gravity, because I put the notes away, without indexing them, and just now can’t find them, among about 60,000. One of the stories was of coins that, for several days, a few years ago, fell intermittently into Trafalgar Square, London. Traffic was so interfered with by scramblers that the police investigated, but could trace nothing to the buildings around the Square. Every now and then there was a jingle of coins, and a scramble, and the annoyance of the police was increased. They investigated.

Maybe there are experimenters who have learned to do such things, teleportatively. I’d see some sport in it, myself, if it wouldn’t cost too much.

There was a piker with pennies, in London, several years ago. New York Evening World, Jan. 18, 1928—flows of copper coins and chunks of coal, in a house in Battersea, London, occupied by a family named Robinson. “The Robinsons are educated people, and scout the idea of a supernatural agency. However they are completely baffled, and declare the phenomena take place in closed rooms, thus precluding the possibility of objects being thrown from outside.”

There’s small chance of such phenomena being understood, just at present, because everybody’s a logician. Almost everybody reasons: “There are not supernatural occurrences: therefore these alleged phenomena did not occur.” However through some closed skulls, mostly independently of eyes and ears and noses, which tell mostly only what they should tell, is penetrating the idea that flows of coins and chunks of coal may be as natural as the flows of rivers. Those of us who have taken this degree of our initiation may now go on to a more advanced stage of whatever may be the matter with us.

Aug. 30, 1919—Swanton Novers Rectory, near Melton Constable, Norfolk, England—oil “spurting” from walls and ceilings. It was thought that the house was over an oil well, the liquid percolating and precipitating, but it was not crude oil that was falling: the liquids were paraffin and petrol. Then came showers of water. Oil was falling from one of the appearing-points, at a rate of a quart in ten minutes. Methylated spirits and sandalwood oil were falling. In an account, dated September 2nd, it is said that receptacles had been placed under appearing-points, and that about 50 gallons of oil had been caught. Of thirteen showers, upon September 1st, two were of water.

The circumstance that is of most importance in this story is that such quantities of oils and water appeared here that the Rector, the Rev. Hugh Guy, had been driven out, and had moved his furniture to another house.

London Times, September 9—”Norfolk Mystery Solved.” We are told that Mr. Oswald Williams, the “illusionist,” or the stage magician, and his wife, who were investigating, had seen the housemaid, aged 15, enter the house, which for several days had been unoccupied, and throw a glass of water, which they had salted, to a ceiling, then crying that another shower had occurred. They had shut off the water supply, in the house, and had placed around glasses and pails of water, salted so that it could be identified.

As Mr. and Mrs. Williams told it, they, in hiding, saw the girl throw the salted water, and rushed out of their hiding place and accused her. Conceivably all for the sake of science, and conceivably with not a thought of publicity-values, Mr. Williams told newspaper reporters of his successful stratagem, and put completeness into his triumph, by telling that the girl had confessed. “She admitted that she had done it, and finally she broke down and made a clean breast of it.”

Times, September 12—girl interviewed by a representative of a Norwich newspaper—denied that she had confessed—denied that she had played tricks of any kind—denied that the Williamses had been in hiding—told that she had gone to the house, with Mr. and Mrs. Williams, and that a wet spot had appeared upon a ceiling, and that she had been wrongfully accused of having thrown water.

“According to the little girl’s statement, she was at no time alone in the kitchen” (London Daily News, September 10). “She insists that she was the victim of a trick, and that great pressure was put upon her to admit that she had thrown salted water to the ceiling. ‘I was told,’ she said, ‘that I would be given one minute to say I had done it, or go to prison. I said that I didn’t do it.’”

Having an interest in ways in which data are suppressed, I have picked up some information upon how little girls are “pressed.” No details of the “pressure” were published in the London newspapers. Norfolk News, November 8—that, in the Holt Petty Sessions had come up the case of the girl, Mabel Louisa Philippo—spelled Phillips, in the other accounts—complainant against Mrs. Oswald Williams, who was charged with having assaulted her. The girl said that Mrs. Williams had time after time struck her in the face, and had called attention to her face, reddened by blows, as evidence of her guilt. Mrs. Philippo testified that, when she arrived at the Rectory, her daughter’s first words were that she had been beaten. The Rev. Hugh Guy testified, but he did not testify that he was in the house, at the time. According to details picked up from other accounts, he was not in the house, at the time.

It is said that legal procedure in Great Britain is superior to whatever goes under that name in the United States. I can’t accept that legal procedure anywhere is superior to anything. Mr. Guy, who had not been present, testified that he had not seen the girl struck, and I found no record of any objection by the girl’s attorney to such testimony. The case was dismissed.

And then a document closed investigation. It was a letter from Mr. Guy, published in the Times, September 13. Mr. Guy wrote that he had tasted the water, upon the ceiling, and had tasted salt in it: so he gave his opinion that the girl had thrown the water. Most likely there is considerable salt, reminders of long successions of hams and bacons, on every kitchen ceiling.

According to Mr. and Mrs. Williams, the girl had confessed. But see Mr. Guy’s letter to the Times—that the girl had not confessed.

So, because of Mr. Guy’s letter, the Williamses cannot be depended upon. But we’re going to find that Mr. Guy cannot be depended upon. To be sure, I am going to end up with something about photographs, but photographs cannot be depended upon. I can’t see that out of our own reasoning, we can get anywhere, if there isn’t anything phenomenal that can be depended upon. It is my expression that, if we are entering upon an era of a revised view of many formerly despised and ridiculed data, there will be a simultaneous variation of many minds, more favorably to them, and that what is called reasoning in those minds will be only supplementary to a general mental tropism.

The investigation was stopped by Mr. Guy. The inquiry-shearer, or the mystery-bobber, was this statement, in his letter—”It would have taken only a small quantity to create the mess.”

The meaning of this statement is that, whereas gallons, or barrels, of oils, at a cost of hundreds of dollars, could not be attributed to a mischievous girl, “only a small quantity” could be.

Flows of frogs—flows of worms—flows of lies—read this:

London Daily Express, August 30—”The Rector, in response to a request from the Daily Express, for the latest news, reported as follows:

“‘To the Editor of the Daily Express:

“‘Expert engineer arriving Monday. Drippings ascribed to exudations, on August 8, of petrol, methylated spirits, and paraffin. House evacuated; vapor dangerous; every room affected; downpour rather than dripping—Guy’.”

In the Daily Express, September 2, is published Mr. Guy’s statement that he had been compelled to move his furniture from the house.

According to other accounts, the quantities were great. In the London Daily News were published reports by an architect, a geologist, and a chemist, telling of observations upon profuse flows. In the Norwich newspapers, the accounts are similar. For instance, the foreman of an oil company, having been asked to give an opinion, had visited the house, and had caught in a tub, two gallons of oil, which had dripped, in four hours, from one of the appearing-points. Just how, as a matter of tricks, a girl could have been concerned in these occurrences is not picturable to me. The house was crowded, while the oil-expert, for instance, was investigating. But it does seem that unconsciously she was concerned. The first of the showers occurred in her room. Ceilings were bored and ripped off, but nothing by which to explain was found. Then another stage magician, Mr. N. Maskelyne, went to Swanton Novers, with the idea of exposing trickery. Possibly this competition made the Williamses hasty. But Mr. Maskelyne could find nothing by which to explain the mystery. According to him (Daily Mail, September 10) “barrels of it” had appeared, during the time of his observations.

Just how effective, as an inquiry-stopper, was the story of the girl and the “small quantity,” is shown by the way the Society for Psychical Research was influenced by it. See the Journal S. P. R., October, 1919. Mr. Guy’s letter to the Times is taken as final. No knowledge of conflicting statements by him is shown. The Society did not investigate. “A small quantity” can be explained, as it should be explained, but “barrels of it” must be forgotten. Case dismissed.

If the Rev. Hugh Guy described at one time a “downpour,” which had driven out him and his tables, chairs, beds, rugs, all those things that I think of seriously, because I have recently done some moving, myself, and then told of “a small quantity,” why have I not an explanation of this contradiction?

I wrote to Mr. Guy, asking him to explain, having the letter registered for the sake of a record. I have received no answer.

In the London Daily Mail, Sept. 3, 1919, are reproduced two photographs of oil dripping from different ceilings. Large drops of oil are clearly visible.

Chapter 6

Flows of blood from “holy images”—I take for a proposition that, though nothing can be proved—because, if all phenomenal things are continuous, there is, in a final sense, nothing phenomenal—anything can be said to be proved—because, if all phenomenal things are continuous, the most preposterous nonsense must somewhere be linked with well-established beliefs. If I had the time for an extra job, I’d ask readers to think up loony theories, and send them to me, and I’d pick out the looniest of all, and engage to find abundant data to make it reasonable to anybody who wanted to think it reasonable.

Once upon a time I thought that stories of flows of blood from “holy images” were as ridiculous as anything that I had ever read in any astronomical, or geological textbook, or in any treatise upon economics or mechanics.

Well, then, what happened?

It occurred to me that stories of flows of blood from “holy images” are assimilable with our general expressions upon teleportations. Whereupon, automatically, the formerly despised became the somewhat reasonable. Though now and then I am ill-natured with scientific methods, it is no pose of mine that I am other than scientific, myself, in our expressions. I am tied down like any college professor or Zulu wise man.

As a start-off, I suggest that if we accept that flows of water ever have appeared at points in objects, called “houses,” a jolt is softened, and we pass easily into thinking that other fluids may have appeared at points in other objects, called “holy images.” The jolt is softened still more, if we argue that other fluids did appear at points in the object, called a “house,” at Swanton-Novers.

There may be Teleportation, and maybe for ages the secret of it has been known by esoteric ones. It may be that priests, especially in the past, when, sociologically, they were of some possible use, have known how to teleport a red fluid, or blood, to points upon images. They may have been “agents,” able to do this, without knowing how they got their effects. If I can accept that our whole existence is an organism, I can accept that, if by so-called miracles, its masses of social growths can best be organized and kept coordinated, then appear so-called miracles. The only flaw that I note in this argument is that it overlooks that there is no need for miracles. If there is a need for belief in miracles, miracles can be said to have occurred.

We shall have an expression in terms of some of the other of our expressions. If we arrange the ideas of it neatly, if not nattily, no more will be required to impress anybody who would like to be impressed.

Out in open fields there have been mysterious, or miraculous, showers of water. Then has appeared the seeming “agency” of human beings, and similar showers have occurred in houses

Out in open places, there are electrical manifestations, and they are known as “lightning.” The general specializes, and human beings use electricity, in their houses, or in images that are called “machines.” Or we’d say that electricians are trained “agents” in the uses of lightning.

Out in open places there have been flows of a red liquid.

In La Nature, Sept. 25, 1880, Prof. J. Brun, of the University of Geneva, writes that, near Djebel-Sekra, Morocco, he had heard rumors of a fall of blood from the sky. He visited the place of the reported phenomenon. He says that, to his stupefaction, he found rocks and vegetation covered with scales of a red, shining material. Examining specimens under a microscope, he found them composed of minute organisms, which he tells us were Protococcus fluvialis.

The identification may be doubted. I don’t like it. The ease with which any writer can pick to pieces any statement made by anybody who is not present to bandy delusions with him is becoming tiresome, but if I will write a book, I will write it triumphantly.

So this identification may be doubted. First we note that Prof. Brun says that, instead of having the features of the Algae that he had named, these organisms were simple, or undifferentiated. To explain this appearance, the Professor, who had perhaps recovered from his stupefaction, says that the things were young ones. But an aggregation exclusively of young Protococci is as extraordinary as would be a vast assemblage, say filling Central Park, New York, of human infants, without a sign of a parent.

The explanation sublimates segregationism. It attributes to a grab, an exquisite discrimination. Somewhere in a swamp, said Prof. Brun, there were hosts of Protococci—venerable ones, middle-aged ones, and their brats—or “all sizes,” as he worded it. Along came a whirlwind. Carrying away all the minute organisms, this big, rough disturbance removed, with microscopic fastidiousness, old Protococci from young Protococci, according to differences in specific gravity. It cast down at one place all the bereft parents, and precipitated, at Djebel-Sekra, a rain of little, red orphans.

When we recover from the sadness into which this tragedy cast us, we reflect that of all organisms, red blood-cells are of the simplest, or least differentiated. Anyway, here is an orthodox scientist who accepted that a red fluid did fall from the sky. I have about a dozen other records of showers of red fluids that were not rains colored by dusts. Upon several of these occasions the substance was identified as blood.

Or that once upon a time, or once upon an archaic time, there came to this earth, along arterial paths in space, red flows of a primitive plasm that deluged continents, and out of which, by the plan, purpose, guidance, or design that governs developments in all organisms, higher forms of life developed—

And that maybe this mechanism has not altogether ceased, so that to this day, but in a vestigial sense, or in a very much dwindled representation, such flows are continuing—

And that, if human beings ever have had “agency” in directing such flows, that is only a specialization of the general.

Once upon a time, it was the fashion with those of us who say that they are of the enlightened, to reject all stories of the “Miracles at Lourdes.” The doctors had much to do with this rejection. Somewhere behind everything that everybody believes, or disbelieves, is somebody’s pocket. But now, as to those “miracles,” the explanation of auto-suggestion is popular. Some of us who were not interested are beginning to think. The tendency that I point out is that of so often rejecting both data and an explanation, simply because one rejects an explanation. Many of our data are in this position of phenomena at Lourdes. Explanations have been taken over by theologians, or by spiritualists, and scientists, instead of opposing this usurpation, have denied the data. Whether it is only because I now want so to accept, or not, I now accept that the phenomenon of the stigmata, or flows of blood from points upon living images, has occurred.

Most likely those who deny the phenomenon of the stigmata are those who have not read, or have not recently read, the story of Louise Lateau, for instance. One would have to be of a very old-fashioned resistfulness not to accept this story, half an hour after reading it. For the latest instance, that of Theresa Neumann, of the village of Konnersreuth, near Munich, Germany, see the New York Times, April 18, 1928. In recent years, several cases have been reported, in the United States. Flows of blood from points in living images lead us to flows of blood from points in graven images. If one accepts the phenomenon of the stigmata, I don’t know that acceptance is monstrously stretched by transferring the idea from bodies to statues.

“On Saturday (Aug. 21, 1920) all statues and holy pictures, in the home of Thomas Dwan, of Templemore, Tipperary, Ireland, began to bleed.” See newspapers of August 24th.

A boy, James Walsh, a devout youngster, aged sixteen, was the center of the reported phenomena, at Templemore. Perhaps the bleeding statues and pictures were trickeries of his.

All boys and girls are little rascals. This is a generalization that one can feel somewhat nearly sure of, until it is examined. Then, because of continuity, we find that we cannot define boys and girls, because no definite line can be drawn between youngsters and adults. Also rascality and virtue merge. Well, without arguing, I say that if all the boys and girls who appear in our records were rascals, they were most expert little rascals.

“Towns in ruins—terrible bloodshed—bombs and burnings—shocking series of murders—hellish vandalism—brutality and terrorism—hangings, ambushes, raids.”

Whatever the association may be, I note conditions in Ireland, at this time.

Here is one newspaper heading, telling of occurrences of one day—”Reign of terror in Ireland—terrible massacre—appalling loss of life—holocaust—bloodshed and horror.”

Five days before the phenomena at Templemore were first reported, this town was raided. The Town Hall was burned down, and other buildings were destroyed. Templemore was terrorized. All shops were closed. Few persons dared to be seen in the streets. On the road to Templemore there was not a cart. The town was partly in ruins. It was god-forsaken and shilling-and-pence-deserted.

I take from the Tipperary Star:

“In Dwan’s house, and in the house of his sister-in-law, Mrs. Maher, where lived and worked the young man, James Walsh, statues started to bleed simultaneously.”

This news sneaked up and down the roads. Its carriers were stealths amidst desolation and ruin. Then they scurried from farm to farm, and people were coming out from their homes. They went to Templemore to see. Then they went in droves. The roads began to hum. Sounds of tramping and the creaking of wheels—men and horses and primitive old carts and slickest of new cars from cities—it was medievalism honked with horns—or one of the crusades, with chariots slinging out beer bottles—and anachronism is just one more of the preposterous errors of Life, Nature, or an Organism, or whomever, or whatever may be the artist that does these things. The roads began to roar. Strings of people became ropes of marching thousands. Hope and curiosity, piety, and hilarity, and the incentive to make it a holiday: out for the fun of it, out to write letters to the newspapers, exposing the fakery of it, out to confirm religious teachings—but maybe all this cannot be explained in terms only of known human feelings: it was as enormous as some of the other movements of living things that I shall tell of. Then the news that was exciting Ireland was going out to the world.

The terror that chanting processions were threading may have had relation with these rhythms of marchers. They were singing their song of the long, long way, and then arriving shiploads took up the song. Messrs. Cook, the tourist agents, sent inquiries as to whether the inns of Templemore could provide for 2,000 pilgrims from England. Scotchmen and Englishmen and Frenchmen—tourist agencies in the United States, European countries, and Japan sent inquiries. Waves that billowed from this excitement beat upon Table Mountain, South Africa, and in the surf that fell upon Cape Town, people bobbed into a Committee that was sent to investigate. Drops of blood from a statue in Ireland—and a trickle of turbans down a gangway at Bombay—a band of pilgrims set out from Bombay. I am far from making a religion of it, but whatever was directing all this would make hats come off at Hollywood. Also, whether somebody was monkeying with red ink, or not, is getting lost in this story. Because of a town that the world had never before heard of, Paris and London were losing Americans.

Other phenomena, which may have been teleportations, were reported. In the earthen floor of the Walsh boy’s room, a hollow, about the size of a teacup, filled with water. No matter how it was drained—and thousands of persons took away quantities—water, from an unknown source, always returned to this appearing-point. The subject of “holy wells” occurs to me, as a field of neglected data. Everything that I can think of occurs to me as a field of disregard and neglect. Statues in Walsh’s room bled—that’s the story—and, as in poltergeist doings—or as in other poltergeist doings—objects moved about in an invisible force.

I take notice of these stories of objects that moved in the presence of a boy, because scarcely can it be said that they were of value to priestcraft, and it can be said that they are common in accounts of occult phenomena of adolescence. I now offer as satisfactory an expression upon phenomena at Templemore, as has ever been conceived of by human mind. A Darwin writes a book about species. By what constitutes a species? He does not know. A Newton explains all things in terms of gravitation. But what is gravitation? But he has stopped. I explain the occurrences at Templemore in terms of poltergeist phenomena. Any questions? But I claim scientific license for myself, too.

Marvelous cures were reported at Templemore. What teleportations have to do with cures, I don’t see: but I do see that if people believe that any marvel, such as a new arrival at a Zoo, has curative powers, there will be a pile of .crutches outside the cage of that thing.

Walkers, bicyclists, motor cars, donkey carts, lorries, charabancs, wheelbarrows with cripples in them: jaunting cars, special trains rushing from Dublin. Some of the quietest old towns were in uproars. Towns all around and towns far away were reporting streets resounding with tramping thousands. There were not rooms enough in the towns. From storms of people, drifts slept on door steps. Templemore, partly in ruins, stood black in the center of a wide growth of tents. This new city, mostly of tents, was named Pilgrimsville.

I have not taken up definite accounts of the bleeding statues. See statements published in various issues of the Tipperary Star. They are positively convincing, or they are fairy stories for grown-up brats. I could fill pages, if I wanted to, but that would imply that I think there is any meaning in solemn assertions, or in sworn testimony, with hands on Bibles. For instance, I have notes upon an account by Daniel Egan, a harness-maker of Templemore, of blood that he had seen oozing from a statue—but this statement may be attributed to a sense of civic responsibility. He would be a bad citizen who would testify otherwise, considering the profit that was flowing into Templemore. The town’s druggist, a man of what is said to be education, stated that he had seen the phenomena. He was piling up a fortune from people who had caught bad colds sleeping in the fields. I suppose that some of them had come devoutly from far away, but had begun to sneeze, and had back-slid from piety to pills. However, something that I cannot find a hint of is that either Dwan or the Mahers charged admission. At first, people were admitted in batches of fifty, somebody, holding a watch, saying, every five minutes: “Time, please!” Soon Dwan and the Mahers placed the statues in windows, for all to see. There were crowds all day, and torchlight processions moved past these windows all night.

The blood that was shed in Ireland continued to pour from human beings: but the bleeding statues stopped, or statements that statues were bleeding stopped. However, wherever the water was coming from, it continued to flow from the appearing-point in the Walsh boy’s room. In the Tipperary Star, September 25, the estimate is that, in about one month, one million persons had visited Pilgrimsville. To some degree the excitement kept up the rest of the year.

They were threading terror with their peaceful processions. They marched through “a terrible toll of bloodshed—wild scenes at Nenagh—the Banshaw Horror.” Past burned and blackened fields in which corpses were lying, streamed these hundreds of thousands: chanting their song of the long, long way; damning the farmers, who were charging them two shillings apiece for hard-boiled eggs; praying, raiding chicken houses, telling their beads, stealing bicycles. “Mr. John McDonnell gave a pilgrim a lift, and was robbed of £250.”

But one of these detachments enters a town. In another street, a man runs from a house—”My God! I’m shot!” Not far away—the steady sound of tramping pilgrims. These flows of beings are as mysterious as the teleportations of substances. They may mean an organic control, or maintenance of balance, even in a part that is diseased with bombs and ambuscades and arson.

But it is impossible, except to the hopelessly pious, to consider, with anything like veneration, any such maintenance of a balance, because, if a god of order be conceived of, also is he, or it, a god of murder.

But, regarded aesthetically, sometimes there are effects that are magnificent.

“Bloody Sunday in the County Cork!” But, upon this day, somewhere upon every road in Ireland is maintained a rhythm.

Somewhere, a lorry of soldiers is moving down a road. Out of bushes come bullets, and the sides of the car are draped with a droop of dead men. Not far away, men and women and children are marching. Along the roads of distracted Ireland—steady pulsations of people and people and people.

Chapter 7

Nose in the mud, and the bend of a thing to the ground. There are postures from which life is acting to escape: one of them, the embryonic crouch; another, whether in the degradation of worship, or as a convenience in eating grass, the bend of a neck to the ground. The all-day gnaw of the fields. But the eater of meat is released from the munch. One way to broaden horizons is to climb a tree, but another way is to stand on one’s own hind legs, away from the grass. A Bernard Shaw dines on hay, and still looks behind for a world that’s far ahead.

These are the disgusts for vegetarians, felt by the planters of Ceylon, in July, 1910. Very likely, I am prejudiced, myself. Perhaps I think that it is gross and brutal to eat anything at all. Why stop at vegetarianism? Vegetarianism is only a semi-ideal. The only heavenly thing to do is to do nothing. It is gross and brutal and animal-like to breathe.

We contribute to the records of strange alarms. There was one in Ceylon. Gigantic vegetarians were eating trees.

Millions of foreigners, big African snails (Achatena fulica), had suddenly appeared, massed in the one small district of Kalutara, near Colombo. Shells of the largest were six inches long. One of them that weighed three quarters of a pound was exhibited at the Colombo Museum. They were crowded, or massed, in one area of four square miles. One of the most important of the data is that this was in one of the mostly thickly populated parts of Ceylon. But nothing had been seen of these “gigantic snails,” until suddenly trees turned knobby with the monsters. It was as surprising as it would be, in New York, going out one morning, finding everything covered with huge warts. In Colombo was shown a photograph of a tree trunk, upon the visible part of which 227 snails were counted. The ground was as thick with them as were the trees.

They were explained.

So were the periwinkles of Worcester: but we had reasons for omitting from our credulities the story of the mad fishmonger of Worcester and his frenzied assistants.

In the Zoologist, February, 1911, Mr. E. Ernest Green, the Government Entomologist, of Ceylon, explained. Ten years before, Mr. Oliver Collet, in a place about fifty miles from Kalutara, had received “some of these snails” from Africa, and had turned them loose in his garden. Then, because of the damage by the monsters, he had destroyed all, he thought: but he was mistaken, some of them having survived. In Kalutara lived a native, who was related to other natives, in this other place (Watawella). In a parcel of vegetables that he had brought from Watawella two of these snails had been found, and had been turned loose in Kalutara, and the millions had descended from them. No names: no date.

All the accounts, in the Ceylon Observer, in issues from July 27 to September 23, are of a sudden and monstrous appearance of huge snails, packed thick, and not an observation upon them until all at once appeared millions. It takes one of these snails two years to reach full size. All sizes were in this invasion. “Never known in Ceylon before.” “How they came here continues to be a mystery.” According to Mr. Green’s report, published in a supplement of the Ceylon Observer, September 2, stories of the multitudes were not exaggerations: he described “giant snails in enormous numbers,” “a horde in a comparatively small space,” “a foreign pest.” This was in a region of many plantations, and even if the hordes could have been hidden from sight in a jungle, the sounds of their gnawing and of the snapping of branches of trees under the weight Of them would have been heard far.

Plantations—and the ceaseless sound of the munch. The vegetarian bend—the sagging of trees, with their tops to the ground, heavy with snails. Natives, too, and the vegetarian bend—they bowed before the invasion. They would destroy no snails: it would be a sin. A bubonic crawl—lumps fall off and leave skeletons. There would be a sight like this, if a plague could hypnotize a nation, and eat, to their bones, rigid crowds. Tumors that crawl and devour—clothing and flesh disappearing—congregations of bones.

There was a hope for infidels. When a lost soul was found, there was rejoicing in Kalutara, and double pay was handed out, satanically. The planters raked up infidels, who sinfully gathered snails into mounds and burned them.

One of our reasons for being persuaded into accepting what we wanted to accept, in the matter of the phenomenon at Worcester, was that not only periwinkles appeared: also appeared crabs, which could not fit in with the conventional explanation. Simultaneously with the invasion of snails, there was another mysterious appearance. It was of unusually large scale-insects, which, according to Mr. Green (Ceylon Observer, August 9), had never before been recorded in Ceylon.

Maybe, in September, 1929, somebody lost an alligator. According to some of our data upon the insecurities of human mentality, there isn’t anything that can’t be lost by somebody. A look at Losts and Founds—but especially at Losts—confirms this notion. New York American, Sept. 19, 1929—an alligator, 31 inches long, killed in the Hackensack Meadows, N. J., by Carl Weise, 14 Peerless Place, North Bergen, N. J. But my attention is attracted by another “mysterious appearance” of an alligator, about the same time. New York Sun, September 23—an alligator, 28 inches long, found by Ralph Miles, in a small creek, near Wolcott, N. Y.

In the Gentleman’s Magazine, August, 1866, somebody tells of a young crocodile, which, about ten years before, had been killed on a farm, at Over-Norton, Oxfordshire, England. In the November issue of this magazine, C. Parr, a well-known writer upon antiquarian subjects, says that, thirty years before, near Over-Norton, another young crocodile had been killed. According to Mr. Parr, still another young crocodile had been seen, at Over-Norton. In the Field, Aug. 23, 1862, is an account of a fourth young crocodile that had been seen, near Over-Norton.

It looks as if, for about thirty years, there had been a translatory current, especially selective of young crocodiles, between somewhere, say in Egypt, and an appearing-point near Over-Norton. If, by design and functioning, in the distribution of life in an organism, or in one organic existence, we mean anything so misdirected as a teleportation of young crocodiles to a point in a land where they would be out of adaptation, we evidently mean not so very intelligent design and functioning. Possibly, or most likely. It seems to me that an existence that is capable of sending young butchers to medical schools, and young boilermakers to studios, would be capable of sending young crocodiles to Over-Norton, Oxfordshire, England. When I go on to think of what gets into the Houses of Congress, I expect to come upon data of mysterious distributions of cocoanuts in Greenland.

There have often been sudden, astonishing appearances of mice, in great numbers. In the autumn of 1927, millions of mice appeared in the fields of Kern County, California. Kern County, California, is continuous with all the rest of a continent: so a sudden appearance of mice there is not very mysterious.

In May, 1832, mice appeared in the fields of Inverness-shire, Scotland. They were in numbers so great that foxes turned from their ordinary ways of making a living and caught mice. It is my expression that these mice may have arrived in Scotland, by way of neither land nor sea. If they were little known in Great Britain, the occurrence of such multitudes is mysterious. If they were unknown in Great Britain, this datum becomes more interesting. They were brown; white rings around necks; tails tipped with white. In the Magazine of Natural History, 7-182, a correspondent writes that he had examined specimens, and had not been able to find them mentioned in any book.

I have four records of snakes that were said to have fallen from the sky, in thunderstorms. Miss Margaret McDonald, of Hawthorne, Mass., has sent me an account of many speckled snakes that appeared in the streets of Hawthorne, one time, after a thunderstorm.

Because of our expressions upon teleportative currents, I am most interested in repetitions in one place. Upon May 26, 1920, began a series of tremendous thunderstorms, in England, culminating upon the 29th, in a flood that destroyed 50 houses, in Louth, Lincolnshire. Upon the 26th, in a central part of London—Gower Street—near the British Museum, a crowd gathered outside Dr. Michie’s house. Gower Street is in Bloomsbury. To the Bloomsbury boarding houses go the American schoolmarms who visit London, and beyond the standards of Bloomsbury—primly pronounced Bloomsbry—respectability does not exist. Dr. Michie went out and asked the crowd what it, or anything else, could mean by being conspicuous in Bloomsbry. He was told that in an enclosure behind his house had been seen a snake.

In a positive sense, he did not investigate. He simply went to a part of the enclosure that was pointed out to him. Though, in his general practice, Dr. Michie was probably as scientific as anybody else, I must insist that this was no scientific investigation. He caught the snake.

The creature was explained. It was said to be a naja haja, a venomous snake from Egypt. Many oriental students live in Gower Street, to be near the British Museum and University College: in all probability the oriental snake had escaped from an oriental student.

You know, I don’t see that oriental students having oriental snakes is any more likely than that American students should have American snakes: but there is an association here that will impress some persons. According to my experience, and according to data to come, I think that somebody “identified” an English adder, as an oriental snake, to fit in with the oriental students, and then fitted in the oriental students with the oriental snake, arguing reasonably that if an oriental snake was found where there were oriental students, the oriental snake had probably escaped from the oriental students. As I have pointed out, often enough, I know of no reasoning process that is not parthenogenetic, and if this is the way the identification and the explanation came about, the author of them has companionship with Plato and Darwin and Einstein, and earthworms.

The next day, there was another crowd: this one in a part of London far from Gower Street (Sydenham). A snake had been seen in a garden. Then a postman killed it. Oriental students do not live in Sydenham. This snake was an adder (London Daily Express, May 28).

Upon the 29th, in Store Street, near Gower Street, a butcher, Mr. G. H. Hill, looked out from his shop, and saw a snake wriggling along the sidewalk. He caught the snake which was probably an adder—picture of it in the Weekly Dispatch, of the 30th.

So there were some excitements, but they were mild, compared with what occurred in a crowded part of London, June 2nd. See the Daily Express, June 3. Outside the Roman Catholic Cathedral (Westminster) an adder appeared. This one stopped traffic, and had a wide audience that approached and retreated, and reacted with a surge to every wriggle, in such a disproportion that there’s no seeing how action and reaction can always be equal. Three men jumped on it. This one is told of, in the Westminster and Pimlico News, June 4 and 11, and here it is said that another adder had appeared in Westminster, having been caught under a mat at Morpeth-mansions. About this time, far away in North London (Willesden), an adder was killed in a field (Times, June 21).

Common sense tells me that probably some especially vicious joker had been scattering venomous snakes around. But some more common sense tells me that I cannot depend upon common sense.

I have received letters upon strange appearances of living things in tanks of rain water that seemed inaccessible except to falls from the sky. Mr. Edward Foster, of Montego Bay, Jamaica, B. W. I., has told me of crayfishes that were found in a cistern of rain water at Port Antonio, Jamaica. Still, such occurrences may be explained, conventionally. But, in the London Daily Mail, Oct. 6, 1921, Major Harding Cox, of Newick, Sussex, tells of an appearance of fishes that is more mysterious. A pond near his house had been drained, and the mud had been scraped out. It was dry from July to November, when it was re-filled. In the following May, this pond teemed with tench. One day, 37 of them were caught. Almost anybody, interested, will try to explain in terms of spawn carried by winds, or in mud on the feet of water birds, but I am going right ahead with ideas different from Darwinian principles of biologic distributions. Major Cox, who is a well-known writer, probably reviewed all conventional explanations, but still he was mystified. There would not be so much of the interesting in this story, were it not for his statement that never before had a tench been caught in this pond.

Eels are mysterious beings. It may be that what are called their “breeding habits” are teleportations. According to what is supposed to be known of eels, appearances of eels anywhere cannot be attributed to transportations of spawn. In the New York Times, Nov. 30, 1930, a correspondent tells of mysterious appearances of eels in old moats and in mountain tarns, which had no connection with rivers. Eels can travel over land, but just how they rate as mountain climbers, I don’t know.

In the Amer. Jour. Sci., 16-41, a correspondent tells of a ditch that had been dug on his farm, near Cambridge, Maryland. It was in ground that was a mile from any body of water. The work was interrupted by rain, which fell for more than a week. Then, in the rain water that filled the ditch, were found hundreds of perch, of two species. The fishes could not have developed from spawn, in so short a time: they were from four to seven inches long. But there was, here, a marksmanship that strikes my attention. Nothing is said of dead fishes lying upon the ground, at sides of the ditch: hundreds of perch arrived from somewhere, exactly in this narrow streak of water. There could have been nothing so scattering as a “shower.” Accept this story, and it looks as if to a new body of water, vibrating perhaps with the needs of vacancy, there was response somewhere else, and that, with accuracy, hundreds of fishes were teleported. If somebody should have faith in us, and dig a ditch and wait for fish, and get no fish, and then say that we’re just like all other theorists, we explain that, with life now well established upon this earth, we regard many teleportations as mere atavisms, of no functional value. This idea of need and response, or of the actively functional, is taking us into a more advanced stage of a conception of an organic existence. For a while, we shall make no progress with this expression, having much work to do, to make acceptable that there is teleportation, whether organic, or not.

Perhaps some sudden and widespread appearances of exotic plants were teleportations. Such appearances in Australia and New Zealand seem to be satisfactorily explained, as ordinary importations: but, in the London Daily News, April 1, 1924, Dr. F. E. Weiss, Professor of Botany, University of Manchester, tells of the Canadian pond weed that suddenly infested the canals and slow-moving rivers of England, about the year 1850, and says that the phenomenon never had been satisfactorily explained.

Cardiff (Wales) Evening Express, July 1, 1919—”The countryside is set by the ears!” That’s a queer way for a countryside or anything else to be set. There may have been a queer occurrence. It is said that, upon land, belonging to Mr. William Calvert, between the villages of Sturton and Stowe, ten miles from Lincoln, wheat had appeared. It was ten years since wheat had grown here. There had been barley, but this year the field had been left fallow. “It was a fine crop of wheat, apparently of more robust growth than some in the cultivated fields around. Farmers from far and near were going to see this phenomenon, but nobody could explain it.”

Perhaps, at the same time, another “mystery crop” appeared somewhere else. Sunday Express (London), Aug. 24, 1919—that, in a field, near Ormskirk, West Lancashire, where, the year before, because of a drought, wheat had died off so that there was nothing worth harvesting, a crop of wheat had appeared. That some of the seeds that had been considered worthless should sprout would not have been considered extraordinary, but this was “one of the best crops of vigorous, young wheat in West Lancashire, for the season.”

Though I am not a very pious theologian, I take respectful notice here. A Providence that gives one snails, or covers one’s property with worms, has to be called “inscrutable”: but we can understand a good crop of wheat better, and that is enough to make anybody grateful, until come following seasons, with no more benefactions.

We take up again the phenomenon of localized repetitions, which suggest the existence of persisting translatory currents. If again we come to the seemingly preposterous, we reflect that we have only preposterous pseudo-standards to judge by. In this instance, the sending of salt water fishes to a fresh water lake is no more out of place than, for instance, is the sending of chaplains to battleships: and, of course, in our view, it is what is loosely called Nature that is doing all things. Perhaps what is called Nature amuses itself by occasionally sending somewhat intelligent fellows to theological seminaries, and salt water fishes to fresh water. Whether we theologians believe in God, or accept that there is an Organism, wherein we agree is in having often to apologize for him or it.

In Science, Dec. 12, 1902, Dr. John M. Clarke writes that a strange-looking fish had been caught in Lake Onondaga, Western New York, and had been taken to Syracuse. Here it was identified as a squid. Then a second specimen was caught.

Whatever thoughts we’re trying to develop did not belong away back in the Dark Age, or the other Dark Age, of the year 1902. Just where they do belong has not been decided yet. Said Dr. Clarke, with whatever reasoning abilities people had in the year 1902: “There are salt springs near Lake Onondaga: so perhaps there is, in the lake, a sub-stratum of salt water.” The idea is that, for millions of years, there had been, in Lake Onondaga, ocean life down below, and fresh water things swimming around, overhead, and never mixing. Perhaps, by way of experiment, Dr. Clarke put salt water and a herring in an aquarium, and then fresh water and a goldfish on top, and saw each fish keeping strictly to his own floor, which is the only way to get along as neighbors.

Another scientist turned on his reasoning abilities. Prof. Ortman, of Princeton University, examined one of the specimens, which, according to him, was “a short-finned squid, of the North Atlantic, about 13 inches long.” Prof. Ortman reasoned that Atlantic fishermen use squid for bait. Very well: then other fishermen may use squid for bait. So somebody may have sent for squid, to go fishing in Lake Onondaga, and may have lost a couple of live ones.

This is the science that is opposing our own notions. But for all I know, it may be pretty good science. An existence that would produce such explainers, might very well produce such fishermen. So perhaps fishermen of Lake Onondaga, with millions of worms around, send several hundred miles for squid, for bait, and perhaps Atlantic fishermen, with millions of squid available, send all the way to Lake Onondaga for worms. I’ve done foolisher, myself.

It seems to me that there is something suggestive in the presence of large deposits of salt near this lake, but I have heard nothing of salt water in it. There’s no telling about a story that was published, in the New York Times, May 2, 1882, but if it could be accepted, here would be something worth thinking about—that a seal had been shot, in Lake Onondaga. Some years before the appearance of the squid, another sea creature, a sargassum fish, had been caught in Lake Onondaga. It had been exhibited in Syracuse, according to Prof. Hargitt, of Syracuse University (Science, n. s., 17-114). It has to be thought that these things were strays. If they were indigenous and propagated, they’d be common.

For various reasons, I do not think much of an idea of an underground passage, all the way from the ocean to Lake Onondaga: but, in the London Daily Mail, July I, 1920, a correspondent expresses an idea, like this, as to mysterious appearances and disappearances of the Barbary apes of Gibraltar, conceiving of a submarine tunnel from Gibraltar to Africa. “All these creatures were well-known to the staff of the signal station on the Rock, many of the apes being named. The numbers sometimes change in the most unaccountable way. Well-known monkeys are absent for months, and then reappear with new, strange, adult monkeys of a similar breed. Those who know Gibraltar will agree that there is not a square yard on the Rock where they could have hidden.”

Chicago Citizen, Feb. 27, 1892—an alligator, 5½ feet long, found frozen to death on a bank of the Rock River, near Janesville, Wisconsin. In the Field, Sept. 21, 1895, it is said that a parrakeet had appeared in a farm yard, where it was caught, at Gledhill, Ardgay, Scotland, and that, about two years later, another parrakeet appeared in this farm yard, and was caught. Both birds were males. “No one living anywhere near had missed a bird, upon either occasion.”

Later, we shall have expressions upon psychological, and also physiological, effects of teleportative seizures. It may be that a living thing, in California, was, upon the first of August, 1869, shot from point to point, and was torn to pieces, in the passage.

Flesh and blood that fell “from the sky,” upon Mr. J. Hudson’s farm, in Los Nietos Township, California—a shower that lasted three minutes and covered an area of two acres. The conventional explanation is that these substances had been disgorged by flying buzzards. “The day was perfectly clear, and the sun was shining, and there was no perceptible breeze,” and if anybody saw buzzards, buzzards were not mentioned.

The story is told, in the San Francisco Evening Bulletin, Aug. 9, 1869. The flesh was in fine particles, and also in strips, from one to six inches long. There were short, fine hairs. One of the witnesses took specimens to Los Angeles, and showed them to the Editor of the Los Angeles News, as told in the News, August 3rd. The Editor wrote that he had seen, but had not kept the disagreeable objects, to the regret of many persons who had besieged him for more information. “That the meat fell, we cannot doubt. Even the parsons of the neighborhood are willing to vouch for that. Where it came from, we cannot even conjecture.” In the Bulletin, it is said that, about two months before, flesh and blood had fallen from the sky, in Santa Clara County, California.

London Daily Express, March 24, 1927—a butterfly, a Red Admiral, that had appeared in a corner of the Girls’ National School, at Whittlesey. It is said that every year, for sixteen years, a butterfly had so appeared in this corner of this room, about the end of February, or the first of March. I wrote to Miss Clarke, one of the teachers, and she replied, verifying the story, in general, though not vouching for an appearance every one of the sixteen years. I kept track, and wrote again, early in 1928. I copy the letter that I received from Miss E. Clarke, 95 Station Road, Whittlesey. As to the idea of jokes by little girls, I do not think that little girls could get Red Admiral butterflies, in the wintertime, in England.

“On the 9th of February, a few days before I received your letter, a lovely Red Admiral again appeared at the same window. The girls were all quietly at work, when suddenly a voice exclaimed: ‘Oh! Miss Clarke—the butterfly!’ This child was with me, last year, and remembered the sudden appearance then, which I may add, was later, March 2nd, in fact.

“As I am writing, the visitor is fluttering about the window, and seems quite lively. Last year’s visitor lived about a month after its appearance, and then we found it dead.

“There is nothing else that I can tell you about our annual visitor, but really it does seem remarkable.”

Early in the year 1929, I again wrote to Miss Clarke, but this time she did not answer me. Maybe a third letter was considered too much of a correspondence with somebody who had not been properly introduced. Anyway, people do not like to go upon record, in such matters.

There are circumstances in the story of the children of Clavaux that linger in my mind. It was a story of a double, or reciprocating, current. I have searched for accounts of a mysterious disappearance and an equally mysterious appearance, or something in the nature of an exchange, in the same place.

Upon Dec. 12, 1910, a handsome, healthy girl disappeared somewhere in New York City. The only known man in her affairs lived in Italy. It looks as if she had no intention of disappearing: she was arranging for a party, a tea, whatever those things are, for about sixty of her former schoolmates, to be held upon the 17th of the month. When last seen, in Fifth Avenue, she said that she intended to walk through Central Park, on her way to her home, near the 79th Street entrance of the park. It may be that somewhere in the eastern part of the park, between the 59th Street and the 79th Street entrances, she disappeared. No more is known of Dorothy Arnold.

This day something appeared in Central Park. There was no record of any such occurrence before. As told, in the New York Sun, December 13th, scientists were puzzled. Upon the lake, near the 79th Street entrance, appeared a swan.

Mountainous districts of Inverness-shire, Scotland—mysterious footprints in the bogs—sheep and goats slaughtered. “A large, fierce, yellow animal of unknown species” was seen by a farmer, who killed it. More mysterious tracks in the bogs, and continued slaughter—another large, fierce, yellow animal was shot. Soon a third specimen was caught in a trap. “The body was sent to the London Zoo, where it was identified as that of a lynx.” See the London Daily Express, Jan. 14, 1927. There is no record of the lynx, as indigenous to Great Britain. “It is found, in Europe, in the Alps, and the Carpathians, and more often in the Caucasus. The last specimen, in France, was killed 100 years ago.”

I have a feeling of impiety, in recording this datum. So many of our data are upon a godness that so much resembles idiocy that to attribute intelligence to it may be even blasphemous. Early in this theological treatise we noted a widespread feeling that there is something of the divine in imbecility. But, if these three lynxes were teleported, say from somewhere in the Carpathians, there was good sense to this teleportation, and there was a good shot this time, because they landed in a lynx’s paradise. There is no part of Great Britain that is richer in game than is Inverness-shire, and the country abounds with deer and sheep. However, if into this Eden were shot an Adam and two Eves, and these two Eves cats, we may think of this occurrence with a restored piety.

In the London evening newspapers, Aug. 26, 1926, it was told that a mystery had been solved. People in Hampstead (London) had reported that, in the pond, in Hampstead Heath, there was a mysterious creature. Sometimes it was said that the unknown inhabitant was a phantom, and there were stories of dogs that had been taken to the pond, and had sniffed, and had sneaked away, “with their tails between their legs.” All this in a London park. There was a story of “a huge, black creature, with the head of a gorilla, and a bark like that of a dog with a sore throat.” Mostly these were fishermen’s tales. Anglers sit around this pond, and sometimes they catch something.

Upon the night of August 25th, the line of one of these anglers, named Trevor, was grabbed. He landed something.

This is Mr. Trevor’s story. For all I know, he may have been out on an iceberg somewhere, hunting for materials for his wife’s winter coat, catching something that was insufficient, if he had a large wife. All that can be said is that Trevor appeared at a hotel, near the pond, carrying a small animal that he said he had caught in the pond.

Mr. F. G. Gray, proprietor of the hotel, had an iron tank, and in this the creature was lodged: and the next day the newspapers told that a young seal had been caught. Reporters went to the place, and one of them, the Evening News representative, took along Mr. Shelley, of the London Zoo. Mr. Shelley identified the animal as a young seal and no tame specimen, but a wild one that snapped at fingers that were poked anywhere near him. So it was said that a mystery had been solved.

But there were stories of other seals that had been seen or had been heard barking, before the time of the birth of this seal, in this London pond. One would think that the place was somewhere in Greenland. It was Mr. Gray’s statement that for several years, there had been, intermittently, these sounds and appearances. The pond is connected with the River Fleet, which runs into the Thames, and conceivably a seal could make its way, without being reported, from the ocean to this park, far inland in London: but the idea of seals coming and going, without being seen on the way, in a period of several years, whereas in centuries before nothing of the kind had been heard of, was enough to put this story where most of our other stories, or data, have been put. Mostly the opinion is that they should stay there.

London Daily Mail, Nov. 2, 1926—”Tale that taxes credulity!” “A story of two seals, within three months, in a local pond, is taxing the credulity of residents of Hampstead.” But there is a story of another seal that had been caught, after a struggle, dying soon after capture. In the Daily Chronicle, it is said that the “first mystery-catch” was still in the tank, in a thriving condition.

I have come upon more, though to no degree enlighteningly more, about the apes of Gibraltar. In the New York Sun, Feb. 6, 1929, Dr. Raymond L. Ditmars tells of an “old legend” of a tunnel, by which apes travel back and forth, between Africa and Spain. No special instances, or alleged instances, are told of. In Gilbard’s History of Gibraltar, published in 1881, is mention of the “wild and impossible theory of communication, under sea, between Gibraltar and the Barbary coast.” Here it is said that the apes were kept track of, so that additions to families were announced in the Signal Station newspaper. The notion of apes in any way passing across the Mediterranean is ridiculous to Gilbard, but he notes that there are so many apes upon the mountain on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar that it is known as the Hill of Apes.

In November, 1852, a much talked about subject, in England, was reindeer’s ears. There were letters to the newspapers. Reindeer’s ears came up for discussion in Parliament. Persons who had never seen a reindeer were dogmatizing upon reindeer’s ears. It had been reported that among reindeer’s skins that had arrived at Tromsö, Norway, from Spitzbergen were some with the ears clipped. Many Englishmen believed that Sir John Franklin had sailed through the Northwest Passage, and that survivors of his expedition were trying to communicate with occasional hunters in Spitzbergen, by marking reindeer. Spitzbergen was uninhabited, and no other explanation could be thought of. Spitzbergen is about 450 miles north of North Cape, Norway, and possibly an exceptional reindeer could swim this distance, but this is a story of many reindeer. All data upon drifting ice are upon southward drifts.

Branded reindeer, presumably from Norway or Finland, continued to be reported in Spitzbergen, but by what means they made the journey never has been found out. Lamont, in Yachting in Arctic Seas, p. 110, says that he had heard of these marked animals, and that, in August, 1869, he had shot two stags, each having the left ear “back half-cropped.” “I showed them to Hans, a half-bred Lapp, accustomed to deal with reindeer since infancy, and he had no doubt whatever of these animals having been marked by the hands of men.” Upon page 357, Lamont tells of having shot two more reindeer, similarly marked. Nordenskiold (Voyage of the Vega, vol. 1, p. 135) tells of these marked reindeer, some of them marked also upon antlers, and traces reports back to the year 1785. Upon one of these antlers was tied a bird’s leg.

Wherever they are coming from, and however they are doing it, or however it is being done to them, the marked reindeer are still appearing in Spitzbergen. Some of them that were shot, in the summer of 1921, are told of in the Field, Dec. 24, 1921. It must be that hundreds, or thousands, of these animals have appeared in Spitzbergen. There is no findable record of one reindeer having ever been seen drifting on ice in that direction. As to the possibility of swimming, I note that Nova Zembla is much nearer the mainland than is Spitzbergen, but that Nordenskiold says that the marked reindeer do not appear in Nova Zembla.

Chapter 8

There is no way of judging these stories. Every canon, or device, of inductive logic, conceived of by Francis Bacon and John Stuart Mill has been employed in investigating some of them, but logic is ruled by the fishmonger. Some of us will think as we’re told to think, and be smug and superior, in rejecting the yarns: others will like to flout the highest authority, and think that there may be something in them, feeling that they’re the ones who know better, and be just as smug and superior. Smug, we’re going to be, anyway, just so long as we’re engaged in any profession, art, or business, and have to make balance somewhere against a consciousness of daily stupidities. I should think that somebody in a dungeon, where it is difficult to make bad mistakes, would be of the least smug. Still, I don’t know: I have noted serene and self-satisfied looks of mummies. The look of an egg is of complacency.

There is no way of judging our data. There are no ways, except arbitrary ways, of judging anything. Courts of Appeals are of the busiest of human institutions. The pragmatist realizes all this, and says that there is no way of judging anything except upon the basis of the work-out. I am a pragmatist, myself, in practice, but I see no meaning in pragmatism, as a philosophy. Nobody wants a philosophy of description, but does want a philosophy of guidance. But pragmatists are about the same as guides on the top of a mountain, telling climbers, who have reached the top, that they are on the summit. “Take me to my destination,” says a traveler. “Well, I can’t do that,” says a guide, “but I can tell you when you get there.”

My own acceptance is that ours is an organic existence, and that our thoughts are the phenomena of its eras, quite as its rocks and trees and forms of life are; and that I think as I think, mostly, though not absolutely, because of the era I am living in. This is very much the philosophy of the Zeitgeist, but that philosophy, as ordinarily outlined, is Absolutism, and I am trying to conceive of a schedule of predetermined—though not absolutely predetermined—developments in one comprehensibly-sized existence, which may be only one of hosts of other existences, in which the scheduled eras correspond to the series of stages in the growth, say, of an embryo. There is, in our expressions, considerable of the philosophy of Spinoza, but Spinoza conceived of no outlines within which to think.

In anything like a satisfactory sense there is no way of judging our data, nor of judging anything else: but of course we have ways of forming opinions that are often somewhat serviceable. By means of litmus, a chemist can decide whether a substance is an acid, or an alkali. So nearly is this a standard to judge by that he can do business upon this basis. Nevertheless there are some substances that illustrate continuity, or represent the merging-point between acids and alkalis; and there are some substances that under some conditions are acids, and under other conditions are alkalis. If there is any mind of any scientist that can absolutely pronounce either for or against our data, it must be more intelligent than litmus paper.

A barrier to rational thinking, in anything like a final sense, is continuity, because of which only fictitiously can anything be picked out of a nexus of all things phenomenal, to think about. So it is not mysterious that philosophy, with its false, or fictitious, differences, and therefore false, or fictitious, problems, is as much baffled as it was several thousand years ago.

But if, for instance, no two leaves of any tree are exactly alike, so that all appearances are set apart from all other appearances, though at the same time all interrelated, there is discontinuity, as well as continuity. So then the frustrations of thought are double. Discontinuity is a barrier to anything like a finally sane understanding, because the process of understanding is a process of alleged assimilation of something with something else: but the discontinuous, or the individualized, or the unique, is the unassimilable.

One explanation of our survival is that there is underlying guidance, or control, or organic government, which to high degree regularizes the movements of the planets, but is less efficient in its newer phenomena. Another explanation is that we survive, because everybody with whom we are in competition, is equally badly off, mentally.

Also, in other ways, how there can be survivals of persons and prestiges, or highest and noblest of reputations, was illustrated recently. About April Fool’s Day, 1930, the astronomers announced that, years before, the astronomer Lowell, by mathematical calculations of the utmost complexity, or bewilderingly beyond the comprehension of anybody except an astronomer, had calculated the position of a ninth major planet in this solar system: and that it had been discovered almost exactly in the assigned position. Then columns, and pages of special articles, upon this triumph of astronomical science. But then a doubt appeared—there were a few stray paragraphs telling that, after all, the body might not be the planet of Lowell’s calculations—the subject was dropped for a while. But, in the public mind, the impressions worked up by spreadheads enormously outweighed whatever impressions came from obscure paragraphs, and the general idea was that, whatever it was, there had been another big, astronomical triumph. It is probable that the prestige of the astronomers, instead of suffering, was boomed by this overwhelming of obscure paragraphs by spreadheads.

I do not think that it is vanity, in itself, that is so necessary to human beings: it is compensatory vanity that one must have. Ordinarily, one pays little if any attention to astronomers, but now and then come consoling reflections upon their supposed powers. Somewhere in everything that one does there is error. Somebody is not an astronomer, but he classes himself with astronomers, as differentiated from other and “lower” forms of life and mind. Consciousness of the irrationality, or stupidity, pervading his own daily affairs, is relieved by a pride in himself and astronomers, as contrasted with dogs and cats.

According to the Lowell calculations, the new planet was at a mean distance of about 45 astronomical units from the sun. But, several weeks after April Fool’s Day, the object was calculated to be at a mean, or very mean, distance of 217 units. I do not say that an educated cat or dog could do as well, if not better: I do say that there is a great deal of delusion in the gratification that one feels when thinking of himself and astronomers, and then looking at a cat or a dog.

The next time anybody thinks of astronomers, and looks at a cat, and feels superior, and would like to keep on feeling superior, let him not think of a cat and a mouse. The cat lies down and watches a mouse. The mouse moves away. The cat knows it. The mouse wobbles nearer. The cat knows whether it’s coming or going.

In April, 1930, the astronomers told that Lowell’s planet was receding so fast from the sun that soon it would become dimmer and dimmer.

New York Times, June 1, 1930—Lowell’s planet approaching the sun—for fifty years it would become brighter and brighter.

A planet is rapidly approaching the sun. The astronomers publish highly technical “determinations” upon its rate of recession. Nobody that I know of wrote one letter to any newspaper. One reason is that one fears to bring upon oneself the bullies of science. In July, 1930, the artist, Walter Russell, sent some views that were hostile to conventional science to the New York Times. Times, August 3rd—a letter from Dr. Thomas Jackson—a quotation from it, by which we have something of an idea of the self-apotheosis of these pundits, who do not know, of a thing in the sky, whether it is coming or going:

“For nearly three hundred years no one, not even a scientist, has had the temerity to question Newton’s laws of gravitation. Such an act on the part of a scientist would be akin to blasphemy, and for an artist to commit such an absurdity is, to treat it kindly, an evidence of either misguidance or crass ignorance of the enormity of his act.”

If we’re going to be kind about this, I simply wonder, without commenting, what such a statement as that for nearly three hundred years nobody had ever questioned Newton’s laws of gravitation, is evidence of.

But in the matter of Lowell’s planet, I neglected to point out how the astronomers corrected their errors, and that is a consideration of importance to us. Everything that was determined by their mathematics turned out wrong—planet coming instead of going—period of revolution 265 years, instead of 3,000 years—eccentricity of orbit three tenths instead of nine tenths. They corrected, according to photographs.

It is mathematical astronomy that is opposing our own notions. Photographic astronomy can be construed any way one pleases—say that the stars are in a revolving shell, about a week’s journey away from this earth. Everything mathematical cited by me, in this Lowell-planet-controversy, was authoritatively said by somebody one time, and equally authoritatively denied by somebody else, some other time. Anybody who dreams of a mathematician’s heaven had better reconsider, if of its angels there be more than one mathematician.

Chapter 9

I have come upon a story of somebody, in Philadelphia, who, having heard that a strange wild animal was prowling in New Jersey, announced that he had caught it. He exhibited something, as the “Jersey Devil.” I have to accept that this person was the press agent of a dime museum, and that the creature that he exhibited was a kangaroo, to which he had attached tin wings and green whiskers. But, if better-established branches of biology are subject to Nature-fakery, what can be expected in our newer biology, with all the insecurities of newness?

“Jersey Devils” have been reported other times, but, though I should not like to be so dogmatic as to say that there are no “Jersey Devils,” I have had no encouragement investigating them. One of the stories, according to a clipping that was sent to me by Miss F. G. Talman, of Woodbury, N. J., appeared in the Woodbury Daily Times, Dec. 15, 1925. William Hyman, upon his farm, near Woodbury, had been aroused by a disturbance in his chicken coop. He shot and killed a never-before-heard-of-animal. I have written to Mr. Hyman, and have no reason to think that there is a Mr. Hyman. I have had an extensive, though one-sided, correspondence, with people who may not be, about things that probably aren’t. For the latest account of the “Jersey Devil,” see the New York Times, Aug. 6, 1930.

Remains of a strange animal, teleported to this earth from Mars or the moon—very likely, or not so likely—found on a bank of a stream in Australia. See the Adelaide Observer, Sept. 15, 1883—that Mr. Hoad, of Adelaide, had found on a bank of Brungle Creek, a headless trunk of a pig-like animal, with an appendage that curved inward, like the tail of a lobster. New Zealand Times, May 9, 1883—excitement near Masterton—unknown creature at large—curly hair, short legs, and broad muzzle. Dogs sent after it—one of the dogs flayed by it—rest of the dogs running away—probably “with their tails between their legs,” but the reporter overlooking this convention.

There have been stories of strange animals that have appeared at times of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. See Sea Serpent stories, about the time of the Charleston earthquake. About the same time, following a volcanic eruption in New Zealand, there were stories in New Zealand.

The volcano Rotomahana was a harsh, black cup that had spilled scenery. Or the somber thing was a Puritan in finery. It had belied its dourness with two broad decorations of siliceous deposits, shelving down to its base, one of them the White Terrace and the other the Pink Terrace. These gay formations sloped from the bare, black crater to another inconsistency, which was a grove of acacias. All around, the famous flowering bushes of this district made more sinful contrast with a gaunt, towering thing. Upon the 10th of June, 1886, this Black Fanatic slung a constitutional amendment. It was reformation, in the sense that virtue is uniformity that smothers variation. It drabbed its gay Terraces: the grove of acacias was a mound of mud: it covered over the flowering bushes with smooth, clean mud. It was a virtuously dismal scene, but, as in all other reformations, a hankering survived in it. A left-over living thing made tracks in the smoothness of mud. In the New Zealand Herald, Oct. 13, 1886, a correspondent writes of having traversed this dull, dead expanse, having seen it marked with the footprints of a living creature. He thought that the marks were a horse’s. But there was another story that was attracting attention at this time, and his letter was in allusion to it. Maoris were telling of a wandering animal, unknown to them, that had appeared in this desert of mud. It was a creature with antlers, or a stag, according to descriptions, an animal that had never been seen, or had never before been seen, by Maoris.

Just what relation I think I can think of, between volcanic eruptions and mysterious appearances of living things may seem obscure. But I have been impressed with several accounts of astonishing revivifications in regions that were volcanically desolated. Quick growths of plants have been attributed to the fertilizing properties of volcanic dust: nevertheless writers have expressed astonishment. If we can have an organic view of our existence, we can think of restorative teleportations to a place of desolation, quite as we think of restorations occurring in places of injury in an animal-organism.

There are phenomena upon the border-line between the organic and the inorganic that we can think of: such as restorations of the forms of broken crystals in a solution. It is by automatic purpose, or design or providence, or guidance by which lost parts of a starfish are regenerated. In higher animal-organisms, distinct structures, if lost, mostly are not restored, but injured tissues are. Still even in the higher organisms there are some restorations of mutilated parts, such as renewals of forms of a bird’s clipped wing-feathers. The tails of some lizards, if broken off, renew.

For a conventional explanation of reviving plants in a fern forest that had been destroyed by flows of liquid lava, from the volcano Kilauea, Hawaii, see an account, by Dr. G. R. Wieland, in Science, April 11, 1930. Dr. Wieland considers his own explanation “amazing.” I’d not say that ours is more than that.

Strange animals have appeared and they may have been teleported to this earth from other parts of an existence, but the easiest way of accounting for strange animals is to say that they are hybrids. Of course I could handle, or manhandle, this subject any way to suit me, and be about as reasonable one way as another. I could quote many authorities against the occurrence of bizarre hybrids, leaving hard to explain, in terms of terrestrial origin, strange creatures that have appeared upon this earth. There are biologists who will not admit fertility between creatures as much alike as hares and rabbits. Nevertheless, I think that there have been strange hybrids.

The cow that gave birth to two lambs and a calf.

I don’t know how that will strike all minds, but to the mind of a standardized biologist, I’d not be much more preposterous, if I should tell of an elephant that had produced two bicycles and a baby elephant.

The story is told in the Toronto Globe, May 25, 1889. It is said that a member of the staff of the Globe had been sent to investigate this outrage upon conventional obstetrics. The reporter went to the farm of Mr. John H. Carter, at South Simcoe, and then wrote that he had seen the two lambs, which were larger and coarser than ordinary, or less romantically derived, lambs, having upon their breasts tufts of hair like calves’ hair. Other newspapers—Quebec Daily Mercury, for instance—published other details, such as statements by well-known stockbreeders that they had examined the lambs, and were compelled to accept the story of their origin.

So I am harming our idea that creatures, unlike anything known upon this earth, but that have appeared upon this earth, may have been teleported from Mars or the moon: but I am supporting our general principle that, whether in biology, astronomy, obstetrics, or any other field of research, everything that is, also isn’t; and that everywhere there are data, partly sense and partly nonsense, that oppose established nonsense that has partly some sense to it.

It does not matter what scientific dictum may be brought against us. I will engage to find that it is only an approximation, or that it is a work-out only in imaginary conditions. The most rigorous science is frosted childishness. Every severe, or chaste, treatise upon mechanics is only a fairy story of frictionless and non-extensible characters that interact up to the “happy ending.” Nowadays, a scenario-writer will sometimes tone down the absolute happiness of a conclusion, with just a suggestion that there is a little trouble in the offing: but the tellers of theorems represent about the quality of intellect in the most primitive times of Hollywood. For everything that is supposed to be so well-known that it is proverbial, there are exceptions. A mule is a symbol of sterility. For instances of fertility in mules, look over indexes of the Field. As to anything else that we’re taking as absolute truth—look it up.

One afternoon, in October, 1878, Mr. Davy, a naturalist, who was employed at the London Aquarium, took a stroll with a new animal. I think of a prayer that is said to have been uttered by King Louis XIV. He was tired of lamb chops and beef and bacon—”Oh, God! send me a new animal.” Mr. Davy took a stroll with one. People far away were attracted by such screeches as are seldom heard in London. Some ex-slaves, who were playing in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, were following the new animal, and were letting loose their excitability. The creature was about two feet long, and two feet high, and was formed like nothing known to anatomists—anyway to anatomists of this earth. It was covered with wiry hair: head like a boar’s, and curly tail like a boar’s. It was described as “a living cube.” As if with abdomen missing, its hind legs were close to its forelegs. If Mr. Davy’s intention had been to attract attention, he was succeeding. Almost anybody with the modern view of things will think what a pity he wasn’t advertising something. The crowd jammed around so that he ran into an Underground Railway Station. Here there was an uproar. He was compelled to ride in the brake, because of a fear that there would be a panic among the passengers. At the Aquarium, Davy told that an acquaintance of his, named Leman, had seen this creature with some peasants, in the South of France, and had bought it, but, unable to speak the patois of the district, had been unable to learn anything of its origin. At the Aquarium the only explanation that could be thought of was that it was a dog-boar hybrid.

Davy’s publicity continued. He took the new animal to his home, and a crowd went with him. His landlord looked at the animal. When the animal looked at the landlord, the landlord ran to his room, and from behind closed doors, ordered Davy to take away the monster. There was another hold-up of traffic all the way to the home of Frank Buckland.

In Land and Water, of which he was the editor, issue of October 5, Buckland wrote an account of this “demon,” as he called it, saying that it looked like a gargoyle, or like one of Fuseli’s satanic animals. He did not try to explain, but mentioned what was thought at the Aquarium. In the next issue of Land and Water, Thomas Worthington, the naturalist, wrote that the idea of the hybrid was “utterly untenable”: but his own idea that the creature was “a tame hyena of some abnormal kind” leaves mysterious how the “demon” ever got into the possession of peasants in the South of France. It would be strange if they had a tame hyena of a normal kind.

In January, 1846 (Tasmanian Journal of Science, 3-147), a skull was found on a bank of the river Murrumbridgee, Australia. It was examined by Dr. James Grant, who said that the general form and arrangement of the teeth were different from those of any animal known to him. He noted somebody’s suggestion that it might be the skull of one of the camels that had been sent to Australia, in the year 1839. He accounted for its having characters that were unknown to him, by thinking that it might be foetal. So then, whether in accordance with a theory or not, he found that some of the bones were imperfectly ossified, and that the teeth were covered with a membrane. It was not a fossil. It was a skull of a large, herbivorous animal, and had not been exposed long.

Melbourne Argus, Feb. 28, and March 1, 1890—a wandering monster. A list of names and addresses of persons who said that they had seen it, was published. It was a creature about thirty feet long, and was terrorizing the people of Euroa. “The existence of some altogether unheard-of monster is vouched for by a cloud of credible witnesses.”

I am tired of the sensible explanations that are holding back new delusions. So I suggest that this thing, thirty feet long, was not a creature, but was a construction, in which explorers from somewhere else, were traveling back and forth, near one of this earth’s cities, having their own reasons for not wanting to investigate too closely.

I don’t know what will be thought of zoologists of Melbourne, but whatever will be thought of me can’t be altogether focused upon me, because there were scientists in Melbourne who were as enlightened as I am, or as preposterous and sensational as I am. Officials of the Melbourne Zoological Gardens thought that, whether this story was nonsense or not, it should be looked into. They got a big net, and sent a man with the net to Euroa. Forty men, with the man with the net, set out. They hunted all day, but no huge bulk, more or less in the distance, was seen, and a statement that enormous tracks were found may be only a sop to us enlightened, or preposterous, ones.

But the man with the net is a significant character. He had not the remotest of ideas of using it, but, just the same, he went along with it. There are other evidences of occasional open-mindedness among biologists, and touches of indifference, now and then, to whatever may be the fascinations of smugness. Why biologists should be somewhat less dogmatic than astronomers, or why association with the other animals should be rather more liberalizing than is communion with the stars is not mysterious. One can look at a rhinoceros and at the same time be able to think. But the stupefying, little stars shine with a hypnotic effect, like other glittering points. The little things are taken too seriously. They twinkle humorously enough, themselves.

A reported monster is told of, in the Scientific American, July, 1922. Dr. Clement Onelli, Director of the Zoological Gardens, of Buenos Aires, had published a letter that had been sent to him by an American prospector named Sheffield, who said that, in the Argentine Territory of Chebut, he had seen huge tracks, which he had followed to a lake. “There I saw in the middle of the lake an animal with a huge neck, like that of a swan, and the movement of the water made me suppose the beast to have a body like that of a crocodile.” I wrote to Dr. Onelli, and received a reply, dated Aug. 15, 1924, telling that again he had heard of the monster. Maybe this same huge-necked creature was seen somewhere else, however we explain its getting there. The trouble in trying to understand all reported monsters is their mysterious appearances and disappearances. In the London Daily Mail, Feb. 8, 1921, a huge, unknown animal, near the Orange River, South Africa, is told of by Mr. F. C. Cornell, F.R.G.S. It was something with a neck like a bending tree trunk, “something huge, black, and sinuous.” It devoured cattle. “The object may have been a python, but if it was it was of incredible size.” It is only preposterously unreasonable to think that the same thing could have appeared in South Africa and then in South America.

The “blonde beast of Patagonia,” which was supposed to be a huge ground sloth, parts of which are now in various museums, attracted attention, in the year 1899. See the Zoologist, August, 1899. Specimens of the blonde’s hide were brought to England, by Dr. F. P. Moreno, who believed that the remains had been preserved for ages. We prefer to think otherwise: so we note that Dr. Ameghino, who got specimens of the hide from the natives, said that it was their story that they had killed it.

There was a volley of monsters from some other world, about the time of the Charleston earthquake, or some one thing skipped around with marvelous agility, or it is that, just before the quake, there were dull times for the newspapers. So many observations in places far apart can be reconciled by thinking that not a creature but explorers in a construction, had visited this earth. They may have settled down in various places. However, it is pretty hard to be reconciled to our reconciliations.

New York Sun, Aug. 19, 1886—a horned monster, in Sandy Lake, Minnesota. More details, in the London (Ontario) Advertiser—Chris. Engstein fired a shot at it, but missed. Then came dispatches from the sea coast. According to one of them, Mr. G. P. Putnam, Principal of a Boston grammar school, had seen a monster, in the sea, at Gloucester. In Science, 8-258, Mr. B. A. Colona, of the U. S. Coast Survey, writes that, upon the 29th of August, he had seen an unknown creature in the sea off Cape Cod. In the New York newspapers, early in September, a monster was reported as having been seen at sea, off Southport, and off Norwalk, Conn.: in Michigan, in the Connecticut River, and in the Hudson River. The conventional explanation is that this was simply an epidemic of fancied observations. Most likely some of them were only contagions.

There’s a yarn, or a veritable account, in the New York Times, June 10, 1880—monstrous, dead thing, floating on the sea, bottom up. Sailors rowed to it, and climbed up its sides. They danced on its belly. That’s a merry, little story, but I know a more romantic one. It seems that a monster was seen from a steamship. Then the lonely thing mistook the vessel for a female of his species. He overwhelmed her with catastrophic endearments.

But I am avoiding stories of traditional serpentine monsters of the sea. One reason is that collections of these stories are easily available. The astronomer has not lived, who has ever collected and written a book upon data not sanctioned by the dogmas of his cult, but my slightly favorable opinion of biologists continues, and I note that a big book of Sea Serpent stories was written by Dr. Oudemans, Director of the Zoo, at The Hague, Holland. When that book came out, a review of it, in Nature, was not far from abusive. Away back in the year 1848, conventionalists were outraged, because of the source of one of these stories. For the account, by Capt. M’Quhae, of H. M. S. Daedalus, of a huge, unknown creature, said by him to have been seen by him, in the ocean, Aug. 6, 1848, see the Zoologist, vol. 6. Someone else who bothered the conventionalists was the Captain of the Royal Yacht, the Osborne, who, in an official report to the Admiralty, told of having seen a monster—not serpent-like—off the coast of Sicily, May 2, 1877. See the London Times, June 14, 1877, and Land and Water, Sept. 8, 1877. The creature was turtle-like, visible part of the body about fifty feet long. There was an attempt to correlate this appearance with a submarine eruption, but I have found that this eruption—in the Gulf of Tunis—had occurred in February.

The suggestion was that in the depths of the ocean may live monsters, which are occasionally cast to the surface by submarine disturbances.

It is a convenience. Accept that unknown sea monsters exist, and how account for the relatively few observations upon things so conspicuous? That they live in ocean depths, and come only occasionally to the surface.

I have gone into the subject of deep-sea dredging, and, in museums, have looked at models of deep-sea creatures, but I have never heard of a living thing of considerable size that has been brought up from profound ocean depths. William Beebe has never brought up anything of the kind. On his Arcturus Adventure, anything that got away from him, and his hooks and his nets and his dredges, must have been small and slippery. It seems that anything with an exposure of wide surfaces could not withstand great pressure. However, this is only reasoning. Before the days of deep-sea dredging, scientists reasoned that nothing at all could live far down in the sea. Also, now most of them would argue that, because of the great difference between pressures, any living thing coming up from ocean depths would burst. Not necessarily so, according to Beebe. Some of the deep-sea creatures that he brought up were so unconventional as to live several hours, and to show no sign of disruption. So, like everybody else, I don’t know what to think, but, rather uncommonly, I know that.

In October, 1883, there was a story in the newspapers—I take from the Quebec Daily Mercury, Oct. 7, 1883—of an unknown animal, which was seen by Capt. Seymour, of the bark Hope On, off the Pearl Islands, about 50 miles from Panama. In Knowledge, Nov. 30, 1883, Richard Proctor tells of this animal, and says that also it had been reported by officers of a steamship. This one was handsome. Anyway, it had a head like that of a “handsome horse.” It had either four legs or four “jointed fins.” Covered with a brownish hide, upon which were large, black spots. Circus-horseish. About twenty feet long. There was another story told, about the same time. New Zealand Times, Dec. 12, 1883—report by a sea captain, who had seen something like a turtle, 60 feet long, and 40 feet wide.

Perhaps stories of turtle-backed objects of large size relate to submersible vessels. If there were no submersible vessels of this earth, in the year 1883, we think of submersibles from somewhere else. Why they should be so secretive, we can’t much inquire into now, because we are so much concerned with other concealments and suppressions. I suspect that, in other worlds, or in other parts of one existence, there is esoteric knowledge of the human beings of this earth, kept back from common knowledge. This is easily thinkable, because even upon this earth there is little knowledge of human beings.

There have been suggestions of an occult control upon the minds of the inhabitants of this earth. Let anybody who does not like the idea that his mind may be most subtly controlled, without his knowledge of it, think back to what propagandists did with his beliefs in the years 1914-18. Also he need not think so far back as that.

The standardized explanations by which conventional scientists have checked inquiry into alleged appearances of strange living things, in the ocean, are mentioned in the following record:

Something was seen, off the west coast of Africa, Oct. 17, 1912. Passengers on a vessel said that they had seen the head and neck of a monster. They appointed a committee to see to it that record should be made of their observations. In the Cape Times (Cape Town) Oct. 29, 1912, Mr. Wilmot, former member of the Cape Legislative Council, records this experience, saying that there is no use trying to think that four independent witnesses had seen nothing but a string of dolphins or a gigantic strand of sea weed, or anything else, except an unknown monster.

It’s the fishmonger of Worcester in his marine appearance.

In this field of reported observations, so successful has been a seeming control of minds upon this earth, and guidance into picturing nothing but a string of dolphins or a gigantic strand of sea weed, that, now that the ghost has been considerably rehabilitated—though in my own records of hundreds of unexplained occurrences, the ghost-like scarcely ever appears—the Sea Serpent is foremost in representing what is supposed to be the mythical. I don’t know how many books I have read, in each of which is pictured a long strand of sea weed, with the root-end bulbed and gnarled grotesquely like a head. I suppose that hosts of readers have been convinced by these pictures.

But, if a monster from somewhere else should arrive upon the land of this earth, and, perhaps being out of adaptation, should die upon land, probably it would not be seen. I have noted several letters to newspapers, by big-game hunters who had never heard of anybody coming upon a dead elephant. Sir Emerson Tennent has written that, though he had often inquired of Europeans and Cingalese, he had never heard of anybody who had seen the remains of an elephant in the forests of Ceylon. A jungle soon vegetates euphemisms around its obscenities, but the frank ocean has not the pruderies of a jungle.

Strange bones have often been found on land. They have soon been conventionalized. When bones of a monster are found, the pattern-makers of a museum arrange whatever they can into conventional structures, and then fill in with plaster, colored differently, so that there shall be no deception. After a few years, these differences become undetectable. There is considerable dissatisfaction with the paleontologists. I notice in museums that, even when plaster casts are conspicuously labeled as nothing but plaster casts, some honest fellow has dug off chips to expose that there isn’t a bone in them.

What we’re looking for is an account of something satisfactorily monstrous, and not more or less in the distance: something that is not of paleontologic memory that has been jogged so plasterfully. The sea is the best field for data.

In the Mems. Wernerian Nat. Hist. Soc., 1-418, is published a paper by Dr. Barclay, who tells of the remains of an unknown monster that had been cast up by the sea, in September, 1808, at Stronsa, one of the Orkneys. We’ve got ahold of something now that was well observed. As fast as they could, observers got rid of this hunk, which for weeks, under a summer sun, had been making itself evidential. But the evidence came back. So again the observers got a rope and towed it out to sea. Sultry day soon—a flop on the beach—more observations. According to different descriptions, in affidavits by inhabitants of Stronsa, the remains of this creature had six “arms,” or “paws,” or “wings.” There is a suggestion of stumps of fins here, but it is said that the bulk was “without the least resemblance or affinity to fish.” Dr. Barclay told that in his possession was part of the “mane” of the monster.

A perhaps similar bulk was, upon the 1st of December, 1896, cast upon the coast of Florida, twelve miles south of St. Augustine. There were appendages, or ridges, upon it, and at first these formations were said to be stumps of tentacles. But, in the American Naturalist, 31-304, Prof. A. E. Verrill says that this suggestion that the mass of flesh was the remains of an octopus, is baseless. The mass was 21 feet long, 7 feet wide and 4½ feet high: estimated weight 7 tons. Reproductions of several photographs are published in the American Naturalist. Prof. Verrill says that, despite the great size of this mass, it was only part of an animal. He argues that it was part of the head of a creature like a sperm whale, but he says that it was decidedly unlike the head of any ordinary sperm whale, having no features of a whale’s head. Also, according to a description in the New York Herald, Dec. 2, 1896, the bulk seems not to have been whale-like. “The hide is of a light pink color, nearly white, and in the sunshine has a distinct silvery appearance. It is very tough and cannot be penetrated even with a sharp knife.” A pink monster, or an appalling thing with the look of a cherub, is another of our improvements upon conventional biology.

For a yarn, or an important record, of a reptile of “prehistoric size and appearance,” said to have been found on the beach of the Gulf of Fonseca, Salvador, see the New York Herald Tribune, June 16, 1928. It was about ninety feet long, marked with black and white stripes, and was “exceedingly corpulent.” Good-natured, fat monsters, too, are new to me.

I have searched especially for sea stories of hairy, or fur-covered monsters. Such creatures would not be sea animals, in the exclusive sense that something covered with scales might be. If unknown, they would have to be considered inhabitants of lands. Then up comes the question—what lands?

English Mechanic, April 7, 1899—that, according to Australian newspapers, the captain of a trading vessel had arrived in Sydney, with parts of an unknown monster. “The hide, or skin, of the monster was covered with hair.”

The arrival of these remains is reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, in issues from Feb. 23 to March 2, 1899. It is said that, according to Capt. Oliver, of the trading ship Emu, he had found, upon the beach of Suarro Island, the carcass of a two-headed monster.

That is just a little too interesting.

We find that the reporter who told this story dropped the most interesting part of it, in his subsequent accounts, which were upon two skulls, a vertebra, and a rib bone: but he was determined to discredit the find, and told that the bones were obviously fossils, implying that the Captain had invented a story of bodies of two animals that had recently been alive.

When we come upon assurances that a mystery has been solved, we go on investigating.

In the Sydney Daily Telegraph, February 28, it is said that an attempt to identify the bones as fossils had been refuted. Professional and amateur scientists had accepted an invitation to examine the bones, and, according to the testimony of their noses, these things decidedly were not fossils. Each skull was more than two feet long, and was shaped somewhat like a horse’s, but upon it was a beak. There are beaked whales, but these remains were not remains of beaked whales, if be accepted Captain Oliver’s unsupported statements as to hairiness and great size. It is said that no specimens of the hairy hide had been taken, because all parts, except the scraped bones, of these bulks that had been lying under a tropical sun weren’t just what one would want to take along in a small ship. According to Capt. Oliver, one of the bodies was sixty feet long. The largest beaked whales are not known to exceed thirty feet in length.

Mr. Waite, of the Australian Museum, examined the bones. He said that they were of beaked whales.

Mr. F. A. Mitchell-Hedges, in Battles with Giant Fish, tells of remains of a tremendous, unknown mammal, which was washed ashore, at Cape May, N. J., November, 1921. “This mammal whose weight was estimated at over 15 tons, which—to give a comparison of size—is almost as large as five fully grown elephants, was visited by many scientists, who were unable to place it, and positively stated that nothing yet known to science could in any way compare with it.”

I investigated the story of the Cape May monster, wherever I got the idea that I could find out anything in particular.

Somebody in Cape May wrote to me that the thing was a highly undesirable carcass of a whale, which had been towed out to sea. Somebody else wrote to me that it was a monster with a tusk twelve feet long, which he had seen. He said that, if I’d like to have it, he’d send me a photograph of the monster. After writing of having seen something with a tusk twelve feet long, he sent me a photograph of something with two tusks, each six feet long. But only one of the seeming tusks is clear in the picture, and it could be, not a tusk, but part of the jaw bone of a whale, propped up tusk-wise.

In the London Daily Mail, Dec. 27, 1924, appeared a’ story of an extraordinary carcass that was washed up, on the coast of Natal, Oct. 25, 1924. It was 47 feet long, and was covered with white hair, like a polar bear’s—

I won’t go into this, because I consider it a worthless yarn. In accordance with my methods, considering this a foolish and worthless yarn, I sent out letters to South African newspapers, calling upon readers, who could, to investigate this story. Nobody answered.

In the New Zealand Times, March 19, 1883, it is said that bones of an unknown monster, about 40 feet long, had been found upon the coast of Queensland, and had been taken to Rockhampton, Queensland. “There are the remains of what must have been an enormous snout, 8 feet long, in which the respiratory passage are yet traceable.” These could not have been the remains of a beaked whale. Whatever hip bones a cetacean has are only vestigial structures. In a sperm whale, 55 feet long, the hip bones are detached and atrophied relics of former uses, each about one foot long. A hip bone of the Queensland monster is described as enormous.

In looking over the London Daily News, I came upon an item. Trawlers of the steamship Balmedic had brought to Grimsby the skull of an unknown monster, dredged up in the Atlantic, north of Scotland (Daily News, June 26, 1908). The size of the skull indicated an animal the size of an elephant, and it was in “a wonderful state of preservation.” It was unlike the skull of any cetacean, having eye sockets a foot across. From the jaws hung a leathery tongue, three feet long. I found, in the Grimsby Telegraph, June 29th, a reproduction of a photograph of this skull, with the long tongue hanging from the beak-like jaws. I made a sketch of the skull, as pictured, and sent it with a description to the British Museum (Natural History). I received an answer from Mr. W. P. Pycraft, who wrote that he had never seen any animal with such a skull—”and I have seen a good many!” It is just possible that nobody else has ever seen anything much resembling a sketch that I’d make of anything, but that has nothing to do with descriptions of the tongue, According to Mr. Pycraft no known cetacean has such a tongue.

I went on searching, trying to come upon something about a hairy monster: furred, anything except scaled, or with a hide like a whale’s.

London newspapers, July 6, 1913—a lengthy telegram that had been sent by Mr. Hartwell Conder, Tasmanian State Mining Engineer, to Mr. Wallace, the Secretary of Mines, of Tasmania—that, upon April 20, 1913, two of Mr. Conder’s companions, named Davies and Harris, had seen a huge, unknown animal, near Macquarie Harbor, Tasmania. “The animal was about fifteen feet long. It had a very small head, only the size of the head of a kangaroo dog.

It had a thick, arched neck, passing gradually into the barrel of the body. It had no definite tail and no fins. It was furred, the coat in appearance resembling that of a horse of chestnut color, well-groomed and shining. It had four distinct legs. It traveled by bounding—i.e., by arching its back and gathering up its body, so that the footprints of the forefeet were level with those of the hind feet. It made definite footprints. These showed circular impressions, with a diameter (measured) of 9 inches, and the marks of claws, about 7 inches long, extending outward from the body. There was no evidence for or against webbing.”

In reply to my inquiries, Mrs. Conder—North Terrace, Burnie, Tasmania—wrote to me, as asked to by Mr. Conder, saying that the published description is accurate, and that, unless there be a seal with jointed flippers, upon which the creature could raise itself and run, Mr. Conder “could not be altogether convinced that the animal was a seal.”

I have not looked for record of any such known seal. I take for granted that the seal type has conventionalized so that there is no such seal.

It may be that there have been several finds of remains of a large, long-snouted animal that is unknown to the paleontologists, because, though it has occasionally appeared here, it has never been indigenous to this earth. New York Sun, Nov. 28, 1930—”Monster in ice has long snout.” Skeleton and considerable flesh, of an unknown animal found in the ice, upon Glacier Island, Alaska.

The animal was 24 feet long; head 59 inches long; snout 39 inches long. In some of the reports it was said that the animal was covered with hair, or fur. Conventionally one thinks of mammoths of Siberia, preserved for ages in ice. But, if nothing proves anything, simply that something is found in ice may not mean that for ages it was preserved in ice.

Chapter 10

Unknown, luminous things, or beings, have often been seen, sometimes close to this earth, and sometimes high in the sky. It may be that some of them were living things that occasionally come from somewhere else in our existence, but that others were lights on the vessels of explorers, or voyagers, from somewhere else.

From time to time, luminous objects, or beings, have been reported from Brown Mountain, North Carolina. They appear, and then for a long time are not seen, and then they appear again. See the Literary Digest, Nov. 7, 1925. I have other records. The luminosities travel, as if with motions of their own. They are brilliant, globular forms, and move in the sky, with a leisureliness and duration that exclude any explanation in meteoric terms. For many years, there had been talk upon this subject, and then, in the year 1922, people of North Carolina, asking for a scientific investigation, were referred to the United States Geological Survey. A geologist was sent from Washington to investigate these things in the sky.

One imagines, but most likely only faintly, the superiority of this geologist from Washington. He heard stories from the natives. He contrasted his own sound principles with the irresponsible gab of denizens, and went right to the investigation, scientifically. He went out on a road, and saw lights, and made his report. 47% of the lights that he saw were automobile headlights; 33% of them were locomotive headlights; 10% were lights in houses, and 10% were bush fires. Tot that up, and see that efficiency can’t go further. The geologist from Washington, having investigated nothing that he had been sent to investigate, returned to Washington, which also, by the way, is a place where there’s plenty to investigate, and I suppose that the people of North Carolina will be no wiser, as to these things in the sky, if some other time they appeal to a United States Fish Commission, or the Department of Labor.

I don’t know to just what degree my accusation, in these matters, is of the laziness and feeble-mindedness of scientists. Or, instead of accusing, I am simply pointing out everybody’s inability seriously to spend time upon something, which, according to his preconceptions, is nonsense. Scientists, in matters of our data, have been like somebody in Europe, before the year 1492, hearing stories of lands to the west, going out on the ocean for an hour or so, in a row-boat, and then saying, whether exactly in these words, or not: “Oh, hell! there ain’t no America.”

In Knowledge, September, 1913, Count de Sibour enjoyed his laziness, or incompetence, which a merciful providence, bent upon keeping us human beings reconciled to being human beings, made him think was his own superiority. He told a story of foolish, credulous people, in North Norfolk, England, who, in the winter of 1907-8, believed that a pair of shining things, moving about the fields, could not be explained as he explained them. We are told of a commonplace ending of this alleged mystery: that finally a gamekeeper shot one of these objects, and found that it was a common barn owl, phosphorescent with decayed wood from its nesting place, or with a fungous disease of its feathers. According to other accounts, these things were as brilliant as electric lights. But a phosphorescent owl could not shine with a light like an electric light. So De Sibour described the light as “a pale, yellow glow,” such as a phosphorescent owl could shine with.

Science concerns itself with adaptations, and science itself is adaptation. We are reminded of the Rev. Hugh Guy. He could not explain downpours: so he turned downpours into “a small quantity,” which he could explain.

De Sibour knew nothing about this subject, from his own experiences. We go to the same records to which he went. Like him, we find just about what we want to find. In the London Times, Dec. 10, 1907, and in following issues, are accounts of these luminous objects, which were flying about the fields of North Norfolk, having been reported by Mr. R. W. Purdy, a well-known writer upon biologic subjects.

Among other attempts to assimilate with the known, or among other expressions of a world-wide antipathy to the finding out of anything new, was the idea that owls are sometimes luminous. The idea came first, or the solution of the problem was published first, and then the problem was fitted to the solution. This is said to be a favorite method of ratiocination with inmates of a home for the mentally deficient, but I should think that one of these inmates should feel at home anywhere. De Sibour and others fitted in a story that a luminous owl had been shot. I think that at times there may be faintly luminous owls, because I accept that, under some circumstances, almost anything may be luminous. English Mechanic, 10-15—case of a man with a luminous toe.

Shining things, flying like birds, in the fields of North Norfolk continued to be reported. The brilliant things looked electric. When they rested on trees, everything around them was illuminated. Purdy’s descriptions are very different from “a pale, yellow glow.” Upon the night of December 1st, he saw something that he thought was the lamp of a motor cycle, moving rapidly toward him, in a field, stopping, then rising several yards, moving higher, and then retreating. It moved in various directions. See the Field, Jan. 11, 1908.

De Sibour was uncareful, in his mystery-squelching story, his bobbed story, a story that forced a mystery to a commonplace ending. No gamekeeper shot a luminous owl, at this time, in North Norfolk.

But somebody did say that he had conventionally solved the mystery. Eastern Daily Press (Norwich), Feb. 7, 1908—that, early in the morning of the 5th, Mr. E. S. Cannell, of Lower Hellesdon, saw something shining on a grass bank. According to him, it fluttered up to him, and he found that it was the explanation of a mystery. It was a luminous owl, he said; and, as told by him, he carried it to his home, where it died, “still luminous.”

But see the Press of the 8th—that Mr. Cannell’s dead owl had been taken to a taxidermist, who had been interviewed. Of course a phosphorescence of a bird, whether from decayed wood, or feather fungi, would be independent of life or death of the bird. Questioned as to whether the body of the owl was luminous or not, the taxidermist said: “I have seen nothing luminous about it.”

In zoological journals, one frequently comes upon allusions to these things, or beings, of North Norfolk. No gamekeeper killed one of them, but the story of the gamekeeper who had killed a luminous owl is told in these records that are said to be scientific. It is not necessary that a gamekeeper should kill a luminous owl, and so put an end to a mystery. A story that he did will serve just as well.

The finding, or the procuring in some way or another, of the body of an owl, did not put an end to the mystery, except in most of the records, that are said to be scientific. There were at first two lights, and there continued to be two lights. The brilliant things continued to be seen in the fields, flitting about, appearing and disappearing. The last observation findable by me (May 3, 1908) is recorded in the Trans. Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society, 8-550. Purdy records an observation upon the two lights, seen together, more than a month after the date upon which Mr. Cannell said that his owl had fluttered right up to him. Something else was reported, in this region. In the Eastern Daily Press, Jan. 28, 1908, it is said that, at night—moon bright—”a dark, globular object, with a structure of some kind upon the side of it, traveling at a great pace,” had been seen in the sky, by employees of the Norwich Transportation Company, at Mousehead. “It seemed too large for a kite, and, besides, its movements seemed under control, for it was traveling against the wind.”

I am here noting only a few of the many records of unknown, seemingly living, luminous things that used to be called will-o’-the-wisps. They come and they go, and their reappearances in a small region make me think of other localized repetitions that we have noted.

London Daily Express, February 15, and following issues, 1923—brilliant, luminous things moving across fields, sometimes high in the air, at Fenny Compton, Warwickshire. They were “intense lights,” like automobile headlights.

Sometimes these luminous things, or beings, hovered over a farmhouse. It was a deserted farmhouse, according to the London Daily News, February 13. About a year later, one of these objects, or whatever they were, returned, and was reported as “a swiftly moving light,” by several persons, one of them Miss Olive Knight, a school teacher, of Fenny Compton (London Sunday News, Jan. 27, 1924).

The Earl of Erne tells, in the London Daily Mail, Dec. 24, 1912, of brilliant luminosities that, from time to time, in a period of seven or eight years, had been appearing near Lough Erne, Londonderry, Ireland, “in size and shape very much like a motor car lamp.”

In later issues of the Daily Mail, the Countess of Erne tells of these things, or creatures, “like motor car lamps, large and round.”

Chapter 11

Science is very much like the Civil War, in the U. S. A. No matter which side won, it would have been an American victory. By Science, I mean conventionalization of alleged knowledge. It, or maybe she, acts to maintain itself, or whatever, against further enlightenment, or alleged enlightenment but when giving in, there is not surrender, but partnership, and something that had been bitterly fought then becomes another factor in its, or her, prestige. So, seventy years ago, no matter whether evolutionists or anti-evolutionists had won, it would have been a big, scientific victory anyway. No wonder so many of us are humbled by a reputation that can’t lose any way.

Science is a maw, or a headless and limbless stomach, an amoeba-like gut that maintains itself by incorporating the assimilable and rejecting the indigestible. There are whirlwinds and waterspouts, and it seems acceptable that there have been rare occurrences of faintly luminous owls. Then by a process of sorting over data, rejecting the objectionable, and taking in the desirable, Science saves itself great pains, because a bellyache is something that is only a gut in torment. So, with alimentary treatments, a shower of living things can always be made to assimilate with the whirlwind-explanation, and a brilliant, electric thing can be toned down digestibly. In extreme cases there is a secretion of fishmongers or gamekeepers.

In some cases of obstinate unassimilableness, it is supposed to be necessary to swat a little girl. But I doubt the necessity, because there is in human beings such a fondness, or sometimes such a passion, for confessing, that sooner or later somebody will come forward with almost any desired confession. Sometimes, from time to time, half a dozen persons confess to having committed the same murder. The police pay scarcely any attention any more to a new confession, in the matter of the Hall murder, in New Jersey. There was a case, in an English police court, of a man who had given himself up, as a deserter from the army. But a policeman testified that this was his fifth or sixth confession, and that he had never been in the army. The man admitted the charge. “But,” said he, “I have something else that I wish to confess.” “I’ll hear no more of your confessions. Six months!” said the magistrate. In some cases the incentive for false confessions is not obvious, but in others it is obviously to come out of one’s pale, yellow glow, and be brilliant in limelight. There have been cases not quite of confessions, but of somebody attributing to himself unexplained occurrences, or taking advantage of them for various kinds of profit. I accept that, if explorers from somewhere else should visit this earth, and if their vessels, or the lights of their vessels, should be seen by millions of the inhabitants of this earth, the data would soon be conventionalized. If beings, like human beings, from somewhere else, should land upon this earth, near New York, and parade up Broadway, and then sail away, somebody, a year or so later, would “confess” that it had been a hoax by him and some companions, who had dressed up for their parts, and had jabbered, as they thought extramundanians should jabber. New Yorkers would say that from the first they had suspected something wrong. Who ever heard of distinguished foreigners coming to New York, and not trying to borrow something? Or not coinciding with propaganda in newspapers?

Probably, in August, 1929, an aeroplane from somewhere in Europe passed over a jungle, and was reported, in a village, by a native. Savages are highly scientific. They reason upon generalizations that are so exclusive as to be nothing short of academic. They are as keen as any Newton, or Einstein, in understanding that, in order to arrive at what is said to be the known, they must start with something that they don’t know about. We’d have a pretty good idea of what the wisemen said, when they heard the story of a vessel, probably occupied by passengers, that had been seen in the sky, if we could accept that they could be so undignified as to say anything

New York Herald Tribune, Aug. 29, 1929—a traveling light in the sky—about 400 miles off the coast of Virginia. It was reported by Thomas Stuart, third mate of the steamship Coldwater, of the South Atlantic Steamship Line. “There was something that gave the impression that it was a large, passenger craft.” It was traveling at an estimated speed of 100 miles an hour, in the direction of Bermuda. There was an investigation that “failed to reveal any trans-Atlantic or Bermuda flight.”

We shall have an expression upon luminous appearances that may have been of a kind with the seeming creatures of the preceding chapter, or that may belong in another category.

Before I could find out the date, and look the matter up, I came upon several humorous allusions, in English newspapers, to a time when there was a scare in England, because of moving lights in the sky. And all the excitement was about the advertising scheme of an automobile manufacturer, who had sent up an imitation-airship, with lanterns tied to it. There was a lesson in this: presumably other alleged mysteries could be explained in similar, commonplace terms.

I was doing one of my relatively minor jobs, which was going through the London Daily Mail, for a period of about twenty-five years, when I came upon this—

March 25, 1909—that, upon the 23rd of March, at 5:10 o’clock in the morning, two constables, in different parts of the city of Peterborough, had reported having seen an object, carrying a light, moving over the city, with sounds like the sounds of a motor. In the Peterborough Advertiser, March 27th, is published an interview with one of these constables, who described “an object, somewhat oblong and narrow in shape, carrying a powerful light.” To suit whatever anybody should prefer, I could give data to show that only lights, and no object were seen, and that no sound was heard; or that a vessel, carrying lights, was seen, and that sounds, like sounds of a motor, were heard.

It is said, in the Daily Mail, May 17th, that many other stories of unaccountable objects and lights in the sky had reached the office of the Mail. If so, these stories were not published. The newspapers are supposed to be avid for sensational news, but they have their conventions, and unaccountable lights and objects in the sky are not supposed to have sex, and it is likely that hosts of strange, but sexless, occurrences have been reported, but have not been told of in the newspapers. In the Daily Mail, it is said that no attention had been paid to the letters, because everything that was mentioned in them, as evidence, was unsatisfactory. It is said that the object reported at Peterborough was probably a kite with a lantern tied to it. On the 15th of May, a constable at Northampton had sent to headquarters a written report upon lights that he had seen in the sky at 9 P.M.; but Chief Constable Madlin had learned that a practical joker had sent up a fire balloon.

The practical joker of Northampton, amusing himself at 9 o’clock in the evening, is an understandable representative of his species; but some other representative of his species, flying a kite and lanterns, at Peterborough, at 5 o’clock in the morning, limiting his audience mostly to milkmen, though maybe a joker, could not have been a very practical joker. He must have been fond of travel. There were other reports from various places in England and in Wales. There were reports from places far apart.

Daily Mail, May 20—that a man, named Lithbridge, of 4 Roland Street, Cardiff, Wales, had, in the office of the Cardiff Evening Express, told a marvelous story. This story was that, upon the 18th of May, about 11 P.M., while walking along a road, near the Caerphilly Mountains, Wales, he had seen, on the grass, at a side of the road, a large tube-shaped construction. In it were two men, in heavy fur-overcoats. When they saw Mr. Lithbridge, they spoke excitedly to each other, in a foreign language, and sailed away. Newspaper men visited the place, and found the grass trampled, and found a scattering of torn newspapers and other débris.

If anybody else wants to think that these foreigners were explorers from Mars or the moon, here is a story that of course can be reasoned out quite, or almost, satisfactorily.

At any rate, still more satisfactorily it may be said that no foreigners of this earth were sailing in the sky of Great Britain. In the Western Mail (Cardiff), May 21st, is published an interview with Mr. C. S. Rolls, the motorist, and the founder of the Aero Club, who gave his opinion that some of the stories of a strange object in the sky were hoaxes, but that not all of them could be explained so. Chiefly for the reason that there was no known airship of this earth, with such powers of flight, the reported observations were discredited, at least sometimes, in all newspapers that I have looked at. In the London Weekly Dispatch, May 23rd, the stories are so discredited, and it is argued that to be seen so often, without having been seen to cross the Channel, an airship would have to have a base in England, to which, in view of the general excitement, it would certainly have been traced: a base where it would be seen, “especially during the tedious preliminaries of ascent.” Then, in the Weekly Dispatch, are listed reports from 22 places, in the week preceding the 23rd of May, and 19 reports earlier in May and in March.

Mr. Lithbridge was a Punch and Judy man. Perhaps his story was of some profit to him. Not much attention was paid to it. But then came another explanation.

Upon May 26th, it was told in the newspapers that the mystery of the lights in the sky had been solved. A large imitation-airship had “come down” at Dunstable, and the lights had been upon that. It was an advertising scheme. An automobile manufacturer had been dragging the thing around in England and Wales. There had been reports from Ireland, but Ireland was omitted in this explanation. We are told that this object, roped to an automobile, had been dragged along the roads, amusingly exciting persons who were not very far advanced mentally. With whatever degree of advancement mine may be, I suppose that such a thing could be dragged slowly, and for a short time, perhaps only a few minutes, because it was of hot-air-inflation, along a road, and conceivably through a city or two, with a policeman, who reported lights in the sky, not seeing a rope going up from an automobile: but, with whatever degree of advancement that of mine may be, I do not think of any such successful imposition in about forty large cities, some of them several hundred miles apart. No one at Dunstable saw or heard the imitation-airship come down from the sky. An object, to which was tied a card, upon which was a request to communicate with a London automobile manufacturer, “in case of accident,” was found in a field, morning of May 26th.

The explanation, as I want to see it, is that probably the automobile manufacturer took advantage of the interest in lights in the sky, and at night dumped a contrivance into a field, having tied his card to it. If so this was only one of many occurrences that have been exploited by persons who had a liking, or a use, for publicity. Probably Mr. Cannell and his dead owl can be so explained: and, though I should very much like to accept Mr. Lithbridge’s story, I fear me that we shall have to consider him one of these exploiters. Also, there was the case of the press agent, who, taking advantage of stories of a prowling animal, tied tin wings and green whiskers to a kangaroo.

The range of the reported observations was from Ipswich, on the east coast of England, to Belfast, Ireland, a distance of 350 miles: and, in Great Britain, from Hull to Swansea, a distance of 200 miles. Perhaps a gas bag could be dragged around a little, but the imitation-airship that was found at Dunstable, was a flimsy contrivance, consisting of two hot-air balloons, and a frame about 20 feet long, connecting them.

The lights in the sky were frequently reported, upon the same night, from places far apart. Upon the night of May 9th, reports came from Northampton, Wisbech, Stamford, and Southend. In the Weekly Dispatch, May 23rd, it is pointed out that to be seen at Southend about 11 P.M., and then twenty minutes later, at Stamford, seventy miles away, the object in the sky must have traveled at a rate of 210 miles an hour.

The question that comes up is whether, after the finding of the object at Dunstable, or after a commonplace ending of a mystery, lights continued to be seen traveling in the sky.

The stoppage was abrupt. Or the stoppage of publication of reports was abrupt.

Chapter 12

It may be that upon new principles we can account for the mystery of the Marie Celeste. If there is a selective force, which transports stones exclusively, or larvae, and nothing but larvae, or transports living things of various sizes, but nothing but living things, such a selective force might affect a number of human beings, leaving no trace, because unaffective to everything else.

I take from the report by the Queen’s Proctor, in the Admiralty Court, published in the London Times, Feb. 14, 1873. Upon the 5th of December, 1872, between the Azores and Lisbon, the crew of the British ship Dei Gratia saw a vessel, made out to be the American brigantine Marie Celeste. Her sails were set, and she was tacking, but so erratically that attention was attracted. Whether ships are really females, or not, this one looked so helpless, or woebegone, that all absence of male protection was suspected. The Britons shoved out and boarded the vessel. There was nobody aboard. There was findable nothing by which to account for the abandonment. “Every part of the vessel, inside and outside, was in good order and condition.” In the log book, the latest entry, having in it no suggestion of impending trouble of any kind, was dated November 25th. There was no sign of any such trouble as mutiny. A phial of oil, used by the captain’s wife, upon a sewing machine, stood upright, indicating that there had been no rough weather. Investigation of this mystery was world-wide. The State Department of the United States communicated with all representatives abroad, and every custom house in the world was more or less alert for information of any kind: but fourteen persons, in a time of calm weather, and under circumstances that gave no indication of any kind of violence, disappeared, and either nothing, or altogether too much, was found out. I have a collection of yarns, by highly individualized liars, or artists who scorned, in any particular, to imitate one another; who told, thirty, forty, or fifty years later, of having been members of this crew.

London Times, Nov. 6, 1840—the Rosalie, a large French ship, bound from Hamburg to Havana—abandoned ship—no clew to an explanation. Most of the sails set—no leak—valuable cargo. There was a half-starved canary in a cage.

But I suggest that, with our hints of Teleportation, we are on the wrong track. Crews of vessels have disappeared, and vessels have disappeared. It may be that something of which the inhabitants of this earth know nothing, is concerned in these disappearances, or seizures.

In the New York Sun, April 24, 1930, the French astronomer and meteorologist, Gen. Frederic Chapel, is quoted, saying that aircraft, missing at sea, and seacraft, may have been struck by meteors. That there is something of the unexplained in these disappearances, many writers have felt. But there is no recorded instance of aircraft, flying over land, having been struck by a meteor, and I know of few instances of reported falls of meteoric matter upon vessels, and no instance of a vessel that has been much damaged by a meteor.

The disappearance of the Cyclops, a fuel ship of the U. S. N., even though in war time, is considered mysterious—some time after March 4, 1918, after leaving Barbados, B. W. I., for Hampton Roads, Va.

When the Titanic went down, April 15, 1912, flotsam was reported months afterward, and there were many survivors: but, after the disappearance of the White Star steamship, the Naronic, in February, 1893, two empty lifeboats, supposed to be hers, were reported by a sea captain, and nothing more was seen. In the report by the London Board of Trade, it was considered highly improbable that the Naronic had struck an iceberg. It was said that this vessel was “almost perfect,” in construction and equipment. She was a freighter, with 75 men aboard. There were life belts for all.

New York Times, June 21, 1921—disappearance of three American ships—difficult to think of piracy—seemed to be no other explanation—five departments of the Washington Government investigating. In February, the Carol Deering, a five-masted schooner, of Portland, Me., had gone ashore, near Diamond Shoals, North Carolina. The mystery is similar to that of the Marie Celeste. Nobody aboard. Everything was in good condition. The circumstance that attracted most attention was that the crew had disappeared about the time a meal was to be served. A little later, a bottle was picked up on shore, and in it was a message purporting to have been written by the mate of the vessel. “An oil-burning tanker has boarded us, and placed our crew in irons. Get word to headquarters of the Company at once.” Just how somebody in irons could get a container for a message makes me wonder: still, if it’s a bottle, they say that that could be got by anybody in double irons.

In the London Daily Mail, June 22, the finding of another bottle, with a message in it, is told of—from the Captain of the Deering, this time—that he had been taken prisoner by the crew, and had been put upon another vessel.

After the Waratah ”mysteriously disappeared,” off the coast of South Africa, July, 1909, five bottles, all said to be hoaxes, were found. There is as much complication and bafflement in this subject, as in anything that Science is said absolutely to have proved. If some of us tire of our existence, and would like to try some other existence, they had better think it over, because anything merrier than ours is hard to conceive of. Every shipwreck, or any other catastrophe, brings out merrymakers. The tragedy of the Waratah was enjoyed a long time. More than thirteen years later (Nov. 21, 1922) another bottle, said to be a hoax, was found near Cape Town. Still, I am affected just the other way, and am taking on a new pessimism. Heretofore I have thought cheerfully of bottles. But there’s a depression from anything, once the humorists get ahold of it. I wonder how comes it that nobody has reported finding an old bottle, and in it a sea captain’s account of an impending mutiny, signed “Christopher Columbus.”

New York Times, June 22, 1921—”More ships added to the mystery-list—almost simultaneous disappearances, without a trace, regarded as significant.” Times, June 24—about a dozen vessels in the list.

And yet such a swipe by an unknown force, of the vessels of a nation, along its own coast, was soon thought of no more. Anything could occur, and if not openly visible, or if observed by millions, would soon be gulfed in forgetfulness. Or soon it would be conventionalized. In the year 1921, it was customary to accuse the Russians. I think that the climax was reached, in the year 1927, when unruliness of natives in the jungles of Peru was attributed to Russian agents. Still, I suppose that, for years, whenever there is revolt against misrule and oppression, propagandists will tell us the same old yarn of otherwise contented natives, misled by those Russians. In June, 1921, the way of explaining the disappearance of a dozen vessels was by saying that it was thought that the Soviet Government was stealing them.

It may be that constructions from somewhere else have appeared upon this earth, and have seized crews of this earth’s ships.

In their book, The Cruise of the Bacchante, the two young princes, sons of the Prince of Wales, one of them now the King of England, tell of “a strange light, as if of a phantom vessel all aglow” that was, at four o’clock, morning of the 11th of June, 1881, between Melbourne and Sydney, reported by the lookout of the Bacchante. The unknown appearance was seen by twelve other members of the crew. Whether there be relation, or not, five hours later, the lookout fell from a crosstree and was killed.

Brooklyn Eagle, Sept. 10, 1891—something that was seen, at Crawfordsville, Indiana, 2 A.M., Sept. 5th. Two icemen saw it. It was a seemingly headless monster, or it was a construction, about 20 feet long, and 8 feet wide, moving in the sky, seemingly propelled by fin-like attachments. It moved toward the icemen. The icemen moved. It sailed away, and made such a noise that the Rev. G. W. Switzer, pastor of the Methodist church, was awakened, and, looking from his window, saw the object circling in the sky.

I supposed that there was no such person as the Rev. G. W. Switzer. Being convinced that there had probably never been a Rev. G. W. Switzer, of Crawfordsville—and taking for a pseudo-standard that if I’m convinced of something that is something to suspect—I looked him up. I learned that the Rev. G. W. Switzer had lived in Crawfordsville, in September, 1891. Then I found out his present address in Michigan. I wrote to him, and received a reply that he was traveling in California, and would send me an account of what he had seen in the sky, immediately after returning home. But I have been unable to get him to send that account. If anybody sees a “headless monster” in the sky, it is just as well to think that over, before getting into print. Altogether, I think that I make here as creditable and scientific a demonstration as any by any orthodox scientist, so far encountered by us. The problem is: Did a “headless monster” appear in Crawfordsville, in September, 1891? And I publish the results of my researches: “Yes, a Rev. G. W. Switzer did live in Crawfordsville, at the time.”

I’d like to know what Mr. W. H. Smith saw, Sept. 18, 1877, in the sky, moving over the city of Brooklyn. It looked like a winged human form (New York Sun, Sept. 21, 1877).

Zoologist, July, 1868—something that was seen in the sky, near Copiapo, Chile—a construction that carried lights, and was propelled by a noisy motor—or “a gigantic bird; eyes wide open and shining like burning coals; covered with immense scales, which clashed together with a metallic sound.”

I don’t know what will be thought generally of our data, but in the New York Times, July 6, 1873, the writer of General Notes tells of something that he considered “the very worst case of delirium tremens on record.” This was before my time. He copied from the Bonham (Texas) Enterprise—that a few days before the time of writing, a man living 5 or 6 miles from Bonham, had told of having seen something like an enormous serpent, floating over his farm; and that other men working in the fields had seen the thing and had been frightened. I suppose that, equally deliriously, inhabitants of the backwoods of China, would similarly describe one of this earth’s airships floating over their farms. I don’t know that this one account, considered alone, amounts to anything, but, in the Times, of the 7th of July, I found something else noted. A similar object had been reported from Fort Scott, Kansas. “About half way above the horizon, the form of a huge serpent, apparently perfect in form, was plainly seen.”

New York Times, May 30, 1888—reports from several places, in Darlington County, South Carolina—huge serpent in the sky, moving with a hissing sound, but without visible means of propulsion.

In the London Daily Express, Sept. 1, 1922, it is said that, upon September 9th, John Morris, coxswain of the Barmouth (Wales) Life Boat, and William James, looking out at sea, from the shore, at Barmouth, saw what they thought was an aeroplane falling into the ocean. They rushed out in a motor boat, but found nothing. In the Barmouth Advertiser, of the 14th, it is said that this object had fallen so slowly that features described as features of an aeroplane had been seen. In newspapers and aeronautical journals of the time, there is no findable record of an aeroplane of this earth reported missing.

There was a series of occurrences, in the summer of 1910. Early in July, the crew of the French fishing smack, Jeune Frédéric, reported having seen, in the sky, off the coast of Normandy, a large, black, bird-like object. Suddenly it fell into the sea, bounded back, fell again, and disappeared, leaving no findable traces. Nothing was known of the flight of any terrestrial aircraft, by which to explain (London Weekly Dispatch, July 10). Upon August 17th (London Times, August 19) laborers at work in the forest east of Dessau, Germany, saw in the sky an object that they thought was a balloon. It suddenly flamed, and something that was thought to be its car, fell into the forest. The Chief Forester was notified, and a hunt, on a large scale, was made, but nothing was found. Aeronautical societies reported that no known balloon had been sent up. It was thought that the object must have been somebody’s large toy balloon. About this time, the fall from the sky of a white cylinder of marble was reported. One of us pioneers, or whatever we are, Mr. F. T. Mayer, looked up this matter, and learned that the reported occurrence was upon the farm of Mr. Daniel Lawyer, Rural Route 4, Westerville, Ohio. I wrote to Mr. Lawyer, asking whether the object could be considered artificial. I had an idea that it might, or might not, be a container of a message that had been fired to this earth from Mars or the moon or somewhere else. Mr. Lawyer did not like the suggestion of artificiality, which he interpreted as meaning that he had picked up something that had been made in Ohio. He said that it was not an artificial object, but a meteorite. For a reproduction of a photograph of this symmetric, seemingly carved cylinder, 12 inches long, weight about 3 pounds, see Popular Mechanics, 14-801. About 9 P.M., August 30th—lights as if upon an airship, moving over New York City (New York World, August 31). Aviators were interviewed, but all known aircraft were accounted for. World, September 2—that two men had sent up a large kite. Upon the 21st of September (New York Tribune, September 22) a great number of round objects were seen passing from west to east over the lower part of New York City. Crowds stood in the streets, watching them. They were thought to be little balloons. I have records of similar objects, in large numbers, that could not be considered little balloons. For several hours this procession continued. If somebody in Jersey City was advertising, he kept quiet in his bid for publicity. The next day, at Dunkirk, N. Y., an object, described as an unknown cigar-shaped balloon, was seen in the sky, over Lake Erie, seeming to be unmanageable, gradually disappearing, late in the evening. There was so much excitement in Dunkirk that tugboats went out and searched all night. Toronto Daily Mail and Empire, September 24—that someone on a tugboat had found a large box-kite, which had been sent up by a party of campers, and was undoubtedly the reported object.

Mr. A. H. Savage-Landor, in Across Unknown South America, vol. II, p. 425, tells a story that was told to him, by the people of Porto Principal, Peru, in January, 1912—that, some years before, a ship had been seen in the sky, passing over the town, not far above the tree tops. According to his interpretations, it was a “square globe,” flying a flag of Stars and Stripes. Mr. Savage-Landor thinks that the object might have been the airship, which, upon Oct. 17, 1910, Wellman abandoned about 400 miles east of Hatteras. In newspaper accounts of this unsuccessful attempt to cross the Atlantic, it is said that, when abandoned, this airship was leaking gas rapidly. If a vessel from somewhere else, flying the Stars and Stripes, is pretty hard to think of, except by thinking that there are Americans everywhere, also the “square globe” is not easy, at least for the more conventional of us. Probably these details are faults of interpretation. Whatever this thing in the sky may have been, if we will think that it may have been, it returned at night, and this time it showed lights.

In the New York newspapers, September, 1880, are allusions to an unknown object that had been seen traveling in the sky, in several places, especially in St. Louis and Louisville. I have not been able to get a St. Louis newspaper of this time, but I found accounts in the Louisville Courier-Journal, July 29, Aug. 6, 1880. Unless an inventor of this earth was more self-effacing than biographies of inventors indicate, no inhabitant of this earth succeeded in making a dirigible aerial contrivance, in the year 1880, then keeping quiet about it. The story is that, between 6 and 7 o’clock, evening of July 28th, people in Louisville saw in the sky “an object like a man, surrounded by machinery, which he seemed to be working with his hands and feet.” The object moved in various directions, ascending and descending, seemingly under control. When darkness came, it disappeared. Then came dispatches, telling of something that had been seen in the sky, at Madisonville, Ky. “It was something with a ball at each end.” “It sometimes appeared in a circular form, and then changed to an oval. It passed out of sight, moving south.”

These are stories of at least harmless things that were, or were not, seen over lands of this earth. It may be that if beings from somewhere else would seize inhabitants of this earth, wantonly, or out of curiosity, or as a matter of scientific research, the preference would be for an operation at sea, remote from observations by other humans of this earth. If such beings exist, they may in some respects be very wise, but—supposing secrecy to be desirable—they must have neglected psychology in their studies, or unconcernedly they’d drop right into Central Park, New York, and pick up all the specimens they wanted, and leave it to the wisemen of our tribes to explain that there had been a whirlwind, and that the Weather Bureau, with its usual efficiency, had published warnings of it.

Now and then admirers of my good works write to me, and try to convert me into believing things that I say. He would have to be an eloquent admirer, who could persuade me into thinking that our present expression is not at least a little fanciful; but just the same I have labored to support it. I labor, like workers in a beehive, to support a lot of vagabond notions. But how am I to know? How am I to know but that sometime a queen-idea may soar to the sky, and from a nuptial flight of data, come back fertile from one of these drones?

In the matter of the disappearance of the Danish training ship Kobenhoven, which, upon Dec. 14, 1928, sailed, with fifty cadets and sailors aboard, from Montevideo, I note that another training ship, the Atalanta (British) set sail, early in the year 1880, with 250 cadets and sailors aboard, from Bermuda, and was not heard of again.

Upon Oct. 3, 1902, the German bark, Freya, cleared from Manzanillo for Punta Arenas, on the west coast of Mexico. I take from Nature, April 25, 1907. Upon the 20th of October, the ship was found at sea, partly dismasted, lying on her side, nobody aboard. The anchor was still hanging free at her bow, indicating that calamity had occurred soon after the ship had left port. The date on a calendar, on a wall of the Captain’s cabin, was October 4th. Weather reports showed that there had been only light winds in this region. But upon the 5th, there had been an earthquake in Mexico.

Several weeks after the disappearance of the crew of the Freya, another strange sea-occurrence was reported.

Zoologist, 4-7-38—that, according to the log of the steamship Fort Salisbury, the second officer, Mr. A. H. Raymer, had, Oct. 28, 1902, in Lat. 5°, 31´ S., and Long. 4°, 42´ W., been called, at 3:05 A.M., by the lookout, who reported that there was a huge, dark object, bearing lights in the sea ahead. Two lights were seen. The steamship passed a slowly sinking bulk, of an estimated length of five or six hundred feet. Mechanism of some kind—fins, the observers thought—was making a commotion in the water. “A scaled back” was slowly submerging.

One thinks that seeing for such details as “a scaled back” could not have been very good, at three o’clock in the morning. So doubly damned is this datum that the attempt to explain it was in terms of the accursed Sea Serpent.

Phosphorescence of the water is mentioned several times, but that seems to have nothing to do with two definite lights, like those of a vessel. The Captain of the Fort Salisbury was interviewed. “I can only say that he (Mr. Raymer) is very earnest on the subject, and has, together with the lookout and helmsman, seen something in the water, of a huge nature, as specified.”

One thinks that this object may have been a large, terrestrial vessel that had been abandoned, and was sinking.

I have looked over Lloyd’s List, for the period, finding no record, by which to explain.

Chapter 13

As to data that we shall now take up, I say to myself: “You are a benign ghoul, digging up dead, old legends and superstitions, trying to breathe life into them. Well, then, why have you neglected Santa Claus?”

But I am particular in the matter of data, or alleged data. And I have come upon no record, or alleged record, of mysterious footprints in snow, on roofs of houses, leading to chimneys, Christmas Eves.

There is a great deal, in the most acceptable of the science of today, that represents a rehabilitation of supposed legends, superstitions, and folk lore. Recall Voltaire’s incredulity as to fossils, which according to him only a peasant would believe in. And note that his antagonism to fossils was probably because they had been taken over by theologians, in their way of explaining. Here was one of the keenest of minds: but it could not accept data, because it rejected explanations of the data. And so one thinks of, say, the transmutation of metals, which is now rehabilitated. And so on. There are some backward ones, today, who do not believe in witches: but every married man knows better.

In the month of May, 1810, something appeared at Ennerdale, near the border of England and Scotland, and killed sheep, not devouring them, sometimes seven or eight of them in a night, but biting into the jugular vein and sucking the blood. That’s the story. The only mammal that I know of that does something like this is the vampire bat. It has to be accepted that stories of the vampire bat are not myths. Something was ravaging near Ennerdale, and the losses by sheep farmers were so serious that the whole region was aroused. It became a religious duty to hunt this marauder. Once, when hunters rode past a church, out rushed the whole congregation to join them, the vicar throwing off his surplice, on his way to a horse. Milking, cutting of hay, feeding of stock were neglected. For more details, see Chambers’ Journal, 81-470. Upon the 12th of September, someone saw a dog in a cornfield, and shot it. It is said that this dog was the marauder, and that with its death the killing of sheep stopped.

For about four months, in the year 1874, beginning upon January 8th, a killer was abroad, in Ireland. In Land and Water, March 7, 1874, a correspondent writes that he had heard of depredations by a wolf, in Ireland, where the last native wolf had been killed in the year 1712. According to him, a killer was running wild, in Cavan, slaying as many as 30 sheep in one night. There is another account, in Land and Water, March 28. Here, a correspondent writes that, in Cavan, sheep had been killed in a way that led to the belief that the marauder was not a dog. This correspondent knew of 42 instances, in three townlands, in which sheep had been similarly killed—throats cut and blood sucked, but no flesh eaten. The footprints were like a dog’s, but were long and narrow, and showed traces of strong claws. Then, in the issue of April 11th, of Land and Water, came the news that we have been expecting. The killer had been shot. It had been shot by Archdeacon Magenniss, at Lismoreville, and was only a large dog.

This announcement ends the subject, in Land and Water. Almost anybody, anyway in the past, before suspiciousness against conventions had the development that it has today, reading these accounts down to the final one, would say—”Why, of course! It’s the way these stories always end up. Nothing to them.” But it is just the way these stories always end up that has kept me busy. Because of our experience with pseudo-endings of mysteries, or the mysterious shearing and bobbing and clipping of mysteries, I went more into this story that was said to be no longer mysterious. The large dog that was shot by the Archdeacon was sacrificed not in vain, if its story shut up the minds of readers of Land and Water, and if it be desirable somewhere to shut. up minds upon this earth.

See the Clare Journal, issues up to April 27th—the shooting of the large dog, and no effect upon the depredations—another dog shot, and the relief of the farmers, who believed that this one was the killer—still another dog shot, and supposed to be the killer—the killing of sheep continuing. The depredations were so great as to be described as “terrible losses for poor people.” It is not definitely said that something was killing sheep vampirishly, but that “only a piece was bitten off, and no flesh sufficient for a dog ever eaten.”

The scene of the killings shifted.

Cavan Weekly News, April 17—that, near Limerick, more than 100 miles from Cavan, “a wolf or something like it” was killing sheep. The writer says that several persons, alleged to have been bitten by this animal, had been taken to the Ennis Insane Asylum, “laboring under strange symptoms of insanity.”

It seems that some of the killings were simultaneous near Cavan and near Limerick. At both places, it was not said that finally any animal, known to be the killer, was shot or identified. If these things that may not be dogs be, their disappearances are as mysterious as their appearances.

There was a marauding animal in England, toward the end of the year 1905. London Daily Mail, Nov. 1, 1905—”the sheep-slaying mystery of Badminton.” It is said that, in the neighborhood of Badminton, on the border between Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, sheep had been killed. Sergeant Carter, of the Gloucestershire Police, is quoted—”I have seen two of the carcasses, myself, and can say definitely that it is impossible for it to be the work of a dog. Dogs are not vampires, and do not suck the blood of a sheep, and leave the flesh almost untouched.”

And, going over the newspapers, just as we’re wondering what’s delaying it, here it is—

London Daily Mail, December 19—”Marauder shot near Hinton.” It was a large, black dog.

So then, if in London any interest had been aroused, this announcement stopped it.

We go to newspapers published nearer the scene of the sheep-slaughtering. Bristol Mercury, November 25—that the killer was a jackal, which had escaped from a menagerie in Gloucester. And that stopped mystification and inquiry, in the minds of readers of the Bristol Mercury.

Suspecting that there had been no such escape of a jackal, we go to Gloucester newspapers. In the Gloucester Journal, November 4, in a long account of the depredations, there is no mention of the escape of any animal in Gloucester, nor anywhere else. In following issues, nothing is said of the escape of a jackal, nor of any other animal. So many reports were sent to the editor of this newspaper that he doubted that only one slaughtering thing was abroad. “Some even go so far as to call up the traditions of the werewolf, and superstitious people are inclined to this theory.”

We learn that the large, black dog had been shot upon December 16th, but that in its region there had been no reported killing of sheep, from about November 25th. The look of data is of another scene-shifting. Near Gravesend, an unknown animal had, up to December 16th, killed about 30 sheep (London Daily Mail, December 19). “Small armies” of men went hunting, but the killing stopped, and the unknown animal remained unknown.

I go on with my yarns. I no more believe them than I believe that twice two are four.

If there is continuity, only fictitiously can anything be picked out of the nexus of all phenomena; or, if there is only oneness, we cannot, except arbitrarily, find any two units with which even to start the sequence that twice two are four. And, if there is also discontinuity, all things are so individualized that, except arbitrarily and fictitiously, nothing can be classed with, or added to, anything else.

London Daily Express, Oct. 14, 1925—the district of Edale, Derbyshire, terrorized, quite as, centuries ago, were regions by stories of werewolves. Something, “black in color and of enormous size,” was slaughtering sheep, at night, “leaving the carcasses strewn about, with legs, shoulders, and heads torn off; broken backs, and pieces of flesh ripped off.” Many hunting parties had gone out, but had been unable to track the animal. “People in many places are so frightened that they refuse to leave their homes after dark, and keep their children in the house.” If something had mysteriously appeared, it then quite as mysteriously disappeared.

There are stories of wanton killings, or of bodies that were not fed upon. London Daily Express, Aug. 12, 1919—something that, at Llanelly, Wales, was killing rabbits, for the sake of killing—entering hutches at night, never taking rabbits, killing them by breaking their backbones.

Early in the morning of March 3, 1906, the sentry at Windsor Castle saw something, and fired a shot at it (London Daily Mail, March 6). The man’s account of what he thought he saw was not published. It was said that he had shot at one of the ornamental, stone elephants, which had looked ghostly in moonlight. He was sentenced to three days’ confinement in barracks, for firing without proper cause. It would be interesting to know what he thought he saw, with such conviction that he fired and risked punishment—and whether it had anything to do with

Daily Mail, March 22—that about a dozen of the King’s sheep, in a field near Windsor Castle, had been bitten by something, presumably a dog, so severely that they had to be killed. In the Daily Mail, March 19, is an account of extraordinary killing of sheep, “by dogs,” near Guildford, about 17 miles from Windsor. 51 sheep were killed in one night.

A woman in a field—something grabbed her. At first the story was of a marauding panther that must have escaped from a menagerie. See the Field, Aug. 12, 19, 1893—an animal, supposed to be an escaped panther, that was preying upon human beings, in Russia. Look up records of werewolves, or supposed werewolves, and note instances of attacks almost exclusively upon women. For a more particularized account, by General R. G. Burton, who was in Russia, at the time, see the Field, Dec. 9, 1893. General Burton had no opportunity to visit the place “haunted by this mysterious animal,” but he tells the story, as he got it from Prince Sherincki, who was active in the hunt. An unknown beast was terrorizing a small district in the Orel Government, south of Moscow. The first attack was upon the evening of July 6th. Three days later, another woman was grabbed by an undescribed animal, which she beat off, until help arrived. That day, a boy, aged 10, was killed and devoured. July 11th—a woman killed, near Trosna. “At four o’clock, on the 14th, the beast severely wounded another woman and at five o’clock, made another attack upon a peasant girl, but was beaten off by a companion, who pulled the animal off by the tail. These details are taken from the official accounts of the events.”

There was a panic, and the military authorities were appealed to. 3 officers and 40 men were sent from Moscow. They organized beats that were composed of from 500 to 1,000 peasants, but all hunts were unsuccessful. On the 24th of July, four women were attacked, and one of them was killed.

Something was outwitting 3 officers and 40 men, and armies of 1,000 peasants. War was declared. Prince Sherincki, with 10 officers and 130 men, arrived from St. Petersburg. We notice that in uncanny occurrences, when there is wide publicity, or intense excitement, phenomena stop—or are stopped. War was declared upon something, but it disappeared. “According to general descriptions, the animal was long, with a blunt muzzle, and round, standing-up ears, with a long, smooth, hanging tail.”

We know what to expect.

In the Field, Dec. 23, 1893, it is said that, after a study of sketches of the spoor of the animal, the naturalist Alferachi gave his opinion that the animal was a large dog. He so concluded because of the marks of protruding nails in the sketches.

But also it is said that plaster casts of the footprints showed no such marks. It is said that the nail marks had been added to the sketches, because of assertions by hunters that nail marks had been seen. Writing 30 years later (Chambers’ Journal, ser. 7, vol. 14, p. 308) General Burton tells of the animal as something that had never been identified.

This is fringing upon an enormous subject that leads away from the slaughtering of sheep to attacks, some of them mischievous, some ordinarily deadly, and some of the Jack the Ripper kind, upon human beings. Though I have hundreds of notes upon mysterious attacks upon human beings, I cannot develop an occult criminology now.

Chapter 14

In October, 1904, a wolf, belonging to Captain Bains of Shotley Bridge, twelve miles from Newcastle, England, escaped, and soon afterward, killing of sheep were reported from the region of Hexham, about twenty miles from Newcastle.

There seems to be an obvious conclusion.

We have had some experience with conclusions that were said to be obvious.

A story of a wolf in England is worth space, and the London newspapers rejoiced in this wolf story. Most of them did, but there are several that would not pay much attention to a dinosaur-hunt in Hyde Park. Special correspondents were sent to Hexham, Northumberland. Some of them, because of circumstances that we shall note, wrote that there was no wolf, but probably a large dog that had turned evil. Most of them wrote that undoubtedly a wolf was ravaging, and was known to have escaped from Shotley Bridge. Something was slaughtering sheep, killing for food, and killing wantonly, sometimes mutilating four or five sheep, and devouring one. An appetite was ravaging, in Northumberland. We have impressions of the capacity of a large and hungry dog, but, upon reading these accounts, one has to think that they were exaggerations, or that the killer must have been more than a wolf. But, according to developments, I’d not say that there was much exaggeration. The killings were so serious that the farmers organized into the Hexham Wolf Committee, offering a reward, and hunting systematically. Every hunt was fruitless, except as material for the special correspondents, who told of continuing depredations, and reveled in special announcements. It was especially announced that, upon December 15th, the Haydon foxhounds, one of the most especial packs in England, would be sent out. These English dogs, of degree so high as to be incredible in all other parts of the world, went forth. It is better for something of high degree not to go forth. Mostly in times of peace arise great military reputations. So long as something is not tested it may be of high renown. But the Haydon foxhounds went forth. They returned with their renown damaged.

This takes us to another of our problems:

Who can blame a celebrity for not smelling an absence?

There are not only wisemen: there are wisedogs, we learn. The Wolf Committee heard of Monarch, “the celebrated bloodhound.” This celebrity was sent for, and when he arrived, it was with such a look of sagacity that the sheepfarmers’ troubles were supposed to be over. The wisedog was put on what was supposed to be the trail of the wolf. But, if there weren’t any wolf, who can blame a celebrated bloodhound for not smelling something that wasn’t? The wisedog sniffed. Then he sat down. It was impossible to set this dog on the trail of a wolf, though each morning he was taken to a place of fresh slaughter.

Well, then, what else is there in all this? If, locally, one of the most celebrated intellects in England could not solve the problem, it may be that the fault was in taking it up locally.

Throughout my time of gathering material for this book, it was my way to note something, and not to regard it as isolated; and to search widely for other occurrences that might associate with it. So, then, I noted this wolf story, and I settled upon this period, of the winter of 1904-5, with the idea of collecting records of seemingly most incongruous occurrences, which, however, might be germs of correlations.

Such as this, for instance—but what could one of these occurrences have to do with the other?—

That in this winter of 1904-5, there were two excitements in Northumberland. One was the wolf-hunt, and the other was a revival-craze, which had spread from Wales to England. At the time of the wolf-hunt, there was religious mania in Northumberland. Men and women staggered, as they wept and shouted, bearing reeling lights, in delirious torchlight processions.

If Monarch, the celebrated bloodhound sniffed and then sat down, I feel, myself, that the trail cannot be picked up in Hexham.

It was a time of widespread, uncanny occurrences in Great Britain. But in no account of any one uncanny occurrence have I read of any writer’s awareness that there were other uncanny occurrences, or more than one or two other uncanny occurrences. There were many, special scares, at this time, in Great Britain. There was no general scare. The contagions of popular delusions cannot be lugged in, as a general explanation.

Strange, luminous things, or beings, were appearing in Wales.

In Wales had started one of the most widely hysterical religious revivals of modern times.

A light in the sky—and a pious screech—I sniff, but I don’t sit down.

A wolf and a light and a screech.

There are elaborate accounts of the luminous things, or beings, in the Proc. S. P. R., vol. 19, and in the first volume of the Occult Review. We are told that, over the piously palpitating principality of Wales, shining things traveled, stopping and descending when they came to a revival meeting, associating in some unknown way with these centers of excitation, especially where Mrs. Mary Jones was the leader. There is a story of one shining thing that persistently followed Mrs. Jones’ car, and was not shaken off, when the car turned abruptly from one road to another.

So far as acceptability is concerned, I prefer the accounts by newspaper men. It took considerable to convince them. Writers, sent to Wales by London newspapers, set out with blithe incredulity. Almost everybody has a hankering for mysteries, but it is likely to be an abstract hankering, and when a mystery comes up in one’s own experience, one is likely to treat it in a way that warns everybody else that one is not easily imposed upon. The first reports that were sent back by the Londoners were flippant: but, in the London Daily Mail, Feb. 13, 1905, one of these correspondents describes something like a ball of fire, which he saw in the sky, a brilliant object that was motionless for a while, then disappearing. Later he came upon such an appearance, near the ground, not 500 feet away. He ran toward it, but the thing disappeared. Then Bernard Redwood was sent, by the Daily Mail, to investigate. In the Mail, February 13, he writes that there were probably will-o’-the-wisps, helped out by practical jokers. As we very well know, there are no more helpful creatures than practical jokers, but, as inquiry-stoppers, will-o’-the-wisps have played out. A conventionalist, telling the story, today, would say that they were luminous bats from a chapel belfry, and that a sexton had shot one. Almost every writer who accepted that these things were, thought that in some unknown, or unknowable, way, they were associated with the revival. It is said that they were seen hovering over chapels.

According to my methods, I have often settled upon special periods, gathering data, with the idea of correlating, but I have never come upon any other time in which were reported so many uncanny occurrences.

There were teleportations in a butcher shop, or things were mysteriously flying about, in a butcher shop, in Portmadoc, Wales. The police were called in, and they accused a girl who was employed in the butcher shop. “She made a full confession” (News of the World, February 26). A ghost in Barmouth: no details (Barmouth Advertiser, January 12). Most of the records are mere paragraphs, but the newspapers gave considerable space to reported phenomena in the home of Mr. Howell, at Lampeter, Wales. As told in the London Daily News, February 11 and 13, “mysterious knockings” were heard in this house, and crowds gathered outside. The Bishop of Swansea and Prof. Harris investigated, but could not explain. Crowds in the street became so great that extra police had to be called out to regulate traffic, but nothing was learned. There were youngsters in this house, but they did not confess. Mr. Howell had what is known as “standing,” in his community. It’s the housemaid, or the girl in a butcher shop, with parents who presumably haven’t much “standing,” who is knocked about, or more gently slugged, or perhaps only slapped on the face, who confesses, or is said to have confessed. Also, as told in the Liverpool Echo, February 15, there was excitement at Rhymney, Wales, and investigations that came to nothing. Tapping sounds had been heard, and strange lights had been seen, in one of the revival-centers, the Salvation Army Barracks. Whether these lights were like the other lights that were appearing in Wales. I cannot say. It was the assertion of the Rev. J. Evans and other investigators, who had spent a night in the Barracks, that they had seen “very bright lights.”

In the Southern Daily Echo, February 23, is an account of “mysterious rappings” on a door of a house in Crewe, and of a young woman, in the house who was said to have dropped dead. A physician “pronounced” her dead. But there was an inquest, and the coroner said: “There is not a single sign of death.” Nevertheless she was officially dead, and she was buried, anyway. I am too dim in my notions of possible correlations, to go into details, but, along with my supposition that ordinarily catalepsy is of rare occurrence, I note that I have records of three persons, who, in this period, were aroused from trances, in time to save them from being buried alive. There are data of “strange suicides,” that I shall pass over. I have several dozen records of “mysterious fires,” in this period.

Slaughter in Northumberland—farmers, who could, housing their sheep, at night—others setting up lanterns in their fields. Monarch, the celebrated bloodhound, who could not smell something that perhaps was not, got no more space in the newspapers, and, to a woman, the inhabitants of Hexham stopped sending him chrysanthemums. But faith in celebrities kept up, as it always will keep up, and when the Hungarian Wolf Hunter appeared, the only reason that a brass band did not escort him, in showers of torn-up telephone books, is that, away back in this winter, Hex-ham, like most of the other parts of England, was not yet Americanized. It was before the English were educated. The moving pictures were not of much influence then. The Hungarian Wolf Hunter, mounted on a shaggy Hungarian pony, galloped over hills and dales, and, with strange, Hungarian hunting cries, made what I think is called the welkin ring. He might as well have sat down and sniffed. He might as well have been a distinguished General, or Admiral, at the outbreak of a war.

Four sheep were killed at Low Eschelles, and one at Sedham, in one night. Then came the big hunt, of December 20th, which, according to expectations, would be final. The big hunt set out from Hexham: gamekeepers, woodmen, farmers, local sportsmen and sportsmen from far away. There were men on horseback, and two men in “traps,” a man on a bicycle, and a mounted policeman: two women with guns, one of them in a blue walking dress, if that detail’s any good to us.

They came wandering back, at the end of the day, not having seen anything to shoot at. Some said that it was because there wasn’t anything. Everybody else had something to say about Capt. Bains. The most unpopular person, in the north of England, at this time, was Capt. Bains, of Shotley Bridge. Almost every night, something, presumably Capt. Bains’ wolf, even though there was no findable statement that a wolf had been seen, was killing and devouring sheep.

In Brighton, an unknown force, or thing, struck notes on a musical instrument (Daily Mail, December 24). Later, there were stories of “a phantom bicyclist” near Brighton (London Daily Mirror, February 6). In the Jour. S. P. R., 13-259, is published somebody’s statement that, near the village of Hoe Benham, he had seen something that looked like a large dog turn into a seeming donkey. Strange sounds heard near Bolton, Lancashire—”nothing but the beating of a rope against a flagstaff.” Then it was said that a figure had been seen (Lloyd’s Weekly News, January 15). A doorbell was mysteriously ringing, at Blackheath, London: police watching the house, but unable to find out anything (Daily Mirror, February 13). But in not one of these accounts is shown knowledge that, about the same time, other accounts were being published. Look in the publications of the S. P. R., and wonder what that Society was doing. It did investigate two of the cases told of in this chapter, but no awareness is shown of a period of widespread occurrences. Other phenomena, or alleged phenomena—a ghost, at Exeter Deanery: no details (Daily Mail, December 24). Strange sounds and lights, in a house in Epworth (Liverpool Echo, January 25). People in Bradford thought that they saw a figure enter a club house—police notified—fruitless search (Weekly Dispatch, January 15). At Edinburgh, Mr. J. E. Newlands, who held the Fulton chair, at the United Free College, saw a “figure” moving beside him (Weekly Dispatch, April 16).

But the outstanding phenomenon of this period was the revival Liverpool Echo, January 18—”Wales in the Grip of Supernatural Forces!”

This was in allusion to the developing frenzies of the revival, and the accompanying luminous things, or beings, that had been reported. “Supernatural” is a word that has no place in my vocabulary. In my view, it has no meaning, or distinguishment. If there never has been, finally, a natural explanation of anything, every. thing is, naturally enough, the supernatural.

The grip was a grab by a craze. The excitement was combustion, or psycho-electricity, or almost anything except what it was supposed to be, and perhaps when flowing from human batteries there was a force that was of use to the luminous things that hung around. Maybe they fed upon it, and grew, and glowed, brilliant with nourishing ecstasies. See data upon astonishing growths of plants, when receiving other kinds of radio-active nourishment, or stimulation. If a man can go drunk on God, he may usefully pass along his exhilarations to other manifestations of godness.

There were flares where they’d least be expected. In the big stores, in the midst of waiting on customers, shop girls would suddenly, or electrically, start clapping hands and singing. Very likely some of them cut up such capers for the sport of it, and enjoyed keeping hard customers waiting. I notice that, though playing upon widely different motives, popular excitements are recruited and kept going, as if they were homogeneous. There’s no understanding huge emotional revolts against sin, without considering all the fun there is in them. They are monotony-breakers. Drab, little personalities have a chance to scream themselves vivid. There were confession-addicts who, past possibility of being believed, proclaimed their own wickedness, and then turned to public confessions for their neighbors, until sinful neighbors appealed to the law for protection. In one town, a man went from store to store, “returning” things that he had not stolen. Bands of girls roved the streets, rushing earnestly and mischievously into the more sedate churches, where the excitation was not encouraged, singing and clapping their hands, all of them shouting, and some of them blubbering, and then some of the most sportive ones blubbering, compelled into a temporary uniformity. This clapping of hands, in time with the singing, was almost irresistible: some vibrational reason: power of the rhythm to harmonize diverse units; primitive power of the drum-beat. Special trains set out from Liverpool to Welsh meeting-places, with sightseers, who hadn’t a concern for the good of their souls; vendors of things that might have a sale; some earnest ones. Handclapping started up, and emotional furies shot through Wales.

There were ghost-scares in the towns of Blyth and Dover. Blyth News, March 14—crowds gathered around a school house—something of a ghostly nature inside—nothing but the creaking of a partition.

I pick up something else. We wonder how far our neo-mediaevalism is going to take us. Perhaps—though our interpretations will not be the same—only mediaevalism will be the limit. Blyth News, February 28—smoke that was seen coming from the windows of a house, in Blyth. Neighbors broke in, and found the body of the occupant, Barbara Bell, aged 77, on a sofa. Her body was burned, as if for a long time it had been in the midst of intense flames. It was thought that the victim had fallen into the fireplace. “The body was fearfully charred.”

Something was slaughtering sheep—and things in the sky of Wales—and it may be that there were things, or beings, that acted like fire, consuming the bodies of women. London Daily News, Dec. 17, 1904—”Yesterday morning, Mrs. Thomas Cochrane, of Rosehall, Falkirk, widow of a well-known, local gentleman, was found burned to death in her bedroom. No fire in the grate—”burned almost beyond recognition”—no outcry—little, if anything else burned—body found, “sitting in a chair, surrounded by pillows and cushions.” London Daily Mail, December 24—inquest on the body of a woman, who had died of the effects of “mysterious burns.” “She could give no account of her injuries.” An almshouse, late at night—and something burned a woman. Trinity Almshouse, Hull—story told, in the Hull Daily Mail, January 6. Body covered with burns—woman still living, when found in the morning—strange that there had been no outcry—bed unscorched. The woman, Elizabeth. Clark, could tell nothing of her injuries, and she died without giving a clew to the mystery. “There was no fire nor light in the room.”

On both sides of the River Tyne, something kept on slaughtering. It crossed the Tyne, having killed on one side, then killing on the other side. At East Dipton, two sheep were devoured, all but the fleece and the bones, and the same night two sheep were killed on the other side of the river.

“The Big Game Hunter from India!”

Another celebrity came forth. The Wolf Committee met him at the station. There was a plaid shawl strapped to his back, and the flaps of his hunting cap were considered unprecedented. Almost everybody had confidence in the shawl, or felt that the flaps were authoritative. The devices by which he covered his ears made beholders feel that they were in the presence of Science.

Hexham Herald—”The right man, at last!”

So finally the wolf hunt was taken up scientifically. The ordinary hunts were going on, but the wiseman from India would have nothing to do with them. In his cap, with flaps such as had never before been seen in Northumberland, and with his plaid shawl strapped to his back, he was going from farm to farm, sifting and dating and classifying observations: drawing maps, card-indexing his data. For some situations, this is the best of methods: but something that the methodist-wiseman cannot learn is that a still better method is that of not being so tied to any particular method. It was a serious matter in Hexham. The ravaging thing was an alarming pest. There were some common hunters who were unmannerly over all this delay,. but the Hexham Herald came out strong for Science—”The right man in the right place, at last!”

There was, in this period, another series of killings. Upon a farm, near Newcastle, late in this year 1904, something was killing poultry.. The depredations were so persistent, and the marauder was so evasive that persons who are said to be superstitious began to talk in a way that is said to be unenlightened.

Then the body of an otter was found.

The killing of poultry stopped.

For a discussion of the conclusion that to any normal logician looks obvious, see the Field, Dec. 3, 1904. Here we learn that otters, though ordinarily living upon fish, do sometimes vary their diet. But no data upon persistent killing of poultry, by otters, came out.

This body of an otter was found, lying on a railroad line.

France in the grip of military forces. August, 1914—France was invaded, and the people of France knew that France was invaded. It is my expression that so they knew, only because it was a conventional recognition. There were no wisemen to say that reported bodies of men moving along roads had nothing to do with mutilated persons appearing in hospitals, and that only by coincidence was there devastation. The wiseman of France did not give only a local explanation to every local occurrence, but of course correlated all, as the manifestations of one invasion. Human eyes have been made to see human invaders.

Wales in the grip of “supernatural forces.” People in England paid little attention, at first, but then hysterias mobbed across the border. To those of us who have some failings, and now and then give a thought to correcting them, if possible, but are mostly too busy to bother much, cyclones of emotions relating to states that are vaguely known as good and evil, are most mysterious. In the Barmouth Advertiser (April 20) it is said that, in the first three months of this year 1905, there had been admitted to the Denbigh Insane Asylum, 16 patients, whose dementias were attributed to the revival. It is probable that many cases were not reported. In the Liverpool Echo, November 25, are accounts of four insane revivalists, who were under restraint in their own homes. Three cases in one town are told of in this newspaper, of January 10th. The craze spread in England, and in some parts of England it was as intense as anywhere in Wales. At Bromley, a woman wrote a confession of sins, some of which, it was said, she could not have committed, and threw herself under a railroad train. In town after town, police stations were invaded by exhorters. In both England and Wales, bands stood outside theaters, calling upon people not to enter. In the same way they tried to prevent attendance at football games.

December 29—”Wolf killed on a railroad line!”

It was at Cumwinton, which is near Carlisle, about thirty miles from Hexham. The body was found on a railroad line—”Magnificent specimen of male gray wolf—total length five feet—measurement from foot to top of shoulder, thirty inches.”

Captain Bains, of Shotley Bridge, went immediately to Cumwinton. He looked at the body of the wolf. He said that it was not his wolf.

There was doubt in the newspapers. Everybody is supposed to know his own wolf, but when one’s wolf has made material for a host of damage suits, one’s recognitions may be dimmed.

This body of a wolf was found, and killings of sheep stopped.

But Capt. Bains’ denial that the wolf was his wolf was accepted by the Hexham Wolf Committee. Data were with him. He had reported the escape of his wolf, and the description was on record in the Shotley Bridge police station. Capt. Bains’ wolf was, in October, no “magnificent” full-grown specimen, but a cub, four and a half months old. Though nobody had paid any attention to this circumstance, it had been pointed out, in the Hexham Herald, October 15.

The wolf of Cumwinton was not identified, according to my reading of the data. Nobody told of an escape of a grown wolf, though the news of this wolf’s death was published throughout England. The animal may have come from somewhere far from England. Photographs of the wolf were sold, as picture postal cards. People flocked to Cumwinton. Men in the show business offered to buy the body, but the decision of the railroad company was that the body had not been identified, and belonged to the company. The head was preserved, and was sent to the central office, in Derby.

But what became of the Shotley Bridge wolf?

All that can be said is that it disappeared.

The mystery begins with this statement:

That, in October, 1904, a wolf, belonging to Capt. Bains, of Shotley Bridge, escaped, and that about the same time began a slaughtering of sheep, but that Capt. Bains’ wolf had nothing to do with the slaughter.

Or the statement is that there was killing of sheep, in Northumberland, and that then came news of the escape of a wolf, by which the killing of a few sheep might be explained—

But that then there were devourings, which could not be attributed to a wolf-cub.

The wolf-cub disappeared, and there appeared another wolf, this one of a size and strength to which the devourings could be attributed.

Somewhere there was science.

If it had not been for Capt. Bains’ prompt investigation, the reported differences between these two animals would have been overlooked, or disbelieved, and the story would be simply that a wolf had escaped from Shotley Bridge, had ravaged, and had been killed at Cumwinton. But Capt. Bains did investigate, and his statement that the wolf of Cumwinton was not his wolf was accepted. So then, instead of a satisfactory explanation, there was a new mystery. Where did the wolf of Cumwinton come from?

There is something that is acting to kill off mysteries. Perhaps always, and perhaps not always, it can be understood in common place terms. If luminous things that move like flying birds are attracting attention, a Mr. Cannell appears, and says that he has found a luminous owl. In the newspapers, about the middle of February, appeared a story that Capt. Alexander Thompson, of Tacoma, Washington—and I have looked this up, learning that a Capt. Alexander Thompson did live in Tacoma, about the year 1905—was walking along a street in Derby, when he glanced in a taxidermist’s window, and there saw the supposed wolf’s head. He recognized it, not as the head of a wolf, but the head of a malmoot, an Alaskan sleigh dog, half wolf and half dog. This animal, with other malmoots, had been taken to Liverpool, for exhibition, and had escaped in a street in Liverpool. Though I have not been able to find out the date, I have learned that there was such an exhibition, in Liverpool. No date was mentioned by Capt. Thompson. The owners of the malmoot had said nothing, and rather than to advertise, had put up with the loss, because of their fear that there would be damages for sheep-killing. Not in the streets of Liverpool, presumably. No support for this commonplace-ending followed. Nothing more upon the subject is findable in Liverpool newspapers.

Liverpool is 120 miles from Hexham.

It is a story of an animal that escaped in Liverpool, and, leaving no trail of slaughtering behind it, went to a distant part of England, exactly to a place where a young wolf was at large, and there slaughtered like a wolf.

I prefer to think that the animal of Cumwinton was not a malmoot.

Derby Mercury, February 22—that the animal had been identified as a wolf, by Mr. A. S. Hutchinson, taxidermist to the Manchester Museum of Natural History. Liverpool Echo, December 31—that the animal had been identified as a wolf, by a representative of Bostock and Wombell’s Circus, who had traveled from Edinburgh to see the body.

Killing of poultry, and the body of an otter on the railroad line—and the killing of poultry stopped.

Or that there may be occult things, beings and events, and that also there may be something of the nature of an occult police force, which operates to divert human suspicions, and to supply explanations that are good enough for whatever, somewhat of the nature of minds, human beings have—or that, if there be occult mischief-makers and occult ravagers, they may be of a world also of other beings that are acting to check them, and to explain them, not benevolently, but to divert suspicion from themselves, because they, too, may be exploiting life upon this earth, but in ways more subtle, and in orderly, or organized fashion.

We have noticed, in investigating obscure, or occult, phenomena, or alleged phenomena, that sometimes in matters that are now widely supposed to be rank superstitions, orthodox scientists are not so uncompromising in their oppositions, as are those who have not investigated. In the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, April, 1894, is an account of a case of “spontaneous combustion of human bodies.” The account is by Dr. Adrian Hava, not as observed by him, but as reported by his father. In Science, 10-100, is quoted a paper that was read by Dr. B. H. Hartwell, of Ayer, Mass., before the Massachusetts Medico-Legal Society. It was Dr. Hartwell’s statement that, upon May 12, 1890, while driving through a forest, near Ayer, he had been called, and, going into the wood, saw, in a clearing, the crouched form of a woman. Fire which was not from clothing, was consuming the shoulders, both sides of the abdomen, and both legs. See Dr. Dixon Mann’s Forensic Medicine (edition of 1922), p. 216. Here, cases are told of and are accepted as veritable—such as the case of a woman, consumed so by fire that on the floor of her room there was only a pile of calcined bones left of her. The fire, if in an ordinary sense it was fire, must have been of the intensity of a furnace: but a table cloth, only three feet from the pile of cinders, was unscorched. There are other such records.

I think that our data relate, not to “spontaneous combustion of human bodies,” but to things, or beings, that, with a flaming process, consume men and women, but, like werewolves, or alleged werewolves, mostly pick out women. Occurrences of this winter of 1904-5 again. Early in February, in London, a woman, who was sitting asleep, before a fire in a grate, awoke, finding herself flaming. A commonplace explanation would seem to be sufficient: nevertheless it is a story of “mysterious burns,” as worded in Lloyd’s Weekly News, February 5. A coroner had expressed an inability to understand. In commenting upon the case, the corner had said that a cinder might have shot from the grate, igniting this woman’s clothes, but that she had been sitting, facing the fire, and that the burns were on her back.

Upon the morning of February 26th (Hampshire Advertiser, March 4) at Butlock Heath, near Southampton, neighbors of an old couple, named Kiley, heard a scratching sound. They entered the house, and found it in flames, inside. Kiley was found, burned to death, on the floor. Mrs. Kiley, burned to death, was sitting in a chair, in the same room, “badly charred, but recognizable.”

A table was overturned, and a broken lamp was on the floor.

So there seems to be an obvious explanation. But, at the inquest, it was said that an examination of this lamp showed that it could not have caused the fire. The verdict was: “Accidental death, but by what means, they (the jury) were unable to determine.”

Both bodies had been fully dressed, “judging by fragments of clothes.” This indicates that the Kileys had been burned before their time for going to bed. Hours later, the house was in flames. At the inquest, the mystery was that two persons, neither of whom had cried for help, presumably not asleep in an ordinary sense, should have been burned to death in a fire that did not manifest as a general fire, until hours later.

Something had overturned a table. A lamp was broken.

Again the phenomenon of scene-shifting—

Soon after the killing of poultry ceased, near Newcastle, there were uncanny occurrences upon Binbrook Farm, near Great Grimsby. There is an account, in the Jour. S. P. R., 12-138, by the Rev. A. C. Custance, of Binbrook Rectory. There was no confession, this time, but this time the girl in the case—the young housemaid again—was in no condition to be dragged to a police station. It will not be easy to think that it was trickery by the girl in this case. The story is that objects were thrown about rooms: that three times, near “a not very good, or big, fire,” things burst into flames, and that finally a servant girl was burned, or was attacked by something that burned her. In the Liverpool Echo, January 25, is published a letter from a school teacher of Bin-brook, in which it is said that a blanket had been found burning in a room in which there was no fireplace. According to the report by Col. Taylor, to the S. P. R., the first manifestations occurred upon the 31st of December.

Something was killing chickens, in the farm yard, and in the henhouse. All were killed in the same way. A vampirish way? Their throats were torn.

I go to a newspaper for an account of phenomena, at Binbrook. The writer was so far from prejudice in favor of occult phenomena, that he began by saying: “Superstition dies hard.” In theLouth and North Lincolnshire News, January 28, he tells of objects that unaccountably fell from shelves in the farmhouse, and of mysterious transportations of objects, “according to allegations.” “A story that greatly dismays the unsophisticated is that of the servant girl, who, while sweeping the floor, was badly burned on the back. This is how the farmer relates it: ‘Our servant girl, whom we had taken from the workhouse, and who had neither kin nor friend in the world that she knows of, was sweeping the kitchen. There was a very small fire in the grate: there was a guard there, so that no one can come within two feet or more of the fire, and she was at the other end of the room, and had not been near. I suddenly came into the kitchen, and there she was, sweeping away, while the back of her dress was afire. She looked around, as I shouted, and, seeing the flames, rushed through the door. She tripped, and I smothered the fire out with wet sacks. But she was terribly burned, and she is at the Louth Hospital, now, in terrible pain.’

“This last sentence is very true. Yesterday our representative called at the hospital, and was informed that the girl was burnt extensively on the back, and lies in a critical condition. She adheres to the belief that she was in the middle of the room, when her clothes ignited.”

A great deal, in trying to understand this occurrence, depends upon what will be thought of the unseen killing of chickens—

“Out of 250 fowls, Mr. White says that he has only 24 left. They have all been killed in the same weird way. The skin around the neck, from the head to the breast, has been pulled off, and the windpipe drawn from its place and snapped. The fowl house has been watched night and day, and, whenever examined, four or five birds would be found dead.”

In London, a woman sat asleep, near a grate, and something, as if taking advantage of this means of commonplace explanation, burned her, behind her. Perhaps a being, of incendiary appetite, had crept up behind her, but I had no data upon which so to speculate. But, if we accept that, at Binbrook Farm, something was. savagely killing chickens, we accept that whatever we mean by a being was there. It seems that, in the little time taken by the farmer to put out the fire of the burning girl, she could not have been badly scorched. Then the suggestion is that, unknown to her, something behind her was burning her, and that she was unconscious of her own scorching flesh. All the stories are notable for absence of outcry, or seeming unconsciousness of victims that something was consuming them.

The town of Market Rasen is near Binbrook Farm. The address of the clergyman who reported, to the S. P. R., the fires and the slaughterings of chickens, upon the farm, is “Binbrook Rectory, Market Rasen.” Upon January 16th, as told in the Louth and North Lincolnshire News, January 21, there was, in a chicken house,. at Market Rasen, a fire in which 57 chickens were consumed. Perhaps a fire in a chicken house is not much of a circumstance to record, but I note that it is said that how this fire started could not be found out.

The girl of Binbrook Farm was taken to the Louth Hospital. In Lloyd’s Weekly News, February 5, there is an account of “mysterious burns.” It is the case of Ashton Clodd, a man aged 75, who, the week before, had died in the Louth Hospital. It is said that he had fallen into a grate, while putting coals in it, and that, for some reason, probably because of his rheumatism, had been unable to rise, and had been fatally burned. But a witness at the inquest is quoted: “If there was a fire in the fireplace, it was very little.”

All around every place that we have noted, the revival was simmering, seething, or raging. In Leeds, women, who said that they were directed by visions, stood in the streets, stopping cars, trying to compel passengers to join them. A man in Tunbridge Wells, taking an exhortation literally, chopped his right hand off. “Holy dancers” appeared in London. At Driffield, someone led a procession every night, trundling his coffin ahead of him. And all this in England. And, in England, it is very much the custom to call attention to freaks and extravagances in other parts of the world, or more particularly in one other part of the world, as if only there occurred all the freaks and extravagances. Riots broke out in Liverpool, where the revivalists, with a mediaeval enthusiasm, attacked Catholics. The Liverpool City Council censured “certain so-called religious meetings, which create danger to life and property.” Also at South-end, there were processions of shouters, from which rushed missionaries to slug Catholics, and to sling bricks at houses in which lived Catholics. In the Liverpool Echo, February 6, is quoted a magistrate, who said to a complainant, who, because of differences in a general doctrine of loving one’s neighbors, had been assaulted: “When you see one of these processions, you should run away, as you would from a mad bull.”

Upon all the occurrences that we have noted was the one enveloping phenomenon of the revival. There is scarcely a place that I have mentioned, in any of the accounts, that was unagitated.

Why is it that youngsters have so much to do with psychic phenomena? I have gone into that subject, according to my notions. Well, then, when a whole nation, or hosts of its people, goes primitive, or gives in to atavism, or reverts religiously, it may be that conditions arise that are susceptible to phenomena that are repelled by matured mentality. A hard-headed materialist says, dogmatically: “There are no occult phenomena.” Perhaps he is right about this, relatively to himself. But what he says may not apply to children. When, at least to considerable degree, a nation goes childish with mediaevalism, it may bring upon itself an invasion of phenomena that in the middle ages were common, but that were discouraged, or alarmed, and were driven more to concealment, when minds grew up somewhat.

If we accept that there is Teleportation, and that there are occult beings, that is going so far that we may as well consider the notion that, to stop inquiry, a marauding thing, to divert suspicion, teleported from somewhere in Central Europe, a wolf to England: or that there may be something of the nature of an occult police force, which checks mischief and slaughter by the criminals of its. kind, and takes teleportative means to remove suspicion—often solving one problem, only by making another, but relying upon conventionalizations of human thought to supply cloakery.

The killing of poultry—the body on the railroad line—stoppage—scene-shifting.

The killing of sheep—the body on the railroad line—stoppage—

Farm and Home, March 16—that hardly had the wolf been killed, at Cumwinton, in the north of England, when farmers, in the south of England, especially in the districts between Tunbridge and Seven Oaks, Kent, began to tell of mysterious attacks upon their flocks. “Sometimes three or four sheep would be found dying in one flock, having in nearly every case been bitten in the shoulder and disemboweled. Many persons had caught sight of the animal, and one man had shot at it. The inhabitants were living in a state of terror, and so, on the first of March, a search party of 60 guns beat the woods, in an endeavor to put an end to the depredations.”

A big dog? Another malmoot? Nothing?

“This resulted in its being found and dispatched by one of Mr. R. K. Hodgson’s gamekeepers, the animal being pronounced, on examination, to be a jackal.”

The story of the shooting of a jackal, in Kent, is told in the London newspapers. See the Times, March 2. There is no findable explanation, nor attempted explanation, of how the animal got there. Beyond the mere statement of the shooting, there is not another line upon this extraordinary appearance of an exotic animal in England, findable in any London newspaper. It was in provincial newspapers that I came upon more of this story.

Blyth News, March 4—”The Indian jackal, which was killed recently, near Seven Oaks, Kent, after destroying sheep and game to the value of £100, is attracting attention in the shop windows of a Derby taxidermist.”

Derby Mercury, March t5—that the body of this jackal was upon exhibition in the studio of Mr. A. S. Hutchinson, London Road, Derby.

Chapter 15

In every organism, there are, in its governance as a whole, mysterious transportations of substances and forces, sometimes in definite, circulatory paths, and sometimes specially, for special needs. In the organic view, Teleportation is a distributive force that is acting to maintain the balances of a whole; with the seeming wastefulness sometimes, and niggardliness sometimes, of other forces: providing, or sometimes providing, new islands with vegetation, and new ponds with fishes: Edens with Adams, and Adams with Eves; always dwindling when other mechanisms become established, but surviving sporadically.

Our expression is that once upon a time, showers of little frogs were manifestations of organic intelligence, in the choice of creatures that could survive, in the greatest variety of circumstances, if indefinitely translated from place to place. They’d survive in water, or on land; in warmth, or in coldness. But, if organic intelligence is like other intelligence, there is no understanding it, except as largely stupid; and, if it keeps on sending little frogs to places where they’re not wanted, we human phenomena cheer up, thinking of the follies of Existence, itself. I have never done foolisher, myself, than did Nature when it, or she—probably she—fatally loaded the tusks of mammoths, and planted a tree on the head of the Irish elk, losing species for the sake of displays. By intelligence I mean nothing that can be thought of as exclusively residing in, or operating in, brain substance: I mean equilibration, or adaptation, which pervades all phenomena. The scientific intelligence in human brains, and the physiologic intelligence that pervades the bodies of living things, wisely-foolishly acts to solve problems, and somewhere in the beauty of a theorem, or of a peacock, lurks the grotesque. When Nature satisfies us critics with such a graceful stroke as a swimming seal, she fumbles her seal on land.

But there is another view. We apologizing theologians always have another view. Cleverness and stupidity are relative, and what is said to be stupidity has functional value. To keep on sending little frogs, where, so far as can be seen, there is no need for little frogs, is like persistently, if not brutally, keeping right on teaching Latin and Greek, for instance. What’s that for? Most of the somewhat good writers know little of either. According to my experience, both of these studies, if at all extended, are of no active value, except to somebody who wants to write up to the highest and noblest standards of the past, and considers himself literary. But this is an expression upon the functions of stupidity. It is likely that showers of little frogs, and the vermiform appendix, and classical studies are necessary for the preservation of continuity between the past and the present. Some persons, who know nothing about it, must for ages go on piously believing in Sir Isaac Newton’s doctrine. People who go to fortune tellers and people who go to church are functioning conservatives. If the last platypus or the last churchgoer should die off, there would be broken continuity. It would be a crack in existence. Perhaps to this day, a chink is stuffed with iguanas, which are keeping alive the dinosaur-strain. Why is it that, when one’s mind is not specializing upon anything, it is given to recalling past experiences? It is preserving continuity with the past, or is preserving whatever one can be thought of, as having, of identity. We shall have instances of the interruption of this process, in human minds. Perhaps if Existence should stop sending little frogs, and stop teaching Latin and Greek, a whole would be in a state of amnesia. Our expression is that Teleportation is enormously useful to life upon this earth, but our data have been, and for a while will continue to be, mostly of its vagaries, or its conservations.

If our existence is an organism, it would seem that it must be one of the most notorious old rascals in the cosmos. It is a fabric of lies. Everywhere it conjures up appearances of realness and finality and trueness—words that I use as synonyms for one state—and then, when examined, everything is found not to be real, or final, or true, but to be depending upon something else, or some other chimera, merging away, and losing its appearance of individuality, into everything else, or every other fraud. That this pseudo-individualizing may in some cases realize itself is a view that I am not taking up in this book. Here it is our concern to find out, if we think we can, whether we be the phenomena of an organism, or not. Whether that organism be producing something, or be graduating realness out of the phenomenal, is a question that I shall take up some other time.

Imposture pervades all things phenomenal. Everything is a mirage. Nevertheless, accepting that there is continuity, I cannot accept that anybody ever has been an absolute impostor. If he’s a Tichborne Claimant, after a while he thinks that there may be some grounds for his claims. If good and evil are continuous, any crime can be linked with any virtue. Imposture merges away into self-deception so that only relatively has there ever been an impostor.

Every scientist who has played a part in any developing science has, as can be shown, if he’s been dead long enough, by comparing his views with more modern views, deceived himself. But there have been cases that look more flagrant. To what degree did Haeckel doctor illustrations in his book, to make a theory work out right? What must one think of Prof. Kammerer? In August, 1926, he was accused of faking what he called acquired characters on the feet of toads. In September, he shot himself. The only polite way of explaining Prof. Smyth, Astronomer Royal of Scotland, who founded a cult upon his measurements of the Great Pyramid, is to say that his measuring rod must have slipped. If in his calculations, Prof. Einstein made the error that two distinguished mathematicians say he made, but, if eclipses came out, as they should come out, as reported by astronomers who did not know of the error, there is very good encouragement for anybody to keep on deceiving himself.

I can draw no line between imposture and self-deception. I can draw no line between anything phenomenal and anything else phenomenal, even though I accept that also there are lines. But there are scientists who have deceived others so rankly that it seems an excess of good manners to say that also they deceived themselves. If among scientists there have been instances of rank imposture, we shall expect to come upon much imposture in our data of irresponsible persons. The story told by Prof. Martino-Fusco, of Naples, when, in August, 1924, he announced that he had discovered the 109 missing volumes of Livy’s History of Rome, is not commonly regarded as imposture, because when the Professor could not produce the missing volumes, his explanation that he had been indiscreet was published and accepted. This scientist’s indiscretion was glossed over, as in the time of full power of the preceding orthodoxy, the indiscretion of any priest was hushed up. The impression went abroad that all that was wrong was that the Professor had been too ardent, or so hopeful of finding the books that prematurely he had announced having found them. But there are other impressions. They are of credulous American millionaires, and of the unexpected interest that the Italian Government showed in the matter.

What about the other Professors, who told that they had seen the volumes? See Current Literature, 77-594. Here is published a facsimile of four lines, which Dr. Max Funcke said that he had copied from one of the manuscripts, which according to Prof. Fusco’s explanation, he had only hoped to find. I can find no explanation by Dr. Funcke.

One explanation is that perhaps there was not forgery, and that perhaps the volumes were found, and by evasion of representatives of the Italian Government, are in the collection of a silent, American millionaire, today. But I do not think that collectors care much for treasures that they can’t tell about.

The tale of an itch—Dr. Grimme and the inscribed stone—and the irritation it was to a pious Professor, until he was able to translate it, as it should be translated. In the year 1923, Dr. Grimme, Professor of Semitic Languages, at the University of Munich, sent out good cheer to the faithful. God, who had been doing poorly, got a boost. Dr. Grimme announced that, from an inscribed stone, which had been discovered in a temple, at Sinai, he had deciphered the story of the rescue of the infant Moses, from the Nile, by an Egyptian Princess.

London Observer, Oct. 25, 1925—a letter from Sir Flinders Petrie—that Dr. Grimme had made his translation by adding cracks in the stone, and some of its weather marks, to the hieroglyphics—that, in one division of the inscription he had “translated” as many scratches as he had veritable characters, to make the thing come out right.

If Dr. Grimme alleviated an itch with scratches, that is the temporary way by which problems always have been said to be solved.

Only to be phenomenal is to be at least questionable. Any scientist who claims more is trying to register divinity. If Life cannot be positively differentiated from anything else, the appearance of Life itself is deception. If, in mentality, there is no absolute dividing-line between intellectuality and imbecility, all wisdom is partly idiocy. The seeker of wisdom departs more and more from the state of the idiot, only to find that he is returning. Belief after belief fades from his mind: so his goal is the juncture of two obliterations. One is of knowing nothing, and the other is of knowing that there is nothing to know.

But here are we, at present not so wise as no longer to have ideas. Suppose we accept that anything phenomenal ever has developed, though only relatively, into considerable genuineness, or a good deal of a look of genuineness, so long as it is not examined. But it began in what we call fraudulency. Everybody who can exceptionally do anything, began with a pose, with false claims, and with extreme self-deception. Our expression is that, in human affairs, rank imposture is often a sign of incipiency, or that astrologers, alchemists, and spiritualistic mediums are forerunners of what we shall have to call values, if we can no longer believe in truths. It could be that, with our data, we tell of nothing but lies, and at the same time be upon the track of future values.

Snails, little frogs, seals, reindeer have mysteriously appeared. The standardized explanation of mysterious human strangers, who have appeared at points upon this earth, acting as one supposes inhabitants of some other world would act, if arriving here, or acting as inhabitants of other parts of this earth, transported in a state of profound hypnosis, would probably act, is that of imposture. Having begun with a pretty liberal view of the prevalence of impostors, I am not going much to say that the characters of our data were not impostors, but am going to examine the reasons for saying that they were. If, except fraudulently, some of them never have been explained conventionally, we are just where we are in everything else that we take up, and that is in the position of having to pretend to think for ourselves.

The earliest of the alleged impostors in my records—for which, though not absolutely, I draw a dead line at the year 1800—is the Princess Caraboo, if not Mary Willcocks, though possibly Mrs. Mary Baker, but perhaps Mrs. Mary Burgess, who, the evening of April 3, 1817, appeared at the door of a cottage, near Bristol, England, and in an unknown language asked for food.

But I am not so much interested in whether the Princess, or Mary, was a rascal, as I am in the reasons for saying that she was. It does not matter whether we take up a theorem in celestial mechanics, or the case of a girl who jabbered, we come upon the bamboozlements by which conventional thought upon this earth is made and preserved.

The case of the angles in a triangle that equal two right angles has never been made out: no matter what refinements of measurement would indicate, ultra-refinement would show that there had been errors. Because of continuity, and because of discontinuity, nothing has ever been proved. If only by making a very bad error to start with, Prof. Einstein’s prediction of the curvature of lights worked out as it should work out, we suspect, before taking up the case of the Princess Caraboo that the conventional conclusion in her case was a product of mistakes.

That the Princess Caraboo was an impostor—first we shall take up the case, as it has been made out:

London Observer, June 10, 1923—that the girl, who spoke unintelligibly, was taken before a magistrate, Samuel Worrall, of Knowle Park, Bristol, who, instead of committing her as a vagrant, took her to his home. It is not recorded just what Mrs. Worrall thought of that. It is recorded that the girl was at least what is said to be “not unprepossessing.” When questioned the “mysterious stranger” wrote in unknown characters, many of which looked like representations of combs. Newspaper correspondents interviewed her. She responded with a fluency of “combs,” and a smattering of “bird cages” and “frying pans.” The news spread, and linguists traveled far to try their knowledge, and finally one of them was successful. He was “a gentleman from the East Indies,” and, speaking in the Malay language to the girl, he was answered. To him she told her story. Her name was Caraboo, and one day while walking in her garden in Java, she was seized by pirates, who carried her aboard a vessel, from which, after a long imprisonment, she escaped to the coast of England. The story was colorful with details of Javanese life. But then Mrs. Willcocks, not of Java, but of a small town in Devonshire, appeared and identified her daughter Mary. Mary broke down and confessed. She was not prosecuted for her imposture: instead, Mrs. Worrall was so kind as to pay her passage to America.

Mostly our concern is in making out that this case was not made out—or, more widely, that neither this nor any other case ever has been made out—but I notice a little touch of human interest entering here. I notice that we feel a disappointment, because Mary broke down and confessed. We much prefer to hear of impostors who stick to their impostures. If no absolute line can be drawn between morality and immorality, I can show, if I want to, that this touch of rascality in all of us—or at any rate in me—is a virtuous view, instead. So when an impostor sticks to his imposture, and we are pleased, it is that we approve a resolutely attempted consistency, even when applied to a fabric of lies. Provided I can find material enough, I can have no trouble in making it appear “reasonable,” as we call it, to accept that Mary, or the Princess, confessed, or did not confess, or questionably confessed.

Chambers’ Journal, 66-753—that Caraboo, the impostor, had told her story of alleged adventures, in the Malay language. Farther along, in this account—that the girl had spoken in an unknown language.

This is an inconsistency worth noting. We’re on the trail of bamboozlement, though we don’t have to go away back to the year 1817 to get there. We hunt around. We come upon a pamphlet, entitled Caraboo, published by J. M. Cutch, of Bristol, in the year 1817. We learn in this account, which is an attempt to show that Caraboo was unquestionably an impostor, that it was not the girl, but the “gentleman from the East Indies,” whose name was Manuel Eyenesso, who was the impostor, so far as went the whole Javanese story. To pose as a solver of mysteries, he had pretended that to his questions, the girl was answering him in the Malay language, and pretending to translate her gibberish, he had made up a fanciful story of his own.

Caraboo had not told any story, in any known language, about herself. Her writings were not in Malay characters. They were examined by scientists, who could not identify them. Specimens were sent to Oxford, where they were not recognized. Consequently, the “gentleman from the East Indies” disappeared. We are told in the pamphlet that every Oxford scholar who examined the writings, “very properly and without a moment’s hesitation, pronounced them to be humbug.” That is swift propriety.

If the elaborate story of the Javanese Princess had been attributed to a girl who had told no understandable story of any kind, it seems to us to be worth while to look over the equally elaborate confession, which has been attributed to her. It may be that regretfully we shall have to give up a notion that a girl had been occultly transported from the planet Mars, or from somewhere up in Orion or Leo, but we are seeing more of the ways of suppressing mysteries. The mad fishmonger of Worcester shovels his periwinkles everywhere.

According to what is said to be the confession, the girl was Mary Willcocks, born in the village of Witheridge, Devonshire, in the year 1791, from which at the age of 16 she had gone to London, where she had married twice. It is a long, detailed story. Apparently the whole story of Mary’s adventures, from the time of her departure from Witheridge, to the time of her arrival in Bristol, is told in what is said to be the confession. Everything is explained—and then too much is explained. We come to a question that would be an astonisher, if we weren’t just a little sophisticated, by this time—

By what freak of accomplishment did a Devonshire girl learn to speak Javanese?

The author of the confession explains that she had picked up with an East Indian, who had taught her the language.

If we cannot think that a girl, who had not even pretended to speak Javanese, would explain how she had picked up Javanese, it is clear enough that this part of the alleged confession is forgery. I explain it by thinking that somebody had been hired to write a confession, and with too much of a yarn for whatever skill he had, had overlooked the exposed imposture of the “gentleman from the East Indies.”

All that I can make of the story is that a girl mysteriously appeared. It cannot be said that her story was imposture, because she told no intelligible story. It may be doubted that she confessed, if it be accepted that at least part of the alleged confession was forgery. Her mother did not go to Bristol and identify her, as, for the sake of a neat and convincing finish, the conventionalized story goes. Mrs. Worrall told that she had gone to Witheridge, where she had found the girl’s mother, who had verified whatever she was required to verify. Caraboo was shipped away on the first vessel that sailed to America; or, as told in the pamphlet, Mrs. Worrall, with forbearance and charity, paid her passage far away. In Philadelphia, somebody took charge of her affairs, and, as if having never heard that she was supposed to have confessed, she gave exhibitions, writing in an unknown language. And I wouldn’t give half this space to the story of the Princess Caraboo, were it not for the epitomization, in her story, of all history. If there be God, and if It be ubiquitous, there must be a jostle of ubiquities because the Fishmonger of Worcester, too, is everywhere.

I should like to think that inhabitants of other worlds, or other parts of one existence, have been teleported to this earth. How I’d like it, if I were teleported the other way, has nothing to do with what I’d like to think has befallen somebody else. But I can’t say that our own stories, anyway so far, have the neat and convincing finish of the conventional stories. Toward the end of the year 1850, a stranger, or I should say a “mysterious stranger,” was found wandering in a village near Frankfort-on-the-Oder. How he got there, nobody knew. See the Athenaeum, April 15, 1851. We are told that his knowledge of German was imperfect. If the imperfections were filled out by another Manuel Eyenesso, I fear me that suggestions of some new geographical, or cosmographical, knowledge can’t develop. The man was taken to Frankfort where he told his story, or where, to pose as a linguist, somebody told one for him. It was told that his name was Joseph Vorin, and that he had come from Laxaria. Laxaria is in Sakria, and Sakria is far from Europe—”beyond vast oceans.”

In the London Daily Mail, Sept. 18, 1905, and following issues, are accounts of a young man who had been arrested in Paris, charged with vagrancy. It was impossible to understand him. In vain had he been tried with European and Asiatic languages, but, by means of signs, he had made known that he had come from Lisbian. Eisar was the young man’s word for a chair: a table was a lotoba, and his sonar was his nose. Mr. George R. Sims, well-known criminologist, as well as a story writer, took the matter up scientifically. As announced by him, the mystery had been solved by him. The young man, an impostor, had transposed letters, in fashioning his words. So the word raise, transposed, becomes eisar. But what has a raise to do with a chair? It is said that true science is always simple. A chair raises one, said Mr. Sims, simply. Now take the word sonar. As we see, when Mr. Sims points it out to us, that word is a transposition of the word snore, or is almost. That’s noses, or relation to noses.

The criminologists are not banded like some scientists. In Paris, the unbanded wisemen said that Mr. Sims’ transpositions were farfetched. With a freedom that would seem reckless to more canny scientists, or without waiting three or four months to find out what each was going to say, they expressed opinions. The savants at Glozel, in the year 1927, were cannier, but one can’t say that their delays boosted the glories of science. One of the wisemen of Paris, who accused Mr. Sims of fetching too far, was the eminent scientist, M. Haag. “Take the young man’s wordOdir, for God,” said M. Haag: “transpose that, and we have Dio, or very nearly. Dio is Spanish for God. The young man is Spanish.” Another distinguished wiseman was M. Roty. He rushed into print, while M. Haag was still explaining. “Consider the word sacar, for house,” said M. Roty. “Unquestionably we have a transposition of the word casa, with a difference of only one letter, and casa is Italian for house. The young man is Italian.” Le Temps, September 18—another wiseman, a distinguished geographer, this time, identified the young man as one of the Russian Doukhobors.

Where would we be, and who would send the young ones to school, if all the other wisemen of our tribes had such independence? If it were not for a conspiracy that can be regarded as nothing short of providential, so that about what is taught in one school is taught in the other schools, one would spend one’s lifetime, learning and unlearning, in school after school. As it is, the unlearning can be done, after leaving one school.

The young man was identified by the police, as Rinaldo Agostini, an Austrian, whose fingerprints had been taken several times before, somewhere else, when he had been arrested for vagrancy.

Whether the police forced this mystery to a pseudo-conclusion, or not, a suggestive instance is told of, in the London Daily Express, Oct. 16, 1906. A young woman had been arrested in Paris, charged with picking pockets, and to all inquiries she answered in an unknown language. Interpreters tried her with European and Asiatic languages, without success, and the magistrate ordered her to be kept under surveillance, in a prison infirmary. Almost immediately, watchers reported that she had done exactly what they wanted to report that she had done—that she had talked in her sleep, not mumbling in any way that might be questionable, but speaking up “in fluent French, with the true Parisian accent.” If anybody thinks that this book is an attack upon scientists, as a distinct order of beings, he has a more special idea of it than I have. As I’m seeing things, everybody’s a scientist.

If there ever have been instances of teleportations of human beings from somewhere else to this earth, an examination of inmates of infirmaries and workhouses and asylums might lead to some marvelous astronomical disclosures. I suppose I shall be blamed for a new nuisance, if after the publication of these notions, mysterious strangers start cropping up, and when asked about themselves, point up to Orion or Andromeda. Suppose any human being ever should be translated from somewhere else to this earth, and should tell about it. Just about what chance would he have for some publicity? I neglected to note the date, but early in the year 1928, a man did appear in a town in New Jersey, and did tell that he had come from the planet Mars. Wherever he came from, everybody knows where he went, after telling that.

But, if human beings ever have been teleported to this earth from somewhere else, I should think that their clothes, different in cut and texture, would attract attention. Clothes were thought of by Manuel Eyenesso. He pretended that Caraboo had told him that, before arriving in Bristol, she had exchanged her gold-embroidered, Javanese dress for English clothes. Whatever the significance may be, I have noted a number of “mysterious strangers,” or “wild men,” who were naked.

A case that is mysterious, and that may associate with other mysteries, was reported in the London newspapers (Daily Mail, April 2; Daily News, April 3, 1923). It was at the time that Lord Carnarvon was dying, in Cairo, Egypt, of a disease that physicians said was septic pneumonia, but that, in some minds, was associated with the opening of Tut-Ankh-Amen’s tomb. Upon Lord Carnarvon’s estate, near Newbury, Hampshire, a naked man was running wild, often seen, but never caught. He was first seen, upon March 17th. Upon March 17th, Lord Carnarvon fell ill, and he died upon April 5th. About April 5th, the wild man of Newbury ceased to be reported.

If human beings from somewhere else ever have been translated to this earth—

There are mysteries at each end, and in between, in the story of Cagliostro.

He appeared in London, and then in Paris, and spoke with an accent that never has been identified with any known language of this earth. If, according to most accounts of him, he was Joseph Balsamo, a Sicilian criminal, who, after a period of extraordinarily successful imposture, was imprisoned in Rome, until he died, that is his full life-story.

The vagueness of everything—and the merging of all things into everything else, so that stories that we, or some of us, have been taking, as “absolutely proved,” turned out to be only history, or merely science. Hosts of persons suppose that the exposure of Cagliostro, as an impostor, is as firmly, or rationally, established, as are the principles of geology, or astronomy. And it is my expression that they are right about this.

Wanted—well, of course, if we could find data to support our own notions—but, anyway, wanted—data for at least not accepting the conventionalized story of Cagliostro:

See Trowbridge’s story of Cagliostro. According to Trowbridge, the identification of Cagliostro was fraudulent. At the time of the Necklace Affair, the police of Paris, needing a scapegoat, so “identified” him, in order to discredit him, according to Trowbridge. No witness appeared, to identify him. There was no evidence, except that handwritings were similar. There was suggestion, in the circumstance that Balsamo had an uncle, whose name was Giuseppe Cagliostro. One supposes that a police official, whose labors were made worth while by contributions from the doctors of Paris, searched records until he came upon an occurrence of the name of Cagliostro in the family of a criminal, and then went on from that finding. Then it was testified that the handwritings of Balsamo and Cagliostro were similar. For almost everybody’s belief that of course Cagliostro was identified as Joseph Balsamo, there is no more than this for a base. In February, 1928, the New York newspapers told of a graphologist, who had refused to identify handwriting, according to the wishes of the side that employed him. According to all other cases that I have ever read of, anybody can get, for any handwriting, any identification that he pays for. If in any court, in any land, any scientific pronouncement should be embarrassing to anybody, that is because he has been too stingy to buy two expert opinions.

Cagliostro appeared, and nothing more definite can be said of his origin. He rose and dominated, as somebody from Europe, if transported to a South Sea Island, might be expected to capitalize his superiority. He was hounded by the medical wisemen, as Mesmer was hounded by them, and as anybody who, today, would interfere with flows of fees, would be hounded by them. Whether in their behalf, or because commonplace endings of all mysteries must be published, we are told, in all conventional accounts, that Cagliostro was an impostor, whose full life-story is known, and is without mystery.

It is said that, except where women were concerned, where not much can be expected, anyway, Cagliostro had pretty good brains. Yet we are told that, having been identified as an Italian criminal, he went to Italy.

There are two accounts of the disappearance of Cagliostro. One is a matter of mere rumors: that he had been seen in Aix-les-Bains; that he had been seen in Turin. The other is a definite story that he went to Rome, where, as Joseph Balsamo, he was sent to prison. A few years later, when Napoleon’s forces were in Rome, somebody went to the prison and investigated. Cagliostro was not there. Perhaps he had died.

Chapter 16

Here is the shortest story that I know of:

St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Nov. 2, 1886—a girl stepped from her home, to go to a spring.

Still, though we shall have details and comments, I know of many occurrences of which, so far as definitely finding out anything is concerned, no more than that can be told.

After all, I can tell a shorter story:

He walked around the horses.

Upon Nov. 25, 1809, Benjamin Bathurst, returning from Vienna, where, at the Court of the Emperor Francis, he had been representing the British Government, was in the small town of Perleberg, Germany. In the presence of his valet and his secretary, he was examining horses, which were to carry his coach over more of his journey back to England. Under observation, he walked around to the other side of the horses. He vanished. For details, see the Cornhill Magazine, 55-279.

I have not told much of the disappearance of Benjamin Bathurst, because so many accounts are easily available: but the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, in Historic Oddities, tells of a circumstance that is not findable in all other accounts that I have read. It is that, upon Jan. 23, 1810, in a Hamburg newspaper, appeared a paragraph, telling that Bathurst was safe and well, his friends having received a letter from him. But his friends had received no such letter. Wondering as to the origin of this paragraph, and the reason for it, Baring-Gould asks: “Was it inserted to make the authorities abandon the search?” Was it an inquiry-stopper? is the way I word this. Some writers have thought that, for political reasons, at the instigation of Napoleon Bonaparte, Bathurst was abducted. Bonaparte went to the trouble to deny that this was so.

In the Literary Digest, 46-922, it is said that the police records of London show that 170,472 persons mysteriously disappeared, in the years 1907-13, and that nothing had been found out, in 3,260 of the cases. Anybody who has an impression of 167,212 cases, all explained ordinarily, may not think much of 3,260 cases left over. But some of us, now educated somewhat, or at least temporarily, by experience with pseudo-endings of mysteries, will question that the 167,212 cases were so satisfactorily explained, except relatively to not very exacting satisfactions. If it’s a matter of re-marriage and collection of insurance, half a dozen bereft ones may “identify” a body found in a river, or cast up by the sea. They settle among themselves which shall marry again and collect. Naturally enough, wherever Cupid is, cupidity is not far away, and both haunt morgues. Whether our astronomical and geological and biological knowledge is almost final, or not, we know very little about ourselves. Some of us can’t, or apparently can’t, tell a husband or a wife from someone else’s husband or wife. About the year 1920, in New York City, a woman, whose husband was in an insane asylum, was visited by a man, who greeted her fondly, telling her that he was her husband. She made everything cheerful and homelike for him. Some time later, she learned that her husband was still in the asylum. She seemed resentful about this, and got the other man arrested. Cynical persons will think of various explanations. I have notes upon another case. A man appeared and argued with a woman, whose husband was a sailor, that he was her husband. “Go away!” said she: “you are darker than my husband.” “Ah!” said he: “I have had yellow fever.” So she listened to reason, but something went wrong, and the case got into a police court.

Because of the flux and the variation of all supposed things, I typify all judgments in all matters—in trifles and in scientific questions that are thought to be of utmost importance—with this story of the woman and her uncertainties. If a husband, or a datum, would stay put, a mind, if that could be kept from varying, might be said to know him, or it, after a fashion.

There have been many mysterious disappearances of human beings. Here the situation is what it is in every other subject, or so-called subject, if there is no subject that has independent existence. Only those who know little of a matter can have a clear and definite opinion upon it. Whole civilizations have vanished. There are statistical reasons for doubting that five sixths of the Tribes of Israel once upon a time disappeared, but that is tradition, anyway. Historians tell us what became of the Jamestown Colonists, but what becomes of historians? Persons as well-known as Bathurst have disappeared. As to the disappearance of Conant, one of the editors of Harper’s Weekly, see the New York newspapers beginning with Jan. 29, 1885. Nothing was found out. For other instances of well-known persons who have disappeared, see the New York Tribune, March 29, 1903, and Harper’s Magazine, 38-504.

Chicago Tribune, Jan. 5, 1900—”Sherman Church, a young man employed in the Augusta Mills (Battle Creek, Mich.) has disappeared. He was seated in the Company’s office, when he arose and ran into the mill. He has not been seen since. The mill has been almost taken to pieces by the searchers, and the river, woods, and country have been scoured, but to no avail. Nobody saw Church leave town, nor is there any known reason for his doing so.”

Because of the merging of everything—without entity, identity, or soul of its own—into everything else, anything, or what is called anything, can somewhat reasonably be argued any way. Anybody who feels so inclined will be as well justified, as anybody can be, in arguing about all mysterious disappearances, in terms of Mrs. Christie’s mystery. In December, 1926, Mrs. Agatha Christie, a writer of detective stories, disappeared from her home in England. The newspapers, noting her occupation, commented good-naturedly, until it was reported that, in searching moors and forests and villages and towns, the police had spent £10,000. Then the frugal Englishmen became aware of the moral aspect of the affair, and they were severe. Mrs. Christie was found. But, according to a final estimate, the police had spent only £25. Then everybody forgot the moral aspect and was good-natured again. It was told that Mrs. Christie, in a hotel, somewhere else in England, having been keen about getting newspapers every morning, had appeared at the hotel, telling fictions about her identity. She was taken home by her husband. She remembered nobody, her friends said, but, thinking this over, they then said that she remembered nobody but her husband. Several weeks later, a new book by Mrs. Christie was published. It seems to have been a somewhat readable book, and was pleasantly reviewed by frugal Englishmen, who are very good-humored and tolerant, unless put to such expense as to make them severe and moral.

Late in the year 1913, Ambrose Bierce disappeared. It was explained. He had gone to Mexico, to join Villa, and had been killed at the Battle of Torreon. New York Times, April 3, 1915—mystery of Bierce’s disappearance solved—he was upon Lord Kitchener’s staff, in the recruiting service, in London. New York Times, April 7, 1915—no knowledge of Bierce, at the War Office, London. In March, 1920, newspapers published a dispatch from San Francisco, telling that Bierce had gone to Mexico, to fight against Villa, and had been shot. It would be a fitting climax to the life of this broadminded writer to be widely at work in London, while in Mexico, and to be killed while fighting for and against Villa. But that is pretty active for one, who, as Joseph Lewis French points out, in Pearson’s Magazine, 39-245, was incurably an invalid and was more than seventy years old. For the latest, at this writing, see the New York Times, Jan. I, 1928. Here there is an understandable explanation of the disappearance. It is that Bierce had criticized Villa.

London Daily Chronicle, Sept. 29, 1920—a young man, evening of September 27th, walking in a street, in South London—

Magic—houses melting—meadows appearing—

Or there was a gap between perceptions.

However he got there, he was upon a road, with fields around. The young man was frightened. He might be far away, and unable to return. It was upon a road, near Dunstable, 30 miles from London, and a policeman finding him exclaiming, pacing back and forth, took him to the station house. Here he recovered sufficiently to tell that he was Leonard Wadham, of Walworth, South London, where he was employed by the Ministry of Health. As to how he got to this point near Dunstable, he could tell nothing. Of a swish, nobody could tell much.

Early in the year 1905, there were many mysterious disappearances in England. See back to the chapter upon the extraordinary phenomena of this period. Here we have an account of one of them, which was equally a mysterious appearance. I take it from the Liverpool Echo, February 8. Upon the 4th of February, a woman was found, lying unconscious, upon the shore, near Douglas, Isle of Man. No one had seen her before, but it was supposed that she had arrived by the boat from England, upon the 3rd of February. She died, without regaining consciousness. There were many residents of the island, who had, in their various callings, awaited the arrival of this boat, and had, in their various interests, looked more than casually at the passengers: but 200 Manxmen visited the mortuary, and not one of them could say that he had seen this woman arrive. The news was published, and then came an inquiry from Wigan, Lancashire. A woman had “mysteriously disappeared” in Wigan, and by her description the body found near Douglas was identified as that of Mrs. Alice Hilton, aged 66, of Wigan. As told, in the Wigan Observer, somebody said that Mrs. Hilton had been last seen, upon February 2nd, on her way to Ince, near Wigan, to visit a cousin. But nobody saw her leave Wigan, and she had no known troubles. According to the verdict, at the inquest, Mrs. Hilton had not been drowned, but had died of the effects of cold and exposure upon her heart.

I wonder whether Ambrose Bierce ever experimented with self-teleportation. Three of his short stories are of “mysterious disappearances.” He must have been uncommonly interested to repeat so.

Upon Sept. 4, 1905, London newspapers reported the disappearance, at Ballycastle, Co. Antrim, Ireland, of Prof. George A. Simcox, Senior Fellow of Queen’s College, Oxford. Upon August 28th, Prof. Simcox had gone for a walk, and had not returned. There was a search, but nothing was learned.

Several times before, Prof. Simcox had attracted attention by disappearing. The disappearance at Ballycastle was final.

Chapter 17

As interpreters of dreams, I can’t say that we have ambitions, but I think of one dream that many persons have had, repeatedly, and it may have relation to our present subject. One is snoring along, amidst the ordinary marvels of dreamland—and there one is, naked, in a public place, with no impression of how one got there. I’d like to know what underlies the prevalence of this dream, and its disagreeableness, which varies, I suppose, according to one’s opinion of oneself. I think that it is sub-conscious awareness of something that has often befallen human beings, and that in former times was commoner. It may be that occult transportations of human beings do occur, and that, because of their selectiveness, clothes are sometimes not included.

“Naked in the street—strange conduct by a strange man.” See the Chatham (Kent, England) News, Jan. 10, 1914. Early in the evening of January 6th—”weather bitterly cold”—a naked man appeared, from nowhere that could be found out, in High Street, Chatham.

The man ran up and down the street, until a policeman caught him. He could tell nothing about himself. “Insanity,” said the doctors, with their customary appearance of really saying something.

I accept that, relatively, there is insanity, though no definite lines can be drawn as to persons in asylums, persons not in asylums, and persons not yet in asylums. If by insanity is meant processes of thought that may be logical enough, but that are built upon false premises, what am I showing but the insanity of all of us? I accept that as extremes of the state that is common to all, some persons may be considered insane: but, according to my experience with false classifications, or the impossibility of making anything but false classifications, I suspect that many persons have been put away, as insane, simply because they were gifted with uncommon insights, or had been through uncommon experiences. It may be that, hidden under this cloakery, are the subject-matters of astonishing, new inquiries. There may be stories that have been told by alleged lunatics that some day will be listened to, and investigated, leading to extraordinary disclosures. In this matter of insanity, the helplessness of science is notorious, though it is only of the helplessness of all science. Very likely the high-priced opinions of alienists are sometimes somewhat nearly honest: but, as in every other field of so-called human knowledge, there is no real standard to judge by: there is no such phenomenon as insanity, with the noumenal quality of being distinct and real in itself. If it should ever be somewhat difficult to arrange with professional wisemen to testify either for or against any person’s sanity, I should have to think that inorganic science, in this field, may not be so indefinite.

This naked man of Chatham appeared suddenly. Nobody had seen him on his way to his appearing-point. His clothes were searched for, but could not be found. Nowhere near Chatham was anybody reported missing.

Little frogs, showers of stones, and falls of water—and they have repeated, indicating durations of transportory currents to persisting appearing-points, suggesting the existence of persisting disappearing-points somewhere else. There is an account, in the London Times, Jan. 30, 1874, of repeating disappearances of young men, in Paris. Very likely, as a development of feminism, there will be female Bluebeards, but I don’t think of them away back in the year 1874. “In every case, their relatives and friends declare that they were unaware of any reason for evasion, and the missing persons seem to have left their homes for their usual avocations.”

A field, somewhere near Salem, Va., in the year 1885—and that in this field there was a suction. In the New York Sun, April 25, 1885, it is said that Isaac Martin, a young farmer, living near Salem, Va., had gone into a field, to work, and that he had disappeared. It is said that in this region there had been other mysterious disappearances. In Montreal, in July and August, 1892, there were so many unaccountable disappearances that, in the newspapers, the headline “Another Missing Man” became common. In July, 1883, there was a similar series, in Montreal. London Evening Star. Nov. 2, 1926—”mysterious series of disappearances—eight persons missing, in a few days.” It was in and near Southend. First went Mrs. Kathleen Munn, and her two small children. Then a girl aged 15—girl aged 16, girl aged 17, another girl aged 16. Another girl, Alice Stevens, disappeared. “She was found in a state of collapse, and was taken to hospital.”

New York Sun, Aug. 14, 1902—disappearances, in about a week, of five men, in Buffalo, N. Y.

Early in August, 1895, in the city of Belfast, Ireland, a little girl named Rooney disappeared. Detectives investigated. While they were investigating, a little boy, named Webb, disappeared. Another child disappeared. September 10—disappearance of a boy, aged seven, named Watson. Two days later, a boy, named Brown, disappeared. See the Irish News (Belfast), September 20. In following issues of this newspaper, no more information is findable.

London Daily Mirror, Aug. 5, 1920—”Belfast police are in possession of the sensational news that eight girls, all under twelve years of age, are missing since last Monday, week, from the Newtownards-road, East Belfast.”

In August, 1869, English newspapers reported disappearances of 13 children, in Cork, Ireland. I take from the Tiverton Times, August 31. It may be that the phenomenon cannot be explained in terms of local kidnapers, because somewhere else, at the same time, children were disappearing. London Daily News, August 31—excitement in Brussels, where children were disappearing.

Five “wild men” and a “wild girl” appeared in Connecticut, about the first of January, 1888. See the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, January 5, and the New York Times, Jan. 9, 1888.

I have records of six persons, who, between Jan. 14, 1920, and Dec. 9, 1923, were found wandering in or near the small town of Romford, Essex, England, unable to tell how they got there, or anything else about themselves. I have satisfactorily come upon no case in which somebody has stated that he was walking, say, in a street in New York, and was suddenly seized upon and set down somewhere, say in Siberia, or Romford. I have come upon many cases like that of a man who told that he was walking along Euston Road, London, and—but nine months later—when next he was aware of where he was, found himself working on a farm, in Australia. If human beings ever have been teleported, and, if some mysterious appearances of human beings be considered otherwise unaccountable, an effect of the experience is effacement of memory.

There have been mysterious appearances of children in every land. In India, the explanation of appearances of children of an unknown past is that they had been brought up by she-wolves.

There have been strange fosterings: young rabbits adopted by cats, and young pigs welcomed to strangely foreign founts. But these cases are of maternal necessity, and of unlikely benevolence, and we’re asked to believe in benevolent she-wolves. I don’t deny that there is, to some degree, benevolence in wolves, cats, human beings, ants: but benevolence is erratic, and not long to be depended upon. Sometimes I am benevolent, myself, but pretty soon get over it. The helplessness of a human infant outlasts the suckling period of a wolf. How long do she-wolves, or any of the rest of us, keep on being unselfish, after nothing’s made by unselfishness?

For an account of one of the later of the “wolf children” of India (year 1914) see Nature, 93-566. In the Zoologist, 3-12-87, is an account of a number of them, up to the year 1852. In the Field, Nov. 9, 1895, the story of the “wolf child” of Oude is told by an Assistant Commissioner, who had seen it. It was a speechless, little animal, about four years old. Policemen said that, in a wolf’s den, they had found this child, almost devoid of human intelligence. The child grew up and became a policeman. In Human Nature, 7-302, is a story of two “wolf children” that were found at different times, near Agra, Northern India. Each was seven or eight years old. For a recent case, see the London Observer, Dec. 5, 1926. Hindus had brought two “wolf children,” one aged two, and the other about eight years old, to the Midnapore Orphanage. The idea of abandonment of young idiots does not look so plausible, in cases of more than one child. Also, in a case of several children, a she-wolf would seem very graspingly unselfish. The children crawled about on all fours, ate only raw meat, growled, and avoided other inmates of the Orphanage. I suppose that they ate only raw meat, because to confirm a theory that was all they got.

London Daily Mail, April 6, 1927—another “wolf child”—boy aged seven—found in a cave, near Allahabad. For an instance that is the latest, at this writing, see the New York Times, July 16, 1927. Elephant youngsters and rhinoceros brats have still to be heard of, but, in the London Morning Post, Dec. 31, 1926, is a story of a “tiger child.” A “leopard boy” and a “monkey girl” are told of, in the London Observer, April 10, 1927.

Our data are upon events that have astonished horses and tickled springboks. They have shocked policemen. I have notes upon an outbreak of ten “wild men,” who appeared in different parts of England, in that period of extraordinary phenomena, the winter of 1904-5. One of them, of origin that could not be found out, appeared in a street in Cheadle. He was naked. An indignant policeman, trying to hang his overcoat about the man, tried to reason with him, but had the same old trouble that Euclid and Newton and Darwin had, and that everybody else has, when trying to be rational, or when trying, in the inorganic, or scientific, way, to find a base to argue upon. I suppose the argument was something like this—

Wasn’t he ashamed of himself?

Not at all. Some persons might have reasons for being ashamed of themselves, but he had no reason for being ashamed of himself. What’s wrong with nakedness? Don’t cats and horses and dogs go around without clothes on?

But they are clothed with natural, furry protections.

Well, Mexican dogs, then.

Let somebody else try—somebody who thinks that, as products of logic, the teachings of astronomy, biology, geology, or anything else are pretty nearly final, though with debatable minor points, to be sure. Try this simple, little problem to start with. Why shouldn’t the man walk around naked? One is driven to argue upon the basis of conventionality. But we are living in an existence, which itself may be base, but in which there are not bases. Argue upon the basis of conventionality, and one is open to well-known counter-arguments. What is all progress but defiance of conventionality?

The policeman, in Euclid’s state of desperation, took it as self-evident disgracefulness. Euclid put theorems in bags. He solved problems by encasing some circumstances in an exclusion of whatever interfered with a solution. The policeman of Cheadle adopted the classical method. He dumped the “wild man” into a sack, which he dragged to the station house.

Another of these ten “wild men” spoke in a language that nobody had ever heard of before, and carried a book, in which were writings that could not be identified, at Scotland Yard. Like a traveler from far away, he had made sketches of things that he had seen along the roads. At Scotland Yard, it was said of the writings: “They are not French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Turkish. Neither are they Bohemian, Greek, Portuguese Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, nor Russian.” See London newspapers, and the East Anglian Daily Times, Jan. 12, 1905.

I have come upon fragments of a case, which I reconstruct:

Perhaps in the year 1910, and perhaps not in this year, a Hindu magician teleported a boy from somewhere in England, perhaps from Wimbledon, London, perhaps not. The effect of this treatment was of mental obliteration; of profound hypnosis, or amnesia. The boy could learn, as if starting life anew, but mostly his memory was a void. Later the magician was dying. He repented, and his problem was to restore the boy, perhaps not to his home, but to his native land. He could not tell of the occult transportation, but at first it seemed to him that nobody would believe a story of ordinary kidnaping. It would be a most improbable story: that, in London, a Hindu had kidnaped a boy, and on the way to India had spent weeks aboard a vessel with this boy, without exciting inquiry, and with ability to keep the boy from appealing to other passengers. Still, a story of kidnaping is a story in commonplace terms. No story of ordinary kidnaping could account for the boy’s lapsed memory, but at the most some persons would think that some of the circumstances were queer, and would then forget the matter.

For fragments of this story, see Lloyd’s Sunday News (London), Oct. 17, 1920. Sometime in the year 1917, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in Nepal, India, received a message from a native priest, who was dying, and wanted to tell something. With the priest was a well-grown boy. The priest told that, about the year 1910, in a street in Wimbledon (South London) he had kidnaped this boy. Details of a voyage to India not given. The boy was taken to Gorakapur, and was given employment in a railway workshop. He could speak a little English, but had no recollection of ever having been in England. This is the account that the Society sent to its London representative, Mrs. Sanderson, Earl’s Court, London. A confirmation of the story, by Judge Muir, of Gorakapur, was sent. Mrs. Sanderson communicated with Scotland Yard.

Lloyd’s Sunday News, October 24—”boy not yet identified by Scotland Yard. An even more extraordinary development of the story is that quite a number of boys disappeared in Wimbledon, ten years ago.” It is said that the police had no way of tracing the boy, because, in Scotland Yard, all records of missing children were destroyed, after a few years. I have gone through the Wimbledon News, for the year 1910, without finding mention of any missing child. Someone else may take a fancy to the job, for 1909, or 1911. In Thomson’s Weekly News, Oct. 23, 1920, there are additional details. It is said that without doubt the boy was an English boy: as told by the priest, his Christian name was Albert.

Hants and Sussex News, Feb. 25, 1920—”one of the most sensational discoveries and most mysterious cases of tragedy that we have ever been called upon to record”—a naked body of a man, found in a plowed field, near Petersfield, Hampshire, England. The mystery is in that there had not been a murder. A body had not been thrown from a car into this field. Here had appeared a naked man, not in possession of his senses. He had wandered, and he had died. It was not far from a road, and was about a mile from the nearest house. Prints of the man’s bare feet were traced to the road, and across the road into another field. Police and many other persons searched for clothes, but nothing was found. A photograph of the man was published throughout England, but nobody had seen him, clothed or unclothed, before the finding of the body. At the inquest, the examining physician testified that the body was that of a man, between 35 and 40; well-nourished, and not a manual worker; well-cared-for, judging from such particulars as carefully trimmed finger nails. There were scratches upon the body, such as would be made by bushes and hedges, but there was no wound attributable to a weapon, and in the stomach there was no poison, nor drug. Death had been from syncope, due to exposure. “The case remains one of the most amazing tragedies that could be conceived of.”

This mystery did not immediately subside. From time to time there were comments in the newspapers. London Daily News, April 16—”Although his photograph has been circulated north, east, south, and west, throughout the United Kingdom, the police are still without a clew, and there is no record of any missing person, bearing the slightest resemblance to this man, presumably of education and good standing.”

Chapter 18

There was the case of Mrs. Guppy, June 3, 1871, for instance. As the spiritualists tell it, she shot from her home, in London. Several miles away, she flopped down through a ceiling. Mrs. Guppy weighed 200 pounds. But Mrs. Guppy was a medium. She was a prominent medium, and was well-investigated, and was, or therefore was, caught playing tricks, several times. I prefer to look elsewhere for yarns, or veritable accounts.

In the New York World, March 25, 1883, is told a story of a girl, the daughter of Jesse Miller, of Greenville Township, Somerset Co., Pa., who was transported several times, out of the house, into the front yard. But it was her belief that apparitions were around, and most of our data are not concerned with ghostly appearances.

As told in the Cambrian Daily Leader (Swansea, Wales), July 7, 1887, poltergeist phenomena were occurring in the home of the Rev. David Phillips, of Swansea. Sometime I am going to try to find out why so many of these disturbances have occurred in the homes of clergymen. Why have so many supposed spirits of the departed tormented clergymen? Perhaps going to heaven makes people atheists. However, I do not know that poltergeists can be considered spirits. It may be that many of our records—see phenomena of the winter of 1904-5—relate not to occult beings, as independent creatures, but to projected mentalities of living human beings. A woman of Mr. Phillips’ household had been transported over a wall, and toward a brook, where she arrived in a “semiconscious condition.” I note that, not in agreement with our notions upon teleportation, it was this woman’s belief that an apparition had carried her. Mr. Phillips and his son, a Cambridge graduate, who had probably been brought up to believe in nothing of the kind, asserted that this transportation had occurred.

A great deal has been written upon the phenomena, or the alleged phenomena, of the Pansini boys. Their story is told in the Occult Review, 4-17. These boys, one aged seven, and the other aged eight, were sons of Mauro Pansini, an architect, of Bari, Italy. Their experiences, or their alleged experiences, began in the year 1901. “One day Alfredo and his brother were at Ruvo, at 9 A.M., and at 9:30 A.M., they were found in the Capuchin Convent, at Malfatti, thirty miles away.” In the Annals of Psychic Science, it is said that, about the last of January, 1901, the Pansini boys were transported from Ruvo to a relative’s house, in Trani, arriving in a state of profound hypnosis. In volumes 2 and 3, of the Annals, a discussion of these boys continues.

But I haven’t told the damnedest. Oh, well, we’ll have the damnedest. A Mediterranean harbor—a man in a boat—and, like Mrs. Guppy, down the Pansini boys flop into his boat.

Into many minds flops this idea—”It isn’t so much the preposterousness of this story alone: but, if we’d accept this, what else that would threaten all conventional teachings, would we be led into?”

I can’t help arguing. I have cut down smoking some, and our home brew goes flat so often that at times I have gone without much of that, but I can’t stop arguing. It has no meaning, but I argue that much that is commonplace today was once upon a time denounced from pulpits as the way to hell. For all I know, a couple of kids flopped into a boat. I don’t feel hellish about it. The one thought that I do so little to develop is that if there be something that did switch the Pansini boys from place to place, it may be put to work, and instead of wharves and railroad stations, there may be built departing and receiving points for commodities, which may be “wished,” as it were, from California to London. Let stockholders of transportation companies get ahold of this idea, and, if I’m not satisfied with having merely science and religion against me, I’ll have opposition enough to suit anybody who can get along without popularity. Just at present, however, I am not selling short on New York Central.

Has anybody, walking along a street, casually looking at someone ahead of him, ever seen a human being vanish? It is a common experience to think that one has seen something like this occur. Another common experience, which has been theorized upon by James and other psychologists, is to be somewhere and have an uncanny feeling that, though so far as one knows, one was never there before, one, nevertheless, was at some time there. It may be that many persons have been teleported back and forth, without knowing it, or without having more than the dimmest impression of the experience.

But about walking along a street, and having a feeling that somebody has vanished—there have been definitely reported observations upon disappearances. In these instances, the explanation has been that someone had seen a ghost, and that the ghost had vanished. We shall have accounts that look as if observers have seen, not ghosts, but beings like themselves, vanish.

In the Jour. Soc. Psychical Research, 11-189, is published a story by a painter, named John Osborne, living at 5 Hurst Street, Oxford, England. He said that, about the last of March, 1895, he was walking along a road to Wolverton, when he heard sounds of a horse’s hoofs behind him, and, turning, saw a man on horseback, having difficulty in controlling his horse. He scurried out of the way, and, when safe, looked again. Horse and man had vanished. Then came the conventionalization, even though it would be widely regarded as an unorthodox conventionalization. It was said that, the week before, a man on horseback had been killed in this part of the road, and that the horse, badly injured, had been shot. Usually there is no use searching for anything further in a publication in which a conventionalization has appeared, but this instance is an exception. In the June number of the Journal, there is a correction: it is said that the accident with which this disappearance had been associated, had not occurred a week before, but years before, and was altogether different, having been an accident to a farmer in a hayfield. Several persons investigated, among them a magistrate, who wrote that he was convinced at least that Osborne thought that he had seen the “figures” disappear.

Well, then, why didn’t I get a Wolverton newspaper, and even though it would be called “a mere coincidence” find noted the disappearance of somebody who had been last seen on horseback? I forget now why I did not, but I think it was because no Wolverton newspaper was obtainable. I haven’t the item, but with all our experience with explanations, I should have the knack, myself, by this time. I think of a man on horseback, who was suddenly transported, but only a few miles. If, when he got back, he was a wise man on horseback, he got off the back of his horse and said nothing about this. Our general notion is that he would have been unconscious of the experience. Perhaps, if Osborne had lingered, he would have seen this man and his horse re-appear.

In the Jour. S. P. R., 4-50, is a story of a young woman, who was more than casually looked at, near the foot of Milton Hill, Massachusetts. She vanished. She was seen several times. So this is a story of a place that was “haunted,” and the “figure” was supposed to be a ghost. For a wonder there was no story of a murder that was committed, years before, near this hill. For all I know, some young woman, living in Boston, New York, some distant place, may have had teleportative affinity with an appearing-point, or terminal of an occult current, at this hill, having been translated back and forth several times, without knowing it, or without being able to remember, or remembering dimly, thinking that it was a dream. Perhaps, sometime happening to pass this hill, by more commonplace means of transportation, she would have a sense of uncanny familiarity, but would be unable to explain, having no active consciousness of having ever been there before. Psychologists have noted the phenomenon of a repeating scene in different dreams, or supposed dreams. The phenomenon may not be of fancifulness, but of dim impressions of teleportations to one persisting appearing-point. A naïve, little idea of mine is that so many ghosts in white garments have been reported, because persons, while asleep, have been teleported in their nightclothes.

In Real Ghost Stories, published by the Review of Reviews (English), a correspondent tells of having seen a woman in a field, vanish. Like others who have had this experience, he does not say that he saw a woman vanish, but that he saw “a figure of a woman” vanish. He inquired for some occurrence by which to explain, and learned that somewhere in the neighborhood a woman had been murdered, and that her “figure” had haunted the place. In the Proc. S. P. R., 10-98, someone tells of having walked, with her father, upon a sandy place, near Aldershot, hearing footsteps, turning, seeing a soldier. The footsteps suddenly ceased to be heard. She turned again to look. The soldier had vanished. This correspondent writes that her father never would believe anything except that it was “a real soldier, who somehow got away.” In the Occult Review, 23-168, a correspondent writes that, while walking in a street in Twickenham, he saw, walking toward him, “a figure of a man.” The “figure” turned and vanished, or “disappeared through a garden wall.” This correspondent failed to learn of a murder that had been committed in the neighborhood, but, influenced by the familiar convention, mentions that there was an old dueling ground nearby.

The most circumstantial of the stories appears in the Jour. S. P. R., November, 1893. Miss M. Scott writes that, upon the afternoon of the 7th of May, 1893, between five and six o’clock, she was walking upon a road, near St. Boswells (Roxburghshire) when she saw ahead of her a tall man, who, dressed in black, looked like a clergyman. There is no assertion that this “figure” looked ghostly, and there is a little circumstance that indicates that the “figure,” or the living being, was looked at more than casually. Having considerable distance to go, Miss Scott started to run: but it occurred to her that it would not be dignified to run past this stranger: so she stood still, to let the distance increase. She saw the clerical-looking man turn a corner of the road, the upper part of his body visible above a low hedge—”he was gone in an instant.” Not far beyond this vanishing point, Miss Scott met her sister, who was standing in the road, looking about her in bewilderment, exclaiming that she had seen a man disappear, while she was looking at him.

One of our present thoughts is that teleportations, back and forth, often occur. There are many records, some of which may not be yarns, or may not be altogether yarns, of persons who have been seen far from where, so far as those persons, themselves, knew, they were, at the time. See instances in Gurney’s Phantasms of the Living. The idea is that human beings have been switched away somewhere, and soon switched back, and have been seen, away somewhere, and have been explained to the perceivers, as their own hallucinations.

It may be that I can record a case of a man who was about to disappear, but was dragged back, in time, from a disappearing point. I think of the children of Clavaux, who were about to be taken into a vortex, but were dragged back by their parents, who were not susceptible. Data look as if there may have been a transporting current through so-called solid substance, which “opened” and then “closed,” with no sign of a yawning. It may be that what we call substance is as much open as closed. I accept, myself, that there is only relative substance, so far as the phenomenal is concerned: so I can’t take much interest in what the physicists are doing, trying to find out what mere phenomenal substance really, or finally, is. It isn’t, or it is intermediate to existence and nonexistence. If there is an organic existence that is more than relative, though not absolute, it may be The Substantial, but its iron and lead, and gold are only phenomenal. The greatest seeming security is only a temporary disguise of the abysmal. All of us are skating over thin existence.

Early in the morning of Dec. 9, 1873, Thomas B. Cumpston and his wife, “who occupied good positions in Leeds,” were arrested in a railroad station, in Bristol, England, charged with disorderly conduct, both of them in their nightclothes, Cumpston having fired a pistol. See the London Times, Dec. 11, 1873. Cumpston excitedly told that he and his wife had arrived the day before, from Leeds, and had taken a room in a Bristol hotel, and that, early in the morning, the floor had “opened,” and that, as he was about to be dragged into the “opening,” his wife had saved him, both of them so terrified that they had jumped out the window, running to the railroad station, looking for a policeman. In the Bristol Daily Post, December 10, is an account of proceedings in the police court. Cumpston’s excitement was still so intense that he could not clearly express himself. Mrs. Cumpston testified that, early in the evening, both of them had been alarmed by loud sounds, but that they had been reassured by the landlady. At three or four in the morning the sounds were heard again. They jumped out on the floor, which was felt giving away under them. Voices repeating their exclamations were heard, or their own voices echoed strangely. Then, according to what she saw, or thought she saw, the floor opened wide. Her husband was falling into this “opening” when she dragged him back.

The landlady was called, and she testified that sounds had been heard, but she was unable clearly to describe them. Policemen said that they had gone to the place, the Victoria Hotel, and had examined the room, finding nothing to justify the extraordinary conduct of the Cumpstons. They suggested that the matter was a case of collective hallucination. I note that there was no suggestion of intoxication. The Cumpstons, an elderly couple, were discharged in the custody of somebody who had come from Leeds.

Collective hallucination is another of the dismissal-labels by which conventionalists shirk thinking. Here is another illustration of the lack of standards, in phenomenal existence, by which to judge anything. One man’s story, if not to the liking of conventionalists, is not accepted, because it is not supported: and then testimony by more than one is not accepted, if undesirable, because that is collective hallucination. In this kind of jurisprudence, there is no hope for any kind of testimony against the beliefs in which conventional scientists agree. Among their amusing disregards is that of overlooking that, quite as truly may their own agreements be collective delusions.

The loud sounds in the Cumpston case suggest something of correlation with poltergeist phenomena. Spiritualists have persistently called poltergeist-sounds “raps.” Sometimes they are raps, but often they are detonations that shake buildings. People up and down a street have been kept awake by them. Maybe existences open and shut noisily. From my own experience I don’t know that there ever has been a poltergeist. At least, I have had only one experience, and that is explainable several ways. But what would be the use of writing a book about things that we think we’re sure of?—unless, like a good deal in this book, to show the dooce we are.

In the Sunday Express, (London), Dec. 5, 1926, Lieut.-Colonel Foley tells of an occurrence that resembles the Cumpstons’ experience. A room in Corpus Christi College (Cambridge University) was, in October; 1904, said to be haunted. Four students, of whom Shane Leslie, the writer, was one, investigated. Largely the story is of an invisible, but tangible, thing, or being, which sometimes became dimly visible, inhabiting, or visiting, this room. The four students went into the room, and one of them was dragged away from the others. His companions grabbed him. “Like some powerful magnet” something was drawing him out of their grasp. They pulled against it, and fought in a frenzy, and they won the tug. Other students, outside the room, were shouting. Undergraduates came running down the stairs, and, crowding into the room, wrecked it, even tearing out the oak paneling. Appended to the story, in the Sunday Express, is a statement by Mr. Leslie—”Colonel Foley has given an accurate account of the occurrence.”

Chapter 19

In the Encyclopædia Britannica, the story of Kaspar Hauser is said to be one of the most baffling mysteries in history. This is an unusual statement. Mostly we meet denials that there are mysteries. In everything that I have read upon this case, it is treated as if it were unique. A writer like Andrew Lang, who has a liking for mysteries, takes up such a case, with not an indication of a thought in his mind that it should not be studied as a thing in itself, but should be correlated with similars. That, inductively, anything of an ultimate nature could be found out, is no delusion of mine: I think not of a widening of truth, but of a lessening of error. I am naïve enough in my own ways, but I have not the youthful hopes of John Stuart Mill and Francis Bacon.

As to one of the most mysterious of the circumstances in the story of Kaspar Hauser, I have many records of attacks upon human beings, by means of an unknown, missile-less weapons. See the newspapers for several dozen accounts of somebody, or something, that was terrorizing people in New Jersey, in and around Camden, in the winter of 1927-28. People were fired upon, and in automobiles there were bullet holes, but bullets were unfindable. I know of two other instances, in the State of New Jersey. In France, about the year 1910, there was a long series of such attacks, attributed to “phantom bandits.”

It may be that, telepathically, human beings have been induced to commit suicide. Look up the drowning of Frank Podmore. It may be that the mystery of Kaspar Hauser was attracting too much attention. There is a strange similarity in the taking off of Frank Podmore, Houdini, Washington Irving Bishop, and perhaps Dr. Crawford. The list is long, of the deaths that followed the opening of the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen.

Psychologically and physiologically the case of the Rev. Thomas Hanna is so much like the case of Kaspar Hauser that the suggestion is that if Hanna were not an impostor, Hauser was not. For particulars of the Hanna case, see Sidis, Multiple Personality. In both cases there was said to be obliteration of memory, or reduction to the mental state of the newborn, with, however, uncommon, or marvelous, ability to learn. Phenomena common to both cases were no idea of time; no idea of sex; appearance of all things, as if at the same distance, or no idea of distance; and inability, or difficulty, in walking. Kaspar Hauser was no impostor, who played a stunt of his own invention, as tellers of his story have thought. If he were an impostor, somewhere, back in times when little was known of amnesia, he had gotten ahold of detailed knowledge of profoundest amnesia. And he was about seventeen years old. Perhaps he was in a state of profound hypnosis. If the boy of Nepal, India, had wandered from the priest—who may have kidnaped him ordinarily, and may not have kidnaped him ordinarily—and had appeared in an English community, he would have been unable to account for himself, and there would have been a mystery similar to Hauser’s.

If a “wolf child,” when found, was “almost devoid of human intelligence,” and when grown up became a policeman, ours is not quite the cynicism of a scenario-writer, or a writer of detective stories. If we do not think that this child had been the associate of wolves from an age of a few months, we think of an obliterative process that rendered it “a speechless, little animal,” but that did not so impair its mentality that the child could not start anew. Our expression upon Kaspar Hauser will be that he was a “wolf child,” and that, if he had appeared somewhere in India, he would, according to local conventions, probably be called a “wolf child,” and that if he had found any place of refuge, it would be called a “wolf’s den”: but, in our expression, the lupine explanation is not accepted in his case and the cases of all so-called “wolf children.” “Wolf children” have appeared, and the conventional story of their origin is not satisfactory. If “wolf children” have had something the matter with their legs, or have crawled on all fours, it is not satisfactory to say that this was because they had been brought up with wolves, any more than it would be to say that a young bird, even if not taught by its parents, would not be able to fly, if brought up with mammals.

If we accept that the Pansini boys ever were teleported, we note the mental effects of the experience, in that they were in a state of profound hypnosis.

Little frogs bombard horses—and, though there have been many attempts to explain Kaspar Hauser, it has never before occurred to anybody to bring little frogs into an explanation

Or seals in a pond in a park—and the branded reindeer of Spitzbergen—see back to everything else in this book. Later, especially see back to lights in the sky, and the disappearance of them, when a story was told, and, so long as the story was not examined, seemed to account for them. The luminous owl—the malmoot—and if anybody can’t be explained conventionally, he’s an impostor—or, if we’re all, to some degree, impostors, he’s an exceptional impostor.

Upon Whit Monday afternoon, May, 1828, a youth, aged sixteen or seventeen, staggered, with a jaunty stride, into the town of Nuremberg, Germany. Or, while painfully dragging himself along the ground, he capered into the town. The story has been told by theorists. The tellers have fitted descriptions around their theories. The young man was unable fully to govern the motions of his legs, according to Andrew Lang, for instance. He walked with firm, quick steps, according to the Duchess of Cleveland. The Duchess’ theory required that nothing should be the matter with his legs. By way of the New Gate, he entered the town, and there was something the matter with his legs, according to all writers, except the one who preferred that there should be nothing the matter with his legs.

To Nurembergers who gathered around, the boy held out two letters, one of which was addressed to a cavalry captain. He was taken to the captain’s house, but, because the captain was not at home, and because he could give no account of himself, he was then taken to a police station. Here it was recorded that he could speak only two sentences in the German language, and that when given paper and pencil he wrote the name Kaspar Hauser. But he was not put away and forgotten. He had astonished and mystified Nurembergers, in the captain’s house, and these townsmen had told others, so that a crowd had gone with him to the station house, remaining outside, discussing the strange arrival. It was told in the crowd, as recorded by von Feuerbach, that near the New Gate of the town had appeared a boy who seemed unacquainted with the commonest objects and experiences of everyday affairs of human beings. The astonishment with which he had looked at the captain’s saber had attracted attention. He had been given a pot of beer. The luster of the pot and the color of the beer affected him, as if he had never seen anything of the kind before. Later, seeing a burning candle, he cried out in delight with it, and before anybody could stop him, tried to pick up the flame. Here his education began.

This is the story that has been considered imposture by everybody who wanted to consider it imposture. I cannot say whether all alleged cases of amnesia are fakes, or not. I say that, if there be amnesia, the phenomena of Kaspar Hauser are aligned with phenomena of many cases that are said to be well-known. The safest and easiest and laziest of explanations is that of imposture.

Of the two letters, one purported to be from the boy’s mother, dated sixteen years before, telling that she was abandoning her infant, asking the finder to send him to Nuremberg, when he became seventeen years old, to enlist in the Sixth Cavalry Regiment, of which his father had been a member. The other letter purported to be from the finder of the infant, telling that he had ten children of his own, and could no longer support the boy.

Someone soon found that these letters had not been written by different persons, sixteen years apart. One of them was in Latin characters, but both were written with the same ink, upon the same kind of paper. In the “later” letter, it was said: “I have taught him to read and write, and he writes my handwriting exactly as I do.” Whereupon the name that Kaspar had written, in the police station, was examined, and it was said that the writings were similar. Largely with this circumstance for a basis, it has been said that Kaspar Hauser was an impostor—or that he had written the letters himself. With what expectation of profit to himself is not made clear. If I must argue, I argue that an impostor, aware that handwritings might be compared, would, if he were a good impostor, pretend to be unable to write, as well as unable to speak. And those who consider Kaspar Hauser an impostor, say that he was a very good impostor. The explanation in the letter, of the similarity of handwritings, seems to be acceptable enough.

People living along the road leading to the New Gate were questioned. Not an observation upon the boy, before he appeared near the Gate, could be heard of. But we see, if we accept that someone else wrote his letters, that this Gate could not have been his “appearing-point,” in the sense we’re thinking of. He must have been with, or in the custody of, someone else, at least for a while. Streets near the jail, where for a time he was lodged, were filled with crowds, clamoring for more information. Excitement and investigation spread far around Nuremberg. A reward was offered, and, throughout Germany, the likeness of Kaspar Hauser was posted in public places. People in Hungary took up the investigation. Writers in France made much of the mystery, and the story was published in England. People from all parts of Europe went to see the boy. The mystery was so stimulated by pamphleteers that, though “feverish” seems an extreme word, writers described the excitement over this boy, “who had appeared as if from the clouds,” as a “fever.” Because of this international interest, Kaspar Hauser was known as “The Child of Europe.”

The city of Nuremberg adopted Kaspar. He was sent to live with Prof. Daumer, a well-known scientist, and the Mayor of Nuremberg notified the public to “keep away from his present residence, and thereby avoid collision with the police.” The seeming paralysis of his legs wore off. He quickly learned the German language, but spoke always with a foreign accent. I have been unable to learn anything of the peculiarities of this accent. Except to students of revivals of obliterated memories, his quickness in learning would seem incredible. Writers have said that so marvelous was his supposed ability to learn that he must have been an impostor, having a fair education, to start with. Though the impostor-theory is safest and easiest, some writers have held that the boy was an idiot, who had been turned adrift. This explanation can be held simply and honestly by anybody who refuses to believe all records after the first week or so of observations. Whether impostor or idiot, the outstanding mystery is the origin of this continentally advertised boy.

The look of all the circumstances to me is that somebody got rid of Kaspar, considering him an imbecile, having been able to teach him only two German sentences. Then the look is that he had not for years known Kaspar, but had known him only a few weeks, while his disabilities were new to him. Where this custodian found the boy is the mystery.

Kaspar Hauser, in the year 1829, wrote his own story, telling that, until the age of sixteen or seventeen, he had lived upon bread and water, in a small, dark cell. He had known only one person, alluded to by him, as “the man,” who, toward the end of his confinement had taught him two sentences, one of them signifying that he wished to join a cavalry regiment, and the other, “I don’t know.” He had been treated kindly, except once, when he had been struck for being noisy.

Almost anybody, reading this account, will, perhaps regretfully, perhaps not, say farewell to our idea of a teleported boy. “That settles it.” But nothing ever has settled anything, except relatively to a desire for settlement, and if ours is a desire for unsettlement, we have assurance that we, or any other theorist, can find in the uncertainties of any human document, whether supposed to have been dictated from on high, or written by a boy, material for thinking as our theories require.

We note in Kaspar’s story a statement that he had no idea of time. That is refreshing to our wilting theory. We may think that he had lived in a small, dark room all his life of which he had remembrance, and that that may have been a period of only a few weeks. We pick upon his statement that once he had been struck for being noisy. To us that means that he had been confined, not in a cell, or a dungeon, but in a room in a house, with neighbors around, and that there was somebody’s fear that sounds from him would attract attention—or that there were neighbors so close to this place that the imprisonment of a boy could not have been kept a secret more than a few weeks.

We’re not satisfied. We hunt for direct data for thinking that, if Kaspar Hauser had been confined in a dark room, it had not been for more than a few weeks.

“He had a healthy color” (Hiltel). “He had a very healthy color: he did not appear pale or delicate, like one who had been some time in confinement” (Policeman Wüst).

According to all that can be learned of another case, a man, naked, almost helpless, perhaps in a state of hypnosis so profound that also it was physical, so that he could scarcely walk, and in whom memory was obliterated so that he did not know enough to make his way along a road, which he crossed, appeared near Petersfield, Hampshire, Feb. 21, 1920. If we can think that a peasant, near Nuremberg, found on his farm a boy in a similar condition, and took him in, then considering him an imbecile, and wanting to get rid of him, keeping him in confinement, fearing he might be held responsible for him, then writing two letters that would explain an abandonment in commonplace terms that would not excite inquiry, but not being skillful in such matters, that looks as if we’re explaining somewhat.

Because of the continuation of Kaspar’s story, we think that this place was near Nuremberg. Whit Monday was a holiday, and the farmers, or the neighbors, were probably not laboring in the fields: so this was the day for the shifting of the supposed imbecile. Upon this day, as told by Kaspar, “the man” carried the boy from the dark room, and carried, or led, him, compelling him to keep his eyes downward, toward Nuremberg. Kaspar’s clothes were changed for the abandonment.

Perhaps he had been found naked, and had been given makeshift garments. Perhaps he had been found in clothes, of cut and texture that were remarkable and that would have caused inquiry. The clothes that were given to him were a peasant’s. It was noted in Nuremberg that they seemed not to belong to him, because Kaspar was not a peasant boy, judging by the softness of his hands (von Feuerbach).

The story has resemblances to the story of the English boy of Nepal. In each case somebody got rid of a boy, and in each case it is probable that a false story was told. If “the man” in Kaspar’s case had the ten children that, to excuse an abandonment, he told of, there’d have been small chance for him to keep his secret. There are differences in these two stories. It will be my expression that they came about because of the wide difference in attention that was attracted.

Oct. 17, 1829—Kaspar was found in the cellar of Prof. Daumer’s house, bleeding from a cut in the forehead. He said that a man in a black mask had appeared suddenly, and had stabbed him.

It has been explained that this was attempted suicide. But stabbing oneself in the forehead is a queer way to attempt suicide, and in Nuremberg arose a belief that Kaspar’s life was in danger from unknown enemies, and two policemen were assigned to guard him.

Upon an afternoon in May, 1831, one of these policemen, while in one room, heard a pistol shot, in another room. He ran there, and found Kaspar again wounded in the forehead. Kaspar said that it was an accident: that he had climbed upon the back of a chair, and, reaching for a book, had slipped, and, catching out wildly, had grasped a pistol that was hanging on the wall, discharging it.

Dec. 14, 1833—Kaspar Hauser ran from a park, crying that he had been stabbed. Deeply wounded in his side, he was taken to his home. The park, which was covered with new-fallen snow, was searched, but no weapon was found, and only Kaspar’s footprints were seen in the snow. Two of the attending physicians gave their opinion that Kaspar could not so have injured himself. The opinion of the third physician was an indirect accusation of suicide: that the blow had been struck by a left-handed person. Kaspar was not left-handed, but was ambidextrous.

Kaspar lay on his bed, with his usual publicity. He was surrounded by tormentors, who urged him to gasp plugs in his story. He was the only human being who had been in the park, according to the testimony of the snow tracks. It was not only Kaspar who was wounded. There was a wound in circumstances. Tormentors urged him to confess, so that in terms of the known they could fill out his story. Faith in confessions and the desire to end a mystery with a confession are so intense that some writers have said that Kaspar did confess. As a confession, they have interpreted his protest against his accusers—”My God! that I should so die in shame and disgrace!”

Kaspar Hauser died. The point of his heart had been pierced by something that had cut through the diaphragm, penetrating stomach and liver. In the opinion of two of the doctors and of many of the people of Nuremberg, this wound could not have been self-inflicted. Rewards for the capture of an assassin were offered. Again, throughout Germany, posters appeared in public places, and in Germany and other countries there were renewed outbursts of pamphlets. The boy appeared “as if from the clouds,” and nothing more was learned.

It was Kaspar’s story that a man in the park had stabbed him. If anybody prefers to think that it cannot be maintained that there was only one track of footprints in the snow, let him look up various accounts, and he will find assurances any way he wants to find them. For almost every statement that I have made, just as good authority for denying it, as for stating it, can be found, provided any two conflicting theories depend upon it. One can read that Kaspar Hauser was highly intelligent or brilliant. One can read that the autopsy showed that his brain was atrophied to the size of a small animal’s, accounting for his idiocy. One comes upon just about what one comes upon in looking up any other matter of history. It is said that history is a science. I think that it must be.

A great deal, such as Kaspar’s alleged ability to see in the dark, and his aversion to eating meat, and his inability to walk would be understandable, if could be accepted the popular theory that Kaspar Hauser was the rightful Crown Prince of Bavaria, who for political reasons had been kept for sixteen or seventeen years in a dungeon. There would be an explanation for two alleged attacks upon him. But see back to his own story of confinement in a house, or a peasant’s hut, near Nuremberg, where probably his imprisonment could not have been kept secret more than a few weeks. See testimony by Hiltel and Wüst.

See back to a great deal more in this book—

The wolf of Shotley Bridge, and the wolf of Cumwinton—or that something removed one wolf and procured another wolf to end a mystery that was attracting too much attention.

It was said that Kaspar Hauser was murdered to suppress political disclosures. If it be thinkable that Kaspar was murdered to suppress a mystery, whether political, or not so easily defined, there are statements that support the idea that also some of the inhabitants of Nuremberg, who were prominent in Kaspar’s affairs, were murdered. One can read that von Feuerbach was murdered, or one can read that von Feuerbach died of a paralytic stroke. See Evans (Kaspar Hauser, p. 150)—that, soon after the death of Kaspar Hauser, several persons, who had shown much interest in his case, died, and that it was told in Nuremberg that they had been poisoned. They were Mayor Binder, Dr. Osterhauser, Dr. Preu, and Dr. Albert.

“Kaspar Hauser showed such an utter deficiency of words and ideas, such perfect ignorance of the commonest things and appearances of Nature, and such horror of all customs, conveniences, and necessities of civilized life, and, withal, such extraordinary peculiarities in his social, mental, and physical disposition, that one might feel oneself driven to the alternative of believing him to be a citizen of another planet, transferred by some miracle to our own” (von Feuerbach).

Chapter 20

According to appearances, this earth is a central body, within a revolving, starry globe.

But am I going to judge by appearances?

But everything of the opposing doctrine is judgment by other appearances. Everybody who argues against judging by appearances bases his argument upon other appearances. Monistically, it can be shown that everybody who argues against anything bases his argument upon some degree or aspect of whatever he opposes. Everybody who is attacking something is sailing on a windmill, while denouncing merry-go-rounds.

“You can’t judge by appearances,” say the astronomers. “Sun and stars seem to go around this earth, but they are like a field that seems to go past a train, whereas it is the train that is passing the field.” Judging by this appearance, they say that we cannot judge by appearances.

Our judgments must depend upon evidence, the scientists tell us.

Let somebody smell, hear, taste, see, and feel something that is unknown to me, and then tell me about it. Like everybody else, I listen politely, if he’s not too long about it, and then instinctively consult my preconceptions, before deciding whether all this is evidence. An opinion is a matter of evidence, but evidence is a matter of opinion.

We can depend upon intuition, says Bergson.

I could give some woebegone accounts of what has befallen me, by depending upon intuitions, whether called “hunches,” or “transcendental consciousness”; but similar experiences have befallen everybody else. There would have been what I call good sport, if Bergson had appeared upon the floor of the Stock Exchange, and preached his doctrine, in October, 1929.

We have only faith to guide us, say the theologians.

Which faith?

It is my acceptance that what we call evidence, and whatever we think we mean by intuition and faith are the phenomena of eras, and that the best of minds, or minds best in rapport with the dominant motif of an era, have intuition and faith and belief that depend upon what is called evidence, relatively to pagan gods, then to the god of the Christians, and then to godlessness—and then to whatever is coming next.

We shall have data for thinking that our existence, as a whole, is an organism. First we shall argue that it is a thinkable-sized formation, whether organic, or not. If now, affairs upon this earth be fluttering upon the edge of a new era, and I give expression to coming thoughts of that era, thousands of other minds are changing, and all of us will take on new thoughts concordantly, and see, as important evidence, piffle of the past.

Even in orthodox speculations there are more or less satisfactory grounds for thinking that ours is an existence, perhaps one of countless other existences, that is an egg-like formation, shelled away from the rest of the cosmos. Many astronomers have noted that the Milky Way is a broad band in the sky, with the look of a streak around a globular object. For conventional reasons for thinking that the “solar system” is central in “a mighty cluster of stars,” see Dolmage, Astronomy, p. 327. Dolmage even speculates upon a limiting demarcation which is akin to the notion of a shell, shutting off this existence from everything else.

Back in the pessimistic times of Sir Isaac Newton was formulated the explanation of existence in general that is our opposition. It was the melancholy doctrine of universal fall. It was in agreement with the theology of the time: fallen angels, the fall of mankind: so falling planets, falling moons, everything falling. The germ of this despair was the supposed fall of the moon, not to, but around, this earth. But if the moon is falling away from observers upon one part of this earth’s surface, it is rising in the sky, relatively to other observers. If something is quite as truly rising as it is falling, only minds that belong away back in times when everything was supposed to be falling, can be satisfied with this yarn of the rising moon that is falling. Sir Isaac Newton looked at the falling moon, and explained all things in terms of attraction. It would be just as logical to look at the rising moon, and explain all things in terms of repulsion. It would be more widely logical to cancel falls with rises, and explain that there is nothing.

I think of this earth as central, and as almost stationary, and with the stars in a shell, revolving around. By so thinking, I have the concept of an object, and the visualization of an existence as a whole. But the trouble with this idea is that it is reasonable. Not absolutely can it be said that human minds reason according to reasonableness. There is the love of the paradox to consider. We are in agreement with observations, but peasants, or clodhoppers, think as we think. We offer no paradox to make one feel superior to somebody who hops from clod to clod.

What is the test? Of course, if there are no standards, all tests must be fakes. But if we have an appearance of reasonableness, and if the other side says that it is reasonable, how choose?

We read over and over that prediction is the test of science.

The astronomers can predict the movements of some of the parts of what they call the solar system.

But so far are they from a comprehensive grasp upon the system as a whole that, if, for a basis of their calculations, be taken that this earth is stationary, and that the sun and the planets, and the stars in a shell, move around this earth, the same motions of heavenly bodies can be foretold. Take for a base that the earth moves around the sun, or take that the sun moves around the earth: upon either base the astronomers can predict an eclipse, and enjoy renown and prestige, as if they knew what they were telling about. Either way there are inaccuracies.

Our opposition is ancient and at least uppish.

Prof. Todd, in his book, Stars and Telescopes, says: “Astronomy may be styled a very aristocrat among the sciences.”

For similar descriptions, by implication, of themselves, by themselves, see all other books by astronomers.

There are aristocratic human beings. I’ll not contend otherwise. There are aristocratic dogs, and all cats, except for relapses, are aristocrats. There are aristocratic goldfish. In whatever is bred, is the tendency to aristocraticize. Porcupines, as the untouchable and the stupid, are verier aristocrats than the merely very. The aristocratic state is supposed to be the serene, the safe, and the established. It is unintelligent, because intelligence is only a means of making adaptations, and the aristocratic is the made. If this state of the relatively established and stupid were the really, or finally, established and stupid, we’d see good reason for the strivings and admirations and imitations of strugglers, climbers, or newcomers to stabilize themselves into stupors. But, in phenomenal being, the aristocratic, or the academic, is, though thought of as the arrived, only a poise between the arriving and the departing. When far-advanced it is the dying. Wherein it is a goal, our existence is, though only locally, suicidal. The literature of the academic ends with the obituary. Prof. Todd’s self-congratulation is my accusation.

But there is only relative aristocracy. If I can show that, relatively to a viewpoint, other than the astronomers’ own way of adoring themselves, the supposed science of astronomy is only a composition of yarns, evasions, myths, errors, disagreements, boasts, superstitions, guesses, and bamboozlements, I am spreading the good cheer that it is still very faulty and intellectual and still alive, and may be able to adjust, and keep on exciting its exponents with admiration for themselves.

We shall see what mathematical astronomy is said to start with. If we can’t accept that it ever fairly started, we’ll not delay much with any notion that it could get anywhere.

The early mathematical astronomers, in their calculations upon moving bodies, could not treat of weights, because these inconstancies are relative; nor of sizes, because sizes are relative and variable. But they were able to say that they had solved their problem of how to begin, because nobody else interfered and asked whether they had or not. They gave up weight and size and said that their treatment was of mass.

If there were ultimate particles of matter, one could think of mass as meaning a certain number of those things. When atoms were believed in, as finals, an astronomer could pretend that he knew what he meant by a quantity of matter, or mass. Then, with electrons, he could more or less seriously keep on pretending. But now the sub-electron is talked of. And, in turn, what is that composed of? Perhaps the pretensions can stretch, but there is too much strain to the seriousness. If nobody knows what constitutes a quantity of matter, the astronomer has no idea of what he means by mass. His is a science of masses.

But it may be said that, even though he has not the remotest idea of what he is calculating about, the astronomers’ calculations work out, just the same.

There was the mass of Mars, once upon a time, for instance: or the “known” unknowables constituting the planet. Once upon a time, the mass of Mars was said to be known. Why shouldn’t it be said to be known? The equations were said to work out, as they should work out.

In the year 1877, two satellites of the planet Mars were discovered. But their distances and their periods were not what they should be, theoretically. So then everything that had worked out so satisfactorily as it should work out, turned out to have worked out as it shouldn’t have worked out. A new mass had to be assigned to the planet Mars.

Now that works out as it should work out.

But I think that it is cannier not to have things so marvelously work out, as they should work out, and to have an eye for something that may come along and show that they had worked out as they shouldn’t have worked out. For data upon these work-outs, see Todd, Astronomy, p. 78.

It would seem that the mistake by the astronomers is in thinking that, in a relative existence, there could be more than relative mass, if the idea of mass could be considered as meaning anything. But it is more of a dodge than a mistake. It is just relativity that the astronomers have tried to dodge, with a pseudo-concept of a constant, or a final. Instead of science, this is metaphysics. It is the childish attempt to find the absolutely dependable in a flux, or an intellectually not very far-advanced attempt to find the absolute in the relative. The concept of mass is a borrowing from the theologians, who are in no position to lend anything. The theologians could not confidently treat of human characters, personalities, dispositions, temperaments, nor intellects, all of which are shifts: so they said that they conceived of finals, or unchangeables, which they called “souls.” If economists and psychologists and sociologists should disregard all that is of hopes and fears and wants and other changes of human nature, and take “souls” for their units, they would have sciences as aristocratic and sterile as the science of astronomy, which is concerned with souls, under the name of masses. A final, or unchangeable, must be thought of as a state of unrelatedness. Anything that is reacting with something else must be thought of as being in a state of change. So when an astronomer formulates, or says he formulates, the effects of one mass, or one planet, as a mass, upon another, his meaningless statement might as well be that the subject of his equations is the relations of unrelatedness.

Starting with nothing thinkable to think about, if constants, or finals, are unknown in human experience, and are unrepresentable in human thought, the first and the simplest of the astronomers’ triumphs, as they tell it, is the Problem of the Two Masses.

This simplest of the problems of celestial mechanics is simply a fiction. When Biela’s comet split, the two masses did not revolve around a common center of gravity. Other comets have broken into parts that did not so revolve. They have been no more subject to other attractions than have been this earth and its moon. The theorem is Sunday School Science. It is a mathematician’s story of what bodies in space ought to do. In the textbooks, it is said that the star Sirius and a companion star exemplify the theorem, but this is another yarn. If this star has moved, it has not moved as it was calculated to move. It exemplifies nothing but the inaccuracies of the textbooks. It is by means of their inaccuracies that they have worked up a reputation for exactness.

Often in his book, an astronomer will sketchily take up a subject, and then drop it, saying that it is too complex, but that it can be mathematically demonstrated. The reader, who is a good deal of a dodger, himself, relieved at not having to go into complexities, takes this lazily and faithfully. It is bamboozlement. There are many of us, nowadays, who have impressions of what mathematicians can do to, or with, statistics. To say that something can be mathematically demonstrated has no more meaning than to say of something else that it can be politically demonstrated. During any campaign, read newspapers on both sides, and see that anything can be politically demonstrated. Just so it can be mathematically shown that twice two are four, and it can be mathematically shown that two can never become four. Let somebody have two of arithmetic’s favorite fruit, or two apples, and undertake to add two more to them. Although he will have no trouble in doing this, it can be mathematically shown to be impossible. Or that, according to Zeno’s paradoxes, nothing can be carried over intervening space and added to something else. Instead of ending up skeptically about mathematics, here am I upholding that it can prove anything.

We are told in the textbooks, or the tracts, as I regard these propagandist writings of Sunday School Science, that by parallax, or annual displacement of stars, relatively to other stars, the motion of this earth around the sun has been instrumentally determined. Mostly, these displacements are about the apparent size of a fifty cent piece, held up by someone in New York City, as seen by somebody in Saratoga. This is much refinement. We ask these ethereal ones—where is their excuse, if they get an eclipse wrong by a millionth of an inch, or a millionth of a second?

We look up this boast.

We find that the disagreements are so great that some astronomers have reported what is called negative parallax, or supposed displacement of stars, the wrong way, according to theory. See Newcomb, The Stars, p. 152. See the English Mechanic, 114-100, 112. We are out to show that astronomers themselves do not believe parallactic determinations, but believe those that they want to believe. Newcomb says that he does not believe these determinations that are against what he wants to believe.

Spectroscopic determinations are determined by whatever the spectroscopists want to determine. If one thinks not, let one look up the “determinations” by astronomers who were for and against Einstein. Grebe and Bachem, at Bonn, found shifts of spectral lines in Einstein’s favor. They were for Einstein. St. John, at the Mt. Wilson Observatory, found the testimony of the spectroscope not in Einstein’s favor. He was against Einstein. The spectroscope is said to be against us. But, if we had a spectroscope of our own, it would be for us.

In The Earth and the Stars, Abbot says that the spectroscope “seems to indicate” that variable stars, known as the Cepheid Variables, are double stars. But he says: “The distance between the supposed pairs turns out to be impossibly small.” When a spectroscopic determination is not what it should be, it only “seems to indicate.”

The camera is another of the images in astronomical idolatry. I note that bamboozlements that have played out everywhere else, still hold good in astronomy. Spirit photographs fall flat. At the movies, if we see somebody capering seemingly near an edge of a roof, we do not think that he had been photographed anywhere near an edge of a roof. Nevertheless, even in such a religious matter as photography in astronomy, a camera tells what it should tell, or the astronomers will not believe it.

If the astronomers would fight more among themselves, more would come out. How can I be a pacifist, just so long as .I am trying to educate myself? Much comes out, war times. Considerable came out, in astronomical matters, during the Mars controversy. Everything that was determined by Lowell, with his spectroscope, and his camera, and his telescope, as an indication of the existence of life upon the planet Mars, was determined by Campbell, with his spectroscope, and his camera, and his telescope, to be not so. The question is not what an instrument determines. The question is—whose instrument? All the astronomers in the world may be against our notions, but most of their superiority is in their more expensive ways of deceiving themselves.

Foucault’s experiment, or the supposed demonstration with the pendulum, is supposed to show that this earth rotates daily. If a pendulum does—at least for a while—swing somewhat nearly in a constant line, though changing relatively to environment, and if we think that neither religiously, nor accidentally, has it received some helpful little pushes, we accept that here there may be indication of an annual, and not daily, rotation of this earth. That would account for the annual shift, and not the daily shift, of the stars. I don’t know that I accept this, but I have no opposing prejudice. When I write of this earth as “almost stationary,” as I have to regard it, if I think of it as surrounded by a starry shell that is not vastly far away, I mean that relatively to the tremendous velocities of conventionality. But this alleged experiment has never been more than part of an experiment. I quote from one of the latest textbooks, Astronomy, by Prof. John C. Duncan, published in 1926. We are told that a pendulum, if undisturbed, swings for “several hours,” in “very nearly” the same plane. Farther along we read that, in the latitude of Paris, where Foucault made his experiment, the time for a complete demonstration is 32 hours. Prof. Duncan makes no comment, but it is the reader’s own fault if he reads in these statements that the swing of a pendulum, through more than part of an experiment, and in more than “very nearly” the same plane, ever has demonstrated the daily rotation of this earth..

In the textbooks, which are pretty good reading for contrary persons like ourselves, it is said that the circumstance that this earth is approximately an oblate spheroid indicates the rapid rotation of this earth. But our negative principle is that nothing exclusively indicates anything. It does not matter what an astronomer, or anybody else says to support any statement, the support must be a myth. Even if I could accept that the astronomers are right, I could not accept that they can demonstrate that they’re right. So we hunt around for opposing data, knowing that they must be findable somewhere. We come upon the shape of the sun. The sun rotates rapidly, but the sun is not an oblate spheroid: if there be any departure from sphericity, the sun is a prolate spheroid. Or we argue that oblateness may be an indication that in early, formative times this earth rotated rapidly, but that now this earth could be oblate and almost stationary. It may be another instance of my many credulities, but here I am accepting that this roundish, or perhaps pear-shaped, earth is flattened at the poles, as it is said to be.

Astronomers cite relative numerousness of meteors, as indication of this earth’s motion in an orbit. Prof. Duncan (Astronomy, p. 262) says that meteors seen after midnight are about twice as numerous as are those that are seen before midnight. “This is because, in the latter half of the night, we are riding on the front side of the Earth, as it moves along its orbit, and receives meteors from all directions, whereas in the earlier half we see none of those which the Earth meets ‘head on.’”

There is no use comparing little sparks of meteors, seen at different times of night, because of course soon after midnight more of these little things are likely to be seen than earlier in the evening, in lingering twilight. Here, Prof. Duncan’s statement is that when meteors can be seen morely, more meteors can be seen. That is wisdom that we shall not defile.

In the records of great meteors that were seen in England, in the year 1926—see Nature, Observatory, English Mechanic—eighteen were seen before midnight, and not one was seen after midnight. All other records that I know of are against this alleged indication that this earth moves in an orbit. For instance, see the catalogue of meteors and meteorites published in the Rept. Brit. Assoc. Ad. Sci., 1860. See page 18. 51 after midnight (from midnight to noon); 146 before midnight (noon to midnight). I have records of my own, for 125 years, in which the preponderance of early meteors is so great that, if there were any sense to this alleged indication, it would mean that this earth is running backward, or going around the way it shouldn’t. Of course I note that great meteors are more likely to be reported before midnight, because, though many persons are out after midnight, mostly they’re not out reporting meteors. But Prof. Duncan has made a statement, which depends upon records, and I am checking it up, according to records. Year 1925, for instance—meteors of France and England—14 before midnight: 3 after midnight. This record, as I have it, is not complete, but I will hold out for the proportionality. Most of the great meteors of 1930 were seen before midnight.

Whatever becomes of Prof. Duncan’s statement, I’ll make one, myself, and that is that, if nobody looks up, or checks up, what the astronomers tell us, they are free to tell us anything that they want to tell us. Their system is a slippery imposition of evasions that cannot be checked up, or that, for various reasons, mostly are not checked up. But at least once there was a big check up.

The 24th of January, 1925—excitement in New York City.

It was such as, in all foreign countries, is supposed to arise in America only when somebody finds out a new way of making dollars.

It was the morning of the eclipse of the sun, total over a part of New York City.

Open spaces in Central Park were crowded down to a line, as exactly as possible at 83rd Street. Up in the air were planes full of observers. Coogan’s Bluff was lively with scientific gab. Hospitals were arranging that patients should see the eclipse. There was scarcely a dollar in it, and this account will be believed, in England and France, no more than will most of our other accounts. At the Fifth Avenue Police Court, Magistrate Dale adjourned court, and went, with lawyers and cops and persons out on bail to the roof. In Brooklyn, the Chamber of Commerce dropped all matters of exports and imports and went to the roof. I don’t suppose everybody was looking. I can’t accept homogeneity. There were probably some contrary ones who went down into cellars, simply because most of their neighbors were up on roofs. But the New York Telephone Company reported that when the eclipse came, not one call came into one of its offices, for ten minutes. When there are uproars in New York, they are such uproars as have never been heard anywhere else: but I think that most striking in the records of silences is this hush that came for ten minutes upon New York City.

Along the line of 83rd Street, which had been exactly predicted by the astronomers, as the southern limit of the path of totality, and in places north and south, were stationed 149 observers, sent by the New York lighting companies, to report upon light effects. With them were photographers.

At Petropaulovsk, Kamchatka, and at Cachapoyas, Peru, an eclipse is all that it should be, and books by astronomers tell of the minute exactness of the astronomers. But this was in New York City. Coogan’s Bluff got into this. There were cops and judges and gunmen on roofs, and the telephones were silent. There were 149 expert observers, who were not astronomers. They had photographers with them.

In time, the astronomers did pretty well. But, hereafter when they tell of their refinements, as with discs several hundred miles away, I shall think, not of fifty cent pieces, but of Ferris Wheels. Their prediction was wrong by four seconds.

The 149 observers for the lighting companies reported that the astronomers were wrong, in space, by three quarters of a mile.

It was the day of the big check up.

If the sun and the planets compose a system that is enormously remote from everything else in existence, what is it that regularizes the motions, and why does not the mechanism run down? The astronomers say that the planets keep moving, and that a whole system does not run down, because space is empty, and there is “absolutely” nothing to tend to stop the moving bodies. See Abbot, The Earth and the Stars, p. 71. Astronomers say this early in their books. Later, they forget. Later, when something else requires explanation, they tell a different story. They explain the zodiacal light in terms of enormous quantities of matter in space. In their chapters upon meteors, they tell of millions of tons of meteoric dusts that fall from space to this earth, every year. Abbot says that space is “absolutely” empty. Ball, for instance, explains the shortening of the orbit of Encke’s comet as a result of friction with enormous quantities of matter in space. I don’t know how satisfactory, except to ourselves, our own expression will be, but compare it with a story of an absolute vacancy that is enormously occupied.

There is a tendency to regularize. Crystals, flowers, and butterflies’ wings. Proportionately as they become civilized, people regularize, or move in orbits. People regularize in eating and sleeping. There are clockwork Romeos and Juliets. Everywhere, where the tendency is not toward irregularization, the tendency is toward regularization. Here’s a good specimen of my own wisdom. Something is so, except when it isn’t so.

Not in terms of gravitation, but in terms of this tendency to regularize, celestial periodicities may be explained.

Why does not the mechanism of what the astronomers think is a solar system run down?

The astronomers say that this is because it is unresisted by a resisting medium.

Why does not a heart run down? Anyway for a long time?

It is only a part, and, as a part, is sustained by what may be considered a whole. If we think of the so-called solar system, not as a virtually isolated, independent thing, with stars trillions of miles away, but as part of what may be considered an organic whole, within a starry shell, our expression is that it is kept going organically, as the heart of a lesser organism is kept going.

Why does not the astronomers’ own system, or systematized doctrine, run down, or why so slow about it? It is only a part of wider organization, from which it is receiving maintenance in the form of bequests, donations, and funds of various kinds.

Our opposition is a system of antiquated thought, concerned primarily with the unthinkable. It is supported by instruments that are believed when they tell what they should tell. The germ of the system is the fall of the rising moon. Its simplest problem is a fairy-theorem, fit for top-heavy infants, but too fanciful for grownup realists. Its prestige is built upon its predictions. We have noted one of them that was three-quarters of a mile wrong.

Newtonism is no longer satisfactory. There is too much that it cannot explain.

Einsteinism has arisen.

If Einsteinism is not satisfactory, there is room for other notions.

For records of eclipses during which the stars were not displaced, as, according to Einstein, they should be, see indexes of Nature. See vols. 104 and 105. Displacement of spectral lines—see records of astronomers who have disagreed. Perihelion-motion of Mercury’s orbit—Einstein calculated without knowing what he was calculating about. Nobody knows what this eccentricity is. See records of the transits of Mercury. Neither Newtonians nor Einsteinites have predicted them right. See the London Times, April 17 and 24, 1923. Here Sir J. Larmor shows that, if Einstein’s predictions of light-effects during eclipses were verified, they disproved his theory—that, though Prof. Einstein would be a great mathematician, if in our existence anything could really be anything, relativity is so against him that he is only a relatively great mathematician, and made a bad error in his calculations, having mistakenly doubled certain effects.

Defeat has been unconsciously the quest of all religions, all philosophies, and all sciences. If they were consciously trying to lose, they would be successes. Their search has been for the Absolute, in terms of which to explain the phenomenal, or for the Absolute to relate to. Supposed to have been found, it has been named Jehovah, or Gravitation, or the Persistence of Force. Prof. Einstein has taken the Velocity of Light, as the Absolute to relate to.

We cannot divorce the idea of reciprocity from the idea of relations, and relating something to the Absolute would be relating the Absolute to something. This is defeating an alleged concept of the Absolute, with the pseudo-idea of the Relative Absolute. The doctrine of Prof. Einstein’s is based not upon an absolute finding, but upon a question:

Which is the more graspable interpretation of the Michelson-Morley experiments:

That no motion of this earth in an orbit is indicated, because the velocity of light is absolute;

Or that no motion of this earth in an orbit is indicated, because this earth is stationary?

Unfortunately for my own expressions, I have to ask a third question:

Who, except someone who was out to boost a theory ever has demonstrated that light has any velocity?

Prof. Einstein is a Girondist of the Scientific Revolution. His revolt is against classical mechanics, but his methods and his delusions are as antiquated as what he attacks. But it is my expression that he has functioned. Though his strokes were wobbles, he has shown with his palsies the insecurities of that in Science which has been worshipfully regarded as the Most High.

It is my expression that the dissolution of phenomenal things is as much a matter of internal disorders as the effect of any external force, and that the slump of so many astronomers in favor of Einstein, who has made good in nothing, indicates a state of dissatisfaction that may precede a revolution—or that, if a revolt starts in the Observatories, hosts of irreconcilable observations will be published by the astronomers themselves, cutting down distances of planets and stars enormously. I shall note an observation by an astronomer, such as probably no astronomer, in the past, would have published. It seems to have been recorded reluctantly, and a conventional explanation was attempted—but it was published.

I take from a clipping, from the Los Angeles Evening Herald, April 28, 1930, which was sent to me by Mr. L. E. Stein, of Los Angeles. In an account of the eclipse of the sun, April 28, 1930, Dr. H. M. Jeffers, staff astronomer of Lick Observatory, says: “We expected the shadow to be but half a mile in width. Instead of that, I think that it was nearer five miles broad.” He says: “It may be suggested by others that the broad shadow was cast by astronomical errors due to the moon being closer to the earth than we have placed it in theory. But I don’t believe that this broad belt was caused by anything but refraction.”

The difference between half a mile and five miles is great. If the prophets of Lick Observatory did not take refraction into consideration, all the rest of their supposed knowledge may be attributable to incompetence. This difference may mean that the moon is not more than a day’s journey away from this earth.

In The Earth and the Stars, p. 211, Abbot tells of the spectroscopic determinations, by which the new star in Perseus (Feb. 22, 1901) was “found” to be at a distance of 300 light years from this earth. The news was published in the newspapers. A new star had appeared, about the year 1600, and its light was not seen upon this earth, until Feb. 22, 1901. And the astronomers were able to tell this—that away back, at a moment when Queen Elizabeth—well, whatever she was doing—maybe it wouldn’t be any too discreet to inquire into just what she was doing—but the astronomers told that just when Queen Elizabeth was doing whatever she was doing, the heavens were doing a new star. And where am I, comparatively? Where are my poor, little yarns of flows of methylated spirits from ceilings, and “mysterious strangers,” and bodies on railroad lines, compared with a yarn of the new star and Queen Elizabeth?

But the good, little star restores my conceit. In the face of all spectroscopes in all Observatories, it shot out nebulous rings that moved at a rate of 2 or 3 seconds of arc a day. If they were 300 light years away, this was a velocity far greater than that of light is said to be. If they were 300 light years away, it was motion at the rate of 220,000 miles a second. There were dogmas that could not stand this, and the spectroscopic determinations, which were in agreement, were another case of agreements working out, as they shouldn’t have worked out. The astronomers had to cut down one of their beloved immensities. Whether as a matter of gallantry, or not, they spread a denial for Queen Elizabeth’s reputation to tread upon, saving that from the mud of an inquiry into just what Her Majesty was doing, and substituting unromantic speculations upon what, say, Andrew Jackson was up to.

Abbot’s way of explaining the mistake is by attributing the first “pronouncements” to “the roughness of the observations.”

All over this earth, astronomers were agreeing in these “determinations.” They were refinements until something else appeared and roughened them.

It would seem that, after this fiasco of the readjusted interest in what historical personages were doing, astronomers should have learned something. But, if Prof. Todd is right, in his characterization of them, that is impossible. About twenty years later, this situation, essentially the same in all particulars, repeated. Upon May 27, 1925, a new star was discovered in the southern constellation Pictor. By spectroscopic determination, its distance was “determined” to be 540 light years. See this stated in a bulletin of the Harvard Observatory, November, 1927.

March 27, 1928—the new star split.

When the split was seen, astronomers of the South African Observatory repudiated the gospel of their spectroscopes of three years before. There must have been much roughness, even though there had been three years in which to plane down the splinters. They cut the distance from 540 to 40 light years. If there should be any more reductions like this, there may start a slump of immensities down toward a conception of a thinkable-sized formation of stars. A distance cut down 60 × 60 × 24 × 365 × 500 × 186,000 miles is a pretty good start.

Prof. Einstein, having no means of doing anything of the kind, predicts a displacement of the stars.

Astronomers go out upon an expedition to observe an eclipse, and, not knowing that Einstein has no special means of predicting anything, they report, presumably because they want so to report, that he is right.

Then eclipse after eclipse—and Einstein is wrong.

But he has cast an ancient system into internal dissensions, and has cast doubts upon antiquities of thought almost as if his pedantic guesses had had better luck.

Whether the time has come, or not, here is something that looks as if it is coming:

An editorial in the New York Sun, Sept. 3, 1930: views of somebody else quoted:

“The public is being played upon and utterly misled by the dreamery of the rival mathematical astronomers and physicists—not to mention the clerics—who are raising the game of notoriety to a fine art; in rivalry to religious mysticism, a scientific pornography is being developed, and attracts the more because it is mysterious.”

These are the views of Professor Henry E. Armstrong, emeritus head of the department of chemistry, at City and Guilds College, South Kensington, London.

This is revolt inside. That is what develops into revolution.

Prof. Armstrong’s accusation of pornography may seem unduly stimulating: but, judging by their lecheries in other respects, one sees that all that the astronomers have to do is to discover that stars have sex, and they’ll have us sneaking to bookstores, for salacious “pronouncements” and “determinations” upon the latest celestial scandals. This would popularize them. And after anything becomes popular—then what?

That the time has come—or is coming—or more of the revolt within—

Or that, if they cannot continue upon their present pretenses of progress, the astronomers must return from their motionless excursions. A generation ago, they told of inconceivable distances of stars. Then they said that they had, a thousand times, multiplied some of these distances: but, if the inconceivable be multiplied any number of times, it is still the same old inconceivability. If, at the unthinkable, thought stops, but if thought must move somewhere, the astronomers, who cannot go on expansively, will, if they do think, have to think in reductions. If the time has come, there will be a crash in the Observatories, with astronomers in a panic selling short on inconceivabilities.

Upon Sept. 2, 1930, began a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, in Chicago. A paper that was read by Dr. P. Van de Kamp may be a signal for a panic. Said he: “Some of the stars may actually be thousands of light years nearer than astronomy believes them to be.”

That—with some extensions—is about what I am saying.

Says the astronomer Leverrier—back in times when an astronomical system is growing up, and is of use in combating an older and decaying orthodoxy, and needs support and prestige—says he—”Look in the sky, and at the point of my calculations, you will find the planet that is perturbing Uranus.”

“Lo!” as some of the astronomers say in their books. At a point in the sky that can be said—to anybody who does not inquire into the statements—to be almost exactly the point of Leverrier’s calculations, is found the planet Uranus, to which—for all the public knows—can be attributed the perturbations of Uranus.

Up goes the useful renown of the astronomers. Supported by this triumph, they function.

But, if they’re only the figments of one of the dream-like developments of our pseudo-existence, they, too, must pass away, and they must go by way of slaughter, or by way of laughter. Considering all their doings, I think that through hilarity would be the fitter exit.

Later:

“Look at the sky,” we are told that the astronomer Lowell said, “and at the point of my calculations, you will find the planet that is perturbing Neptune.”

But this is in the year 1930.

Nevertheless we are told that a planet is found almost exactly at the point of the calculations. The exultations of the astronomers are spreadheaded.

But this is later. The damned thing takes a tack that shows that it could no more have been perturbing Neptune than I, anyway just at present, could cast a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences into disorder by walking past it.

They must be murdered, or we shall laugh them away. There is always something that can be said in favor of murder, but in the case of the astronomers that would be willful waste of the stuff for laughter. Orthodox astronomers have said that Leverrier used no mathematical method by which he could have determined the position of Neptune. See Lowell’s The Evolution of Worlds, p. 124. By way of stuff for the laugh, I mention that one of these disbelieving astronomers was Lowell.

One time, in a mood of depression, I went to the New York Public Library, and feeling a want for a little, light reading, I put in a slip for Lowell’s Memoir on a Trans-Neptunian Planet. I got even more amusement than I had expected.

Just where was this point, determined by Lowell, almost exactly in which his planet was found? The spreadheads—the special articles—over and over in the newspapers of the world—”almost exactly.”

Says Lowell, page 105: “Precise determination of its place does not seem possible. A general direction alone is predicable.”

The stuff for a laugh that is as satisfactory as murder is in the solemn announcements, by the astronomers, about April Fool’s Day, 1930, that they had found Lowell’s planet almost exactly in the place, precise determination of which does not seem possible

Their chatter over Lowell’s magnificent accuracy in pointing in a general direction—

Then the tack of a thing that showed that it could not have been all this indefiniteness, anyway—

265 years, instead of 3,000 years—

And instead of going the thing was coming.

If they can’t tell whether something is coming or going, their solemn announcements upon nearness or farness may be equally laughable.

If by mathematical means Adams and Leverrier did not determine the position of the planet Neptune, or if it was, in an opinion that Lowell quotes, “a happy accident,” how account for such happiness, or for this timely and sensational boost to a prestige, if we suspect that it was not altogether an accident?

My expression is that herein I’d typify my idea of organic control which, concealed under human vanity, makes us think that we are doing all things ourselves, gives support to human institutions, when they are timely and are functioning, and then casts its favorites into rout and fiasco, when they have outlived their functioning-period.

If Leverrier really had had powers by which he could have pointed to an unseen planet, that would have been a finality of knowledge that would be support to a prestige that could never be overthrown. Suppose a church had ever been established upon foundations not composed of the stuff of lies and frauds and latent laughter. Let the churchman stand upon other than gibberish and mummery, and there’d be nothing by which to laugh away his despotisms.

Say that, whether it be a notion of organic control, or not, we accept any theory of Growth, or Development, or Evolution—

Then we accept that the solemnest of our existence’s phenomena are of a wobbling tissue—rocks of ages that are only hardened muds—or that a lie is the heart of everything sacred—

Because otherwise there could not be Growth, or Development, or Evolution.

Chapter 21

A trek of circumstances that kicks up a dust of details—a vast and dirty movement that is powdered with particulars—

The gossip of men and women, and the yells of brats—whether dinner is ever going to be ready, or not—young couples in their nightly sneaks—and what the hell has become of the grease for the wheels?—who’s got a match?

It’s a wagon train that feels out across a prairie.

A drink of water—a thaw of tobacco—just where to borrow a cupful of flour—and yet, even though at its time any of these wants comes first, there is something behind all—

The hope for Californian gold.

The wagon train feels out across the prairie. It traces a path that other wagon trains make more distinct—and then so rolls a movement that to this day can be seen the ruts of its wheels.

But behind the visions of gold, and the imagined feel of nuggets, there is something else—

The gold plays out. A dominant motive turns to something else. Now a social growth feels out. Its material of people, who otherwise would have been stationary, has been moved to the west.

The first, faint structures in an embryonic organism are of cartilage. They are replaced by bone.

The paths across prairies turn to lines of steel.

Or that once upon a time, purposefully, to stimulate future developments, gold was strewn in California—and that there had been control upon the depositions, so that only enough to stimulate a development, and not enough to destroy a financial system had been strewn—

That in other parts of this earth, in far back times, there had been purposeful plantings of the little, yellow slugs that would—when their time should come—bring about other extensions of social growths.

But the word purposeful, and the word providential, are usurped words. They are of the language of theologians, and are meant to express an idea of a presiding being, ruling existence, superior to it, and not of it, or not implicit to it. I’d rather go on using these words, denying their ownership by any special cult, than to coin new words. With no necessity for thinking of an external designer and controller, I can think of design and control and providence and purpose and preparation for future uses, if I can think not loosely of Nature, but of a Nature, as an organic whole. Every being, except for its dependence upon environment, is God to its parts.

It is upon the northern parts of this earth that the civilizations that have persisted have grown up, then extending themselves colonially southward. History, like South America and Africa, tapers southward. There are no ruins of temples, pyramids, obelisks, in Australia, Argentina, South Africa. Preponderantly peninsulas are southward droops. As if by design, or as if concordantly with an accentuation of lands and peoples in the north, the sun shines about a week longer in the north, each year, than in the south. The coldness in the less important Antarctic regions is more intense than in the Arctic, and here there is no vegetation like the grasses and flowers of the Arctic, in the summertime. Life withers southward. Musk oxen, bears, wolves, foxes, lemmings in the Far North—but there are only amphibious mammals in the Antarctic. Fields of Arctic poppies in the Arctic summertime—but summer in the Antarctic is gray with straggling lichens. If this earth be top-shaped as some of the geodesists think, it is a bloom that is stemmed with desolation.

There are no deposits of coal in the southern parts that compare with deposits in the northern parts. The greatest abundance of oil supplies is north of the equator. It looks like organic preparation, in formative times, before human life appeared upon this earth, for civilizations that would grow up in the north. For ages, peoples of this earth were ignorant of the uses of coal and oil, upon which their later developments would depend.

But so conventionalized are the thoughts of most persons, upon this subject, that if, for instance, my expression is that gold was strewn in California in preparation for future uses, there must be either a visualization of an aggrandized man, who walked about, slinging nuggets, or a denial that, except in the mind of a man, there can be purpose, or control, or design, or providence—

But the making of a lung in an embryonic being that cannot breathe—but it will breathe. This making of a lung is a preparation for future uses. Or the depositions of tissues that are muscles that are not, but that will be, used. Mechanical foresight, or preparation for future uses, pervades every embryonic being. There is a fortune teller in every womb.

Still, not altogether only theological have been speculations upon the existence of purpose, or design, control, or guidance in “Nature.” There are philosophical doctrines known as orthogenesis and entelechy. Again we are in a situation that we have noted. If there be orthogenesis, or guidance from within—within what? Heretofore, this doctrine has provided no outlines within which to think. All that is required for thinkableness, instead of bafflement, is to give up attempted notions upon Nature, as Universality, and conceive of one thinkable-sized existence, of shape that is representable in thought, and conceive of an organic orthogenesis within that.

In the organic sense, there is, in the Arctic regions, no great need for water. Though the coldness is not so intense here as it is commonly supposed to be, the climate nevertheless prevents much colonization. I have never read of a deluge in the Arctic. Thunderstorms are very uncommon. Some explorers have never seen a thunderstorm in the Arctic regions. And at the same time there are oppressively warm, or almost tropical, summer days in the Arctic. Instead of the enormous falls of snow, of common suppositions, the fall of snow, in the Far North, is “very light” (Stefansson). It looks like organically economic neglect of a part that cannot be used. Where, as reliefs, thunderstorms are not needed, there are, except as vagaries, no thunderstorms, though the summertime conditions in places of need and no need are much alike. See Heilprin’s account of his experiences in Greenland—summer days so nearly tropical that pitch melted from the seams of his ship.

The alternations that are known as the seasons are beneficial. They have come about accidentally, or they have been worked out by Automatic Design, or by all-pervasive intelligence, or by equilibration, if that word be preferred to the word “intelligence.” It looks as if more complexly a problem was solved. It is commonly thought that only brains solve problems, or, rather, approximate to solutions: but every living thing that carries a weapon, or a tool, has, presumably not with its brains, but with the intelligence that pervades all substances—so then with the intelligence of its body—solved a problem. It looks as if more complexly a problem was solved, as I say, though in anything like a real, or final, sense, no problem ever has been solved. By the varying incidence of the sun, alternations of fruitfulness and rest could be brought about in the north and the south, but that left rhythms small in the tropics. It looks as if here, intelligently, were brought about the changes that are known as the dry season and the rainy season. I have never read a satisfactory explanation of this alternation, in conventional, meteorological terms.

In the April rains there is evidence, or might be, if we could have a rational idea as to what we mean by evidence, of design, and an automatically intelligent provision and control. Something is controlling the motions of the planets, according to all appearances that we take as appearances of control. Accepting this, I am only amplifying. Rains, of a gentle and frequent kind that is most beneficial to young plants, or best adapted to them, fall in April. Conventional biology is too one-sided. It treats of adaptation of plants to rain. We see also the adaptation of rains to plants. But there must be either the conventionally theological, or the organic, view, to see this reciprocity. If one prefers to think of a kind and loving deity, who is sending the April rains, he will have to consider—or, rather, will be faced by—records of other rains, which are of the loving kindness of slaughter and desolation and woe.

There is some, unknown condition that ameliorates the climate of Great Britain, as if this center of colony-sporing were prepared for by an automatic purposefulness, and protected from the rigors of the same latitudes in the west. Once upon a time, one of the wisemen’s most definite concepts was the Gulf Stream. They wrote about its “absolute demarcation” from surrounding waters. They were as sure of the Gulf Stream as they are today that the stars are trillions of miles away. Lately so much has been written upon the inconceivability of the Gulf Stream having effect upon climate farther from its source than somewhere around Cape Hatteras, that I shall not go into that subject. Something is especially warming Great Britain, and it cannot be thought to be the Gulf Stream. It may be an organically providential amelioration. It may play out, when the functioning period of Great Britain passes away. I am not much given to prophecy, but I’ll take this chance—that if England loses India, we may expect hard winters in England.

Our acceptance is that nations work together, or operate against one another functionally, or as guided by the murderous supervisions of a whole Organism. Or, apologizing again, I call such organized slaughter, super-metabolism. So enormous is the subject of human history, as affected by its partness in a whole, that I shall reserve it for treatment some other time. Monistically—though some other time I shall pluralistically take another view, as well—the acceptance is that human beings have not existed as individuals any more than have cells in an animal organism existences of their own. Still, one must consider that there is something of individuality, or contrariness in every cell. This view of submergence is now so widespread that it is expressed by writers in many fields of thought. But they lack the concept of a whole, trying to think of a social organism as a whole, though clearly every social quasi-organism has relations with other social quasi-organisms, and is dependent enormously, or vitally, upon environment. Other thinkers, or more than doubtful thinkers, say that they think of the unthinkable Absolute as the whole.

I have a notion that, for ages, as a factor in an automatic plan, the Australian part of our existence’s nucleus, this earth, was reserved. If this be not easy to think, it is equally hard to think why Australia, in its fertile parts, was not colonized by Asiatics. There was relative isolation. But it was not geographical isolation: the distance between Cape York, Australia, and New Guinea is only 100 miles. There was an approximation to isolation so extreme that one type of animal life grew up and prevailed. This gap was jumped by the marsupials of Australia. Then the question is—why, if not obediently to an inhibition, was it not jumped the other way? Of course we can have no absolute expressions, but just when the dingoes and the wild cattle of Queensland first arrived in Australia is still considered debatable.

There were civilizations in the Americas, but they were civilizations that could not resist the relatively late-appearing Europeans. Long before, there had been other civilizations in Central America, but they had disappeared, or they had been removed. The extinction of them is, by archaeologists, considered as mysterious, as is the extinction of the dinosaurs, by the paleontologists—or as, by cells of a later period, might be considered the designed and scheduled, or purposeful, extinction of cartilage cells in an embryo.

The expression is that Australia and the Americas were reserved, as relative blanks, in which human life upon this earth could shake off, after a fashion, many conventions and traditional hamperings, and start somewhat anew.

Drones appear in a beehive. They are reserved. At first they contribute nothing to the welfare of the hive, but there is a providence that looks after them just so long as they will be of future use. This is automatic foresight and purpose, according to automatic plan, in a beehive, regarded as a whole. The God of the bees is the Hive. There is no necessity to think of an external control, nor of any being, presiding over the bees and directing their affairs.

Reservations besides those in the affairs of bees and men are common. Some trees have buds that are not permitted to develop. These are known as dormants, and are held in reserve, against the possibility of a destruction of the tree’s developed leaves. In one way or another, there are reservations in every organism.

We think of inter-mundane isolations that have been maintained, as once the Americas were kept separated from Europe, not by vast and untraversable distances, but by belief in vast and untraversable distances. I have no sense of loneliness in thinking that the inorganic sciences that are, by inertia, holding out for the isolation of this earth, have lost much power over minds. There are dissatisfactions and contempts everywhere.

There may be civilizations in the lands of the stars, or it may be that, in the concavity of a starry shell, vast, habitable regions have been held in reserve for colonization from this earth. Though there is considerable opposition to wars, they are, as at any moving picture place, one can see, still popular: but other eliminations of human beings have waned, and it is likely that for a long time birth control will have no more than its present control upon births. The pestilences that used to remove millions are no longer so much heard of. It may be that an organic existence is, by lessening eliminations, preparing a pressure of populations upon this earth that can have relief only in enormous colonizing outlets somewhere else. It is as if concordantly, the United States has shut down, as a relief, to superabundances of people in Europe, and as if representing the same purpose or plan, Australia and Canada, as well as the United States, are shutting out Asiatics. It is as if co-operatively with the simultaneous variations of need, aviation is developing, as the means of migratory reliefs—

If there be a nearby land that is a revolving shell of stars—

And if, according to data that I have collected, there be not increasing coldness and attenuation of air, past a zone not far from this earth.

Nineteen hundred and thirty something or another—may be nineteen hundred and forty or fifty—

There’s a flash in the sky. It is said to be a meteor. There’s a glow. That is said to be an aurora borealis—

The time has come.

The slogan comes—

Skyward ho!

The treks to the stars. Flows of adventurers—and the movietone news—press agents and interviews—and somebody about to sail to Lyra reduces expenses by letting it be known what brand of cigarettes he’ll take along—

Caravels with wings—and the covered planes of the sky—and writers of complaints to the newspapers: this dumping of milk bottles and worse from the expeditions is an outrage. New comets are watched from this earth—long trains of voyagers to the stars, when at night they turn on their lights. New constellations appear—the cities of the lands of the stars.

And then the commonplaceness of it all.

Personally conducted tours to Taurus and Orion. Summer vacations on the brink of Vega. “My father tells of times, when people, before going to the moon, made their wills.” “Just the same there was something peaceful about those old skies. It’s getting on my nerves, looking up at all those lip stick and soap and bathing suit signs.”

Or my own acceptance that there can be no understanding of our existence, if be overlooked the irony of it all—

The aristocratic astronomers—their alleged rapport with infinitude—their reputed familiarity with the ultra-remote—the academic—the classical—

One looks up and sees, instead, an illuminated representation of a can of spaghetti in tomato sauce, in the sky.

The commonplaceness of it all. Of course the stars are near. Who, but a few old fossils, ever thought otherwise? Does the writer of this book think that he found out anything new? All these notions of his were matters of common knowledge, away back in the times of ancient Greece.

Chapter 22

That, in the summer of 1880, some other world, or whatever we’ll call it, after a period of hard luck, cheered up—and cast off its despairs—which came to this earth, where there is always room for still more melancholy—in long, black, funereal processions.

Aug. 18, 1880—people, near the waterfront of Havre, France, saw the arrival of a gloom. Sails, in the harbor of Havre, suddenly turned black. But, like every other gloom, this one alternated with alleviations. The sails flapped white. There was a flutter of black and white. Then enormous numbers of the units of these emotions were falling into the streets of Havre. They were long, black flies.

In an editorial, in the London Daily Telegraph, August 21st, it is said that this appearance of flies, at Havre, was a “puzzle of the most mysterious kind.” These flies had come down from a point over the English Channel. They had not come from England. I have searched widely in Continental publications, and there is no findable record of any observation upon this vast swarm of flies, until it came down from the sky, over the English Channel. Pilot boats, returning to Havre, came in black with them. See the Journal des Debats (Paris) August 20—that they were exhausted flies, which fell, when touched, and could not move, when picked up. Or they may have been chilled into torpidity. Presumably there were survivors, but most of these helpless flies fell into the water, and the swarm, as a swarm, perished. If this is a puzzle of the “most mysterious kind,” I am going to be baffled for a description, as we go along. I don’t know what comes after the superlative. Three days later, another vast swarm of long, black flies appeared somewhere else. Just how much we’re going to be puzzled by more than the most mysterious depends upon how far this other place was from Havre. See the New York Times, September 8—that, upon August 21st, a cloud of long, black flies, occupying twenty minutes in passing, had appeared at East Pictou, Nova Scotia. Halifax Citizen, August 21—that they had passed Lismore, flying low, some of them appearing to fall into the water.

Upon the 2nd of September, another swarm came down from the sky. It appeared suddenly, at one place, and there is no findable record that it was seen anywhere else, over land or water of this earth. It is told of, in the Entomologists’ Monthly Magazine, November, 1880—off the coast of Norfolk, England—an avalanche that overwhelmed a schooner—”millions and millions of flies.” The sailors were forced to take shelter, and it was five hours before they could return to the decks. “The air became clear, about 4 P.M., when the flies were thrown overboard by shovelfuls, and the remainder were washed off the decks by buckets of water and brooms.” It was another appearance of exhausted, or torpid, flies.

Scientific American, 43-193—”On the afternoon of Saturday, September 4th, the steamboat Martin encountered, on the Hudson River, between New Hamburg and Newburgh, a vast cloud of flies. It reached southward, from shore to shore, as far as the eye could reach, and resembled a drift of black snow. The insects were flying northward, as thick as snowflakes driven by a strong wind.” They were long, black flies. Halifax Citizen, September 7—that, upon the 5th of September, a compact cloud of flies, occupying half an hour in passing, had appeared at Guysboro, Nova Scotia, hosts of them falling into the water.

I think that this crowd of flies was not the same as the Hudson River crowd, even though that was flying northward. So I think, because the flies of Guysboro, like the flies of Havre, came as if from a point over the ocean. “They came from the east” (Brooklyn Eagle, September 7).

The look of the data is that, with an ocean between appearing-points, a bulk of flies, of the size of a minor planet, dividing into swarms, somewhere in outer space, came to this earth from somewhere else. It is simply a matter of thinking of one origin, and then thinking that that origin could not have been in either North America or Europe.

If we can think that these flies came to this earth from the moon, or Mars, or from a fertile region in the concave land of the stars, that is interesting; but by this time we have passed out of the kindergarten of our notions, and are ready to take up not merely mysterious appearances, but mysterious appearances that will be data for our organic expressions. In data upon insect-swarms of the summer of 1921, there is suggestion not only of conventionally unaccountable appearances of insect-swarms, but of appearances in response to need. If one has no very active awareness for any need for insects, that is because one is not thinking far enough back into interrelations of bugs and all other things.

In the summer of 1921, England was bereft of insects. The destruction of insects, in England, by the drought of 1921, was, very likely, unequaled at any other time, anyway for a century or more. The story of dwindling and disappearing is told, in Garden Life, for instance—aphides becoming fewer and fewer—absence of mosquitoes, because of the drying of the ponds—not one dragon fly all summer—scarcity of ants—midges almost entirely absent—stricken fields in which not a butterfly was seen—ordinary flies uncommon, and bluebottles exterminated. See the Field and the Entomologists’ Record for similar accounts.

Then came clouds of insects and plagues of insects: foreign insects, and unknown insects. Anybody can find the data in various English publications. I note here that one of the swarms of exotic insects was of large fireflies that appeared in Wales (Cardiff Western Mail, July 12). Locusts appeared (London Weekly Dispatch, July 6). I suppose that almost any conventional entomologist will question my statement that vast swarms of unknown insects appeared at this time, in England: nevertheless, in the London Daily Express, September 24, Prof. Le Froy is quoted as saying, of a species of stinging insects, that it was unknown to him.

Destructions that were approaching extermination—and then multitudinous replenishments. I have searched without finding one datum for thinking that one of these replenishments was seen crossing the Channel. Three of them were of foreign insects.

Once upon a time, according to ancient history, Somebody so loved this world that he gave to it his only begotten son. In this year 1921, according to more recent records, Something gave to the streets of London its many forgotten women. To starving humans it gave a dole. But, when its insects dwindled away, it bestowed profusions of bugs.

All our expressions are in terms of relative importance.

In the summer of 1869, in many parts of England, there was a scarcity of insects that was in some ways more remarkable than that of 1921. This scarcity was discussed in all entomological magazines of the time, and was mentioned in newspapers and other publications. For one of the discussions, see the Field, July 31 and Aug. 14, 1869. Most widely noticed was the absence of one of the commonest of insects, the small, white butterfly, Pieris rapae. Some of the other ordinarily plentiful species were scarcely findable.

In the London Times, July 17, a correspondent, in Ashford, Kent, writes that a tropical, or sub-tropical insect, a firefly (Lampyris Italia) had been caught in his garden. In the Times, of the 10th, the presence of this insect in England is seemingly explained. Someone else writes that, upon June 29th, at Dover, only fifteen miles from Ashford, he had released twelve fireflies, which he had brought in a bottle from Coblenz. But in the same issue of this newspaper, a third correspondent writes that, at Catherham, Surrey, had appeared many fireflies. Weekly Dispatch(London)—”They were so numerous that people called them a nuisance.” Even a firefly can’t fly its fire, without a man with a bottle appearing and saying that he had let it go. There will be accounts of other swarms. Only Titans, who had uncorked Mammoth Caves, in mountains of glass, could put in claims for letting them go from bottles.

The coast of Lincolnshire—and a riddance long and wide. The coast of Norfolk—several miles of tragedy. In the Zoologist, 1869-1839, someone reports belts of water, some a few yards wide, and some hundreds of yards wide, “of a thick, pea-soup appearance,” so colored by drowned aphides, off the coast of Lincolnshire; and, off the coast of Norfolk, a band of drowned ladybirds, about ten feet wide, and two or three miles long. Wherever this little dead comet came from, there is no findable record that it had been seen alive anywhere in Europe.

Upon the 26th of July, columns of aphides came down from the sky, at Bury St. Edmunds, about 60 miles south of the coast of Lincolnshire massed so that they gave off a rank odor, and so dense that, for anybody surrounded by them, it was difficult to breathe. Upon the same day, at Chelmsford, about 40 miles south of Bury St. Edmunds, appeared masses of these insects equally vast. See Gardeners’ Chronicle, July 31, August 7.

Aphides had streaked the ocean. Columns of others had come down, like vast, green stems, from their fern-like clouds. Less decoratively, others darkened the sky. A new enormity appeared upon the coast of Essex, about the first of August. According to correspondence, in the Maidstone Journal, August 23, fogs of aphides had shut off sunlight. They appeared in other parts of southeastern England. “They swarmed to such an extent as to darken the air for days together, and to render it almost dangerous to the sight of men and animals to be out of doors.”

The 9th of August—the first of the ladybirds that reached England alive were reported at Ramsgate. Three days later, between Margate and Nore Light, near the mouth of the Thames, thousands of ladybirds speckled a vessel. This diseased appearance took on a more serious look, with blotches of small, yellow, black-marked flies. Then spread a cosmetic of butterflies.

These were van-swarms. Upon the 13th, an invasion was on. I quote chiefly from the London Times.

A cloud was seen over the Channel, not far from land, moving as if from Calais, reaching Ramsgate, discharging ladybirds upon the town. They drifted into piles in the streets. The town turned yellow. These were not red ladybirds. There would be less mystery, if they were. People in the town were alarmed by the drifting piles in the streets, and a new job, worth the attention of anybody who collects notes upon odd employments, appeared. Ladybird shovelers were hired to throw the drifts into sewers.

Clouds streaked counties. They moved northward, reaching London, upon the 14th, pelting into the streets, and filling gutters. Children scooped them up, filling bags and pails with them, and “played store” with them. Multitudes went on as far as Worcester.

Upon the 14th, “a countless multitude” of other ladybirds arrived upon the coasts of Kent and Surrey, and these clouds, too, seemed to have come from France. They rattled, like colored hail, against windows. They were “yellow perils,” and the inhabitants were alarmed, fearing a pestilence from accumulations of bodies. Fires were built, to burn millions of them, and people who had never shoveled ladybirds before took up the new employment.

The next day, “an enormous multitude” of new arrivals appeared at Dover, coming as if from France. The people who were out in this storm carried umbrellas, which soon looked like huge sunflowers. People, stopping to discuss the phenomenon, gathered into bouquets. The storm abated, and umbrellas were closed. All blossomed again. Another cloud rolled in from no place or origin that has ever been found out. These living gushes from the unknown moved on toward London, and in accounts of them, in Land and Water, are amusing descriptions of the astonishment they caused. There is a story of five hypnotized cats. A multitude alighted upon a lawn. Five cats sat around, motionless, gazing at the insects. A woman tells of her bewilderment, when, looking out at her lines of wash, which had been spotless, she saw garments hanging blotched and heavy. At Shoeburyness, the ladybirds pelted so that men in brickyards were driven from their work. Unless from celestial nozzles living fountains were playing down upon this earth, I cannot conceive of the origin of these deluges.

Some entomologists tried to explain that the insects must have gathered in other parts of England, having flown toward France, having been borne back by winds to the southeastern coast of England.

If anybody accepts, with me, that these insects were not English ladybirds, and that they did not come from France, and did not keep on coming, day after day, to one point, from Holland, Sweden, Spain, Africa—and here consider the feeble flight of ladybirds—but if anybody accepts with me that these ladybirds did not fly from any part of this earth to their appearing-point, I suppose that he will go on thinking that they must so have flown, just the same. That there are data for thinking that these insects were not English ladybirds:

In the London Standard, August 20, there is a description of them. “They all seemed to be much larger than the common ladybirds, of a paler color, with more spots.” In the Field, August 28, someone writes that all the insects, except a few, were yellow. So far as he knew, he had never before seen specimens of this species. The Editor of the Field writes: “The red is paler, and there are divers slight differences that rather indicate a foreign origin.” He says that, in the opinion of Mr. Jenner Weir, the naturalist, these ladybirds were different from ordinary English specimens.

But these millions must have been very ordinary somewhere. That there are data for thinking that these insects came from neither France nor Belgium:

Such as hosts of observations upon the swarms, within a mile or two of the English coast, and no findable record of an observation farther away, or nearer France. There is, in newspapers of Paris, no mention of appearances of ladybirds anywhere upon the continent of Europe. There is no mention in publications of entomological societies of France and Belgium. But any of these enormous clouds leaving a coast of France or Belgium would have attracted as much attention as did an arrival in England. Other scientific publications in which I have searched, without finding mention of observations upon ladybirds in France, or any other part of the Continent, are Comptes Rendus, Cosmos, Petites Nouvelles Entomologiques, Rev. et Mag. de Zoologie, La Science Pour Tous, L’Abeille, Bib. Universelle, and Rev. Cours. Sci. In Galignani’s Messenger (Paris) considerable space is given to accounts of the invasions of England by ladybirds, but there is no mention of observations anywhere, except in England, or within a mile or so of the English coast.

This is the way an invasion began. A great deal was written about conditions in the invaded land. Probably the scarcity of insects in England was unprecedented. There was no drought. It is simply that the insects had died out. And billions were coming from somewhere else.

“Margate Overwhelmed!”

In the Field, August 28, a correspondent writes: “On Wednesday (25th) I went to Ramsgate by steamboat, and, as we approached within five or six miles of Margate, complaints of wasps began to be heard. I soon ascertained that they were not wasps, but a bee-like fly. As we neared Margate, they increased to millions, and at Margate they were almost unendurable.” Some specimens were sent to the Editor of the Field, and he identified them as Syrphi. There had been a similar multitude at Walton, on the coast, about 30 miles north of Margate, the day before.

The little band of scouts, at Ashford—they carried lanterns. Then green processions—yellow multitudes—the military-looking Syrphi, costumed like hussars—

A pilgrimage was on.

“Thunder bugs” appeared between Wingham and Adisham. The tormented people of the region said that they had never seen anything of the kind before (Field, August 21). Wasps and flies “in overwhelming numbers” besieging Southampton (Gardeners’ Chronicle, September 18). London an arriving point—the descent of crane flies upon London—doorsteps and pavements looking muddy with them—people turning out with buckets of boiling water, destroying multitudes of them (Illustrated London News, September 18). This is one of the ways of treating tourists.

I think that there is a crowd-psychology of insects, as well as of men, or an enjoyment of communicated importance from a crowd of millions to one of the bugs. They were humming to England, not merely with bands playing, but each of them blowing some kind of a horn of his own. There are persons who would be good, if they thought that they could go to heaven, or so swarm in the sky, with millions of others, all tooting saxophones.

Pilgrims, or expeditionaries, or crusaders—it was more like a crusade, with nation after nation, or species after species, pouring into England, to restore something that had been lost.

In Sci. Op., 3-261, is an account of a new insect that appeared in England, in July of this year, 1869. For accounts of other unknown insects that appeared in England, in this summer, see theNaturalists’ Note Book, 1869-318; Sci. Gos., 1870-141; Ent. Mo. Mag., 1869-86, and February, 1870; Sci. Op., 2-359. It was a time of “mysterious strangers.”

In the Times, August 21, someone noted the absence of small, white butterflies, and wondered how to account for it. In the Entomologist, Newman wrote that, up to July 12th, he had seen, of this ordinarily abundant insect, only three specimens. Upon pages 313-315, half a dozen correspondents discussed this remarkable scarcity. In the Field, September 4, someone told of the astonishing scarcity of house flies: in more than six weeks, at Axminster, he had seen only four flies. London Standard, August 20—that, at St. Leonard’s-on-Sea, all insects, except ladybirds and black ants, were “few and far between.” In Symons’ Met. Mag., August, 1869, it is said that, at Shiffnal, scarcely a white butterfly had been seen, and that, up to July 21st, only one wasps’ nest had been found. Correspondents, in the Entomologist, September and October, mentioned the scarcity of three species of white butterflies, and noted the unprecedented fewness of beetles, bees, wasps, and moths. Absence of hornets is commented upon, in the Field, July 24.

They were pouring into England.

An army of beetles appeared in the sky. At Ullswater, this appearance was a military display. Regiment after regiment, for half an hour, passed over the town (Land and Water, September 4).

The spiders were coming.

Countless spiders came down from the sky into the city of Carlisle, and, at Kendal, thirty-five miles away, webs fell enormously (Carlisle Journal, October 5). About the 12th of October, “a vast number” of streamers of spiders’ web and spiders came down from the sky, at Tiverton, Devonshire, 280 miles south of Carlisle. See the English Mechanic, November 19, and theTiverton Times, October 12. As if in one persisting current, there was a repetition. Upon the morning of the 15th, webs, “like pieces of cotton,” fell from the sky, at South Molton, near Tiverton. Then fell “wondrous quantities,” and all afternoon the fall continued, “covering fields, houses, and persons.” It was no place for flies, but to this webby place flies did come.

Species after species—it was like the internationalism of the better-known crusades—

The locusts were coming.

Upon the 4th of September, a locust was caught in Yorkshire (Entomologist, 1870-58). There are no locusts indigenous to England. At least up to May, 1895, no finding of a locust in its immature state had ever been recorded in Great Britain (Sci. Gos., 189583). Upon the 8th and 9th of October, locusts appeared in large numbers, in some places, in Pembrokeshire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, and Cornwall. They had the mystery of the ladybirds. They were of a species that, according to records, had never before appeared in England. An entomologist, writing in the Journal of the Plymouth Institute, 4-15, says that he had never heard of a previous visit to England by this insect (Acridium peregrinum). It seems that in all Europe this species had not been seen before. In the Ent. Mo. Mag., 7-1, it is said that these locusts were new to European fauna, and were mentioned in no work upon European Orthoptera.

At the meeting of the Entomological Society of London, Nov. 15, 1869, it was decided, after a discussion, that the ladybirds had not come from France, but had flown from places in England, and had been carried back, by winds to other parts of England. There was no recorded observation to this effect. It was the commonplace ending of a mystery.

I add several descriptions that indicate that, in spite of London’s most eminent bugmen, the ladybirds were not English ladybirds. Inverness Courier, September 2—”That they are foreigners, nobody doubts. They are nearly twice the size of the common English lady birds, and are of a paler color.” See the Student, 4-160—”the majority were of a large size, and of a dull, yellow hue.” In the London Standard, August 23, it is said that some of the insects were almost half an inch long.

That the locusts were foreigners was, by the Entomological Society of London, not discussed. Nothing else was discussed. Crane flies and Syrphi and spiders and all the rest of them—not a mention. I know of no scientist who tried to explain the ladybirds, and mentioned locusts. I know of no scientist who tried to explain the locusts and mentioned ladybirds—no scientist who wrote upon a scarcity of insects, and mentioned the swarms—no scientist who told of swarms, and mentioned scarcity.

The spiders, in a localized fall that lasted for hours, arrived as if from a persisting appearing-point over a town, and the ladybirds repeatedly arrived, as if from an appearing-point a few miles from a coast. The locusts came, not in one migration, but as if successively along a persisting path, or current, because several had been caught more than a month before large numbers appeared (Field, October 23).

A mob from the sky, at Burntisland, Scotland—”spinning jennys” that were making streets fuzzy with their gatherings on cornices and window sills (Inverness Courier, September 9). An invasion at Beccles was “an experience without precedent.” A war correspondent tells of it, in the Gardeners’ Chronicle, September 18. The invaders were gnats—correspondent trying to write about them, from an ink pot filled with drowned gnats—people breathing and eating gnats. Near Reading, “clouded yellow butterflies,” insects that had never before been recorded in Berkshire, appeared (Sci. Gos., 1869-210). At Hardwicke, many bees of a species that was unknown to the observer, were seen (Nature, 2-98). Field, August 21 and November 20—swarms of hummingbird hawkmoths. As described in Science Gossip, 1869-273, there was, at Conway, “a wonderful sight”—a flock of hummingbird hawkmoths and several species of butterflies. Clouds of insects appeared in Battersea Park, London, hovering over trees, in volumes so thick that people thought the trees had been set afire (Field, June 4, 1870). An invasion at Tiverton, seemingly coming with the spiders, “a marvelous swarm of black flies” made its headquarters upon the Town Hall, covering the building, turning it dark inside, by settling upon the window glass (Tiverton Times, October 12). At Maidstone, as if having arrived with the lady birds, a large flight of winged ants was seen (Maidstone Journal, August 23). Midges were arriving at Inverness, August 18th. “At some points the cloud was so dense that people had to hold their breath and run through (Inverness Courier, August 19). Thrips suddenly appeared at Scarborough, August 25th (Sci. Op., 2-292). At Long Benton, clouds of Thrips descended upon the town, wafting into houses, where they were dusted from walls, and swept from floors (Ent. Mo. Mag., 1869-171). Also, at Long Benton appeared an immense flight of the white butterflies that were so scarce everywhere else, gardeners killing thousands of them (Ent. Mo. Mag., December, 1869). At Stonefield, Lincolnshire, appeared beetles of a species that had never been seen there before (Field, October 16).

It was more than a deluge of bugs. It was a pour of species. It was more than that. It was a pour on a want.

Entomologists’ Record, 1870—that, in this summer of 1869, in England, there had been such an “insect famine” that swallows had starved to death.

Chapter 23

Melbourne Age, Jan. 21, 1869—there was a carter. He was driving a five-horse truck along the bed of a dry creek. Down the gulley shot a watery fist that was knuckled with boulders. A dead man, a truck, and five horses were punched into trees.

New Orleans Daily Picayune, Aug. 6, 1893—a woman in a carriage, crossing a dried-up stream, in Rawlings County, Kansas. It was a quiet, summery scene.

There was a rush of water. The carriage crumbled. There was a spill of crumbs that were a woman’s hat and the heads of horses.

Philadelphia Public Ledger, Sept. 16, 1893—people asleep, in the town of Villacanas, Toledo, Spain. The town was raided by trees. Trees smashed through the walls of houses. People in bed were grabbed by roots. A deluge had fallen into a forest.

Bright, clear day, near Pittsburgh, Pa. From the sky swooped a wrath that incited a river. It was one bulk of water: two miles away, no rain fell (New Orleans Daily Picayune, July 11, 1893). A raging river jeered against former confinements. Some of its gibes were freight cars. It scoffed with bridges. Having made a high-water mark of rebellion, it subsided into a petulance of jostling row-boats. Monistically, I have to accept that no line of demarcation can be drawn between emotions of minds and motions of rivers.

These sudden, astonishing leaks from the heavens are not understood. Meteorologists study them meteorologically. This seems logical, and is therefore under suspicion. This is the fallacy of all the sciences: scientists are scientific. They are inorganically scientific. Some day there may be organic science, or the interpretation of all phenomenal things in terms of an organism that comprises all.

If our existence is an organism, in which all phenomena are continuous, dreams cannot be utterly different, in the view of continuity, from occurrences that are said to be real. Sometimes, in a nightmare, a kitten turns into a dragon. Louth, Lincolnshire, England, May 29, 1920—the River Lud, which is only a brook, and is known as “Tennyson’s Brook,” was babbling, or maybe it was purling—

Out of its play, this little thing humped itself twenty feet high. A ferocious transformation of a brook sprang upon the houses of Louth, and mangled fifty of them. Later in the day, between banks upon which were piled the remains of houses, in which were lying twenty-two bodies, and from which hundreds of the inhabitants had been driven homeless, the little brook was babbling, or purling.

In scientific publications, early in the year 1880, an event was told of, in the usual, scientific way: that is, as if it were a thing in itself. It was said that a “water-spout” had burst upon the island of St. Kitts, B. W. I. A bulk of water had struck this island, splitting it into cracks, carrying away houses and people, drowning 250 of the inhabitants. A paw of water, clawed with chasms, had grabbed these people.

In accordance with our general treatments, we think that there are waterspouts and cloudbursts, but that the waterspout and cloudburst conveniences arise, when nothing else can, or, rather, should, be thought of, and as labels are stuck on events that cannot be so classified except as a matter of scientific decorum and laziness. Some of the sleek, plump sciences are models of good behavior and inactivity, because, with little else to do, they sit all day on the backs of patient fishmongers.

As a monist, I think that there is something meteorological about us. Out of the Libraries will come wraths of data, and we, too, shall jeer against former confinements. Our gibes will be events, and we shall scoff with catastrophes.

The “waterspout” at St. Kitts—as if it were a single thing, unrelated to anything else. The West Indian, Feb. 3, 1880—that, while the bulk that was called a waterspout was overwhelming St. Kitts, water was falling upon the island of Grenada, “as it had never rained before, in the history of the island.” Grenada is 300 miles from St. Kitts.

I take data of another occurrence, from the Dominican, and The People, published at Roseau, Dominica, B. W. I. About 11 o’clock, morning of January 4th, the town of Roseau was bumped by midnight. People in the streets were attacked by darkness. People in houses heard the smash of their window panes. Night fell so heavily that it broke roofs. It was a daytime night of falling mud. With the mud came a deluge.

The River Roseau rose, and there was a conflict. The river, armed with the detachables of an island, held up shields of mules, and pierced the savage darkness with spears of goats. Long lines of these things it flung through the black streets of Roseau.

In the Boiling Lakes District of Dominica, there had been an eruption of mud, at the time of the deluge, which was like the fall of water upon St. Kitts, eight days later. There had, in recorded time, never been an eruption here before.

Three months before, there had been, in another part of the West Indies, a catastrophe like that of St. Kitts. Upon Oct. 10, 1879, a deluge fell upon the island of Jamaica, and drowned one hundred of the inhabitants (London Times, Nov. 8, 1879). A flood that slid out from this island was surfaced with jungles—tangles of mahogany logs, trees, and bushes; brambled with the horns of goats and cattle; hung with a moss of the fleece of sheep. Incoming vessels plowed furrows, as if in a passing cultivation of one of the rankest luxuriances that ever vegetated upon an ocean. Passengers looked at tangles of trees and bodies, as if at picture puzzles. In foliage, they saw faces.

For months, there had been, in the Provinces of Murcia and Alicante, Spain, a drought so severe that inhabitants had been driven into emigration to Algeria. Whether we think of this drought and the prayers of the people as having relation or not, there came a downpour that was as intense as the necessities. See London Times, Oct. 20, 1879. Upon October 10th, floods poured upon these parched provinces. Perhaps it was response to the prayers of the people. Five villages were destroyed. Fifteen hundred persons perished.

Virtually in the same zone with Spain and the West Indies (U. S. Colombia) a deluge fell, in December. The River Cauca rose beyond all former high water marks, so suddenly that people were trapped in their houses. This was upon December 19th.

The next day, the earth started quaking in Salvador, near Lake Ilopanga. This lake was the crater of what was supposed to be an extinct volcano. I take data from the Panama Daily Star and Herald, Feb. 10, 1880.

Upon the 31st of December—four days before occurrences in the island of Dominica—the earth quaked in Salvador, and from the middle of Lake Ilopanga emerged a rocky formation. Water fell from the sky, in bulks that gouged gullies. Gullies writhed in the quaking ground. The inhabitants who cried to the heavens prayed to Epilepsy. Mud was falling upon the convulsions. A volcanic island was rising in Lake Ilopanga, displacing the water, in streams that writhed from it violently. Rise of a form that filled the lake—it shook out black torrents—head of a Gorgon, shaggy with snakes.

Beginning upon October 10th, and continuing until the occurrence at St. Kitts, deluge after deluge came down to one zone around this earth—or a flight of lakes was cast from a constellational reservoir, which was revolving and discharging around a zone of this earth. In the minds of most of us, this could not be. We have been taught to look up at the revolving stars, and to see and to think that they do not revolve.

Our data are of the slaughters of people, who, by fishmongerish explanations, have been held back from an understanding of an irrigational system: of their emotions, and of the elementary emotions of lands. There’s a hope in a mind, and it turns to despair—or there’s a fertile region in the materials of a South American country—and an unsuspected volcano chars it to a woe of leafless trees. Plains and the promise of crops that are shining in sunlight plains crack into disappointments, into which fall expectations. An island appears in the ocean, and after a while young palms feel upward. There’s a convulsive relapse, and subliminal filth, from the bottom of the ocean, plasters the little aspirations. Quaking lands have clasped their fields, and have wrung their forests.

Each catastrophe has been explained by the metaphysical scientists, as a thing in itself. Scientists are contractions of metaphysicians, in their local searches for completeness, and in their statements that, except for infinitesimal errors, plus or minus, completenesses have been found. I can accept that there may be Super-phenomenal Completeness, but not that there can be phenomenal completenesses. It may be that the widespread thought that there is God, or Allness, is only an extension of the deceiving process by which to an explanation of a swarm of lady birds, or to a fall of water at St. Kitts, is given a guise of completeness—or it may be the other way around—or that there is a Wholeness—perhaps one of countless Wholenesses, in the cosmos—and that attempting completenesses and attempting concepts of completenesses are localizing consciousness of an all-inclusive state, or being—so far as its own phenomena are concerned—that is Complete.

There have been showers of ponds. From blue skies there have been shafts of water, golden in sunshine. Reflections from stars have fluted sudden, dark, watery columns. There have been violent temples of water—colonnades of shafts, revealed against darkness by lightning—foaming façades as white as marble. Nights have been caves, roofed with vast, fluent stalactites.

These are sprinkles.

March, 1913.

The meteorologists study meteorologically. The meteorologists were surprised.

March 23, 1913—250,000 persons driven from their homes—torrents falling, rivers rising, in Ohio. The floods at Dayton, Ohio, were especially disastrous.

Traffics of bodies, in the watery streets of Dayton. The wind whistles, and holds up a cab. They stop. Night—and the running streets are hustling bodies—but, coming, is worse than the sights of former beings, who never got anywhere in life, and are still hurrying. The wreck of a trolley car speeds down an avenue—down a side street rushes a dead man. Let him catch the car, and he’ll get about where all his lifetime he got catching other cars. A final dispatch from Dayton—”Dayton in total darkness.”

March 23, 24, 25—a watery sky sat on the Adirondack Mountains. It began to slide. It ripped its slants on a peak, and the tops of lamp posts disappeared in the streets of Troy and Albany. Literary event, at Paterson, N. J.—something that was called “a great cloudburst” grabbed a factory chimney, and on a ruled page of streets scrawled a messy message. With the guts of horses and other obscenities, it put in popularizing touches. The list of dead, in Columbus, Ohio, would probably reach a thousand. Connecticut River rising rapidly. Delaware River, at Trenton, N. J., 14 feet above normal.

March 26th—in Parkersburg, West Virginia, people who called on their neighbors, rowed boats to second story windows. If they had in their cellars what they have nowadays, there was much demand for divers. New lakes in Vermont, and the State of Indiana was an inland sea. “Farmers caught napping.” Surprises everywhere: napping everywhere. Wherever Science was, there was a swipe at a sleep. Floods in Wisconsin, floods and destruction in Illinois and Missouri.

March 27th—see the New York Tribune, of the 28th—that the Weather Bureau was issuing storm warnings.

The professional wisemen were not heard from, before this deluge. Some of us would like to know what they had to say, afterward. They said it, in the Monthly Weather Review, April, 1913.

The story is told “completely.” The story is told, as if there had been exceptional rains, only in Ohio and four neighboring States. Reading this account, one thinks—as one should think—of considerable, or of extraordinary, rain, in one smallish region, and of its derivation from other parts of this earth, where unusual sunshine had brought about unusual evaporations.

Canada—and it was not here that the sun was shining. Waters falling and freezing, in Canada, loading trees and telegraph wires with ice—power houses flooded, and towns in darkness—crashes of trees, heavy with ice. California was drenched. Torrents falling, in Washington and Oregon. Unprecedented snow in Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma—Alabama deluged—floods in Florida.

“Ohio and four neighboring States.”

Downpours in France and in other parts of Europe.

Spain—seems that, near Valencia, one of these nights, there was a rotten theatrical performance. Such a fall of big hailstones that a train was stalled—vast tragedian, in a black cloak, posing on the funnel of an engine—car windows that were footlights—and disapproval was expressing with the looks of millions of pigeons’ eggs. Anyway, near Valencia, a fall of hail, three feet deep, stopped trains. Just where was all that sunshine?

South Africa—moving pictures of the low degree of the now old-fashioned “serials.” Something staged Clutching Hands. There were watery grabs from the sky, at Colesburg, Murraysburg, and Prieska. The volume of one of these bulks equaled one-tenth of the total rainfall in South Africa, in one year.

Snow, two months before its season, was falling in the Andes—floods in Paraguay, and people spreading in panics—Government vessels carrying supplies to homeless, starving people—River Uruguay rising rapidly.

Heavy rains in the Fiji Islands.

The rains in Tasmania, during the month of March, were 26 points above the average.

Upon the first day of the floods in “Ohio and four neighboring States” (March 22nd) began a series of terrific thunderstorms in Australia. There was a “rain blizzard” in New South Wales. In Queensland, all mails were delayed by floods.

New Zealand.

Wellington Evening Post, March 3i—”The greatest disaster in the history of the Colony!”

Where there had been sluggish rivers, bodies of countless sheep tossed in woolly furies. Maybe there is a vast, old being named God, and reported strands of tossing sheep were glimpses of his whiskers, in one of those wraths of his. In the towns, there were fantastic savageries. Wherever the floods had been before, it looks as if they had been to college. One of them rioted through the streets of Gore, having broken down store windows. It roystered with the bodies of animals, wrapped in lace curtains, silks, and ribbons. Down the Matura River sounded a torrent of “terrible cries.” It was a rush of drowning cattle. It was a delirium of brandishing horns, upon which invisible collegians were blowing a fanfare.

“Ohio and four neighboring States.”

The clip of Paraguay, and the bob of New Zealand: the snip of South Africa, and the shearing of everything else that did not fit in with a theory. Whoever said that the pen is mightier than something else, overlooked the mightiest of all, and that’s the scissors.

Wherever all this water was coming from, the full account is of North America and four neighboring Continents.

Peaches flying from orchards, in the winds of New Zealand—icicles clattering in the streets of Montreal. The dripping palms of Paraguay—and the pine trees of Oregon were mounds of snow. At night this earth was a black constellation, sounding with panics. I can think of the origin of the ocean that fell upon it in not less than constellational terms. Perhaps Orion or Taurus went dry.

If a place, say in China, greatly needs water, and if there be stores of water, somewhere else, in one organism, I can think of relations of requital, as I think of need and response in any lesser organism, or suborganism.

Need of a camel—and storages—and reliefs.

Hibernating bear—and supplies from his storages.

At a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, Dec. II, 1922, Sir Francis Younghusband told of a drought, in August, 1906, in Western China. The chief magistrate of Chungking prayed for rain. He put more fervor into it. Then he prayed prodigiously for rain. It began to rain. Then something that was called “a waterspout” fell from the sky. Many of the inhabitants were drowned.

In the organic sense, I conceive of people and forests and dwindling lakes all expressing a need, and finally compelling an answer. By “prayers” I mean utterances by parched mouths, and also the rustlings of dried leaves and grasses. It seems that there have been responses. There are two explanations. One is that it is the mercy of God. For an opinion here, see the data. The other is that it is an Organism that is maintaining itself.

The British Government has engineered magnificently for water supply in Egypt. It might have been better to plant persuasive trees and clergymen in Egypt. But clergymen are notoriously eloquent, and I think that preferable would be less excitable tipsters to God, who could convey the idea of moderation.

In one year the fall of rain, at Norfolk, England, is about 29 inches. In Symons’ Meteorological Magazine, 1889, p. 101, Mr. Symons told of this fall of water of 29 inches in a year, and then told of volumes of water to depths of from 20 to 24 inches that had fallen, from May 25th to the 28th, 1889, in New South Wales, and of a greater deluge-34 inches—that, from the 29th to the 30th, had devastated Hongkong. Mr. Symons called attention to these two bursts from the heavens, thousands of miles apart, saying that they might, or might not, be a coincidence, but that he left it to others to theorize. I point out that a professional meteorologist thought the occurrence of only two deluges, about the same time, but far apart, remarkable, or difficult to explain in terms of terrestrial meteorology.

It was left a long time to others.

However, when I was due to appear, I appeared, perhaps right on scheduled time; and I got Australian newspapers. The Sydney newspapers told of the soak in New South Wales. I learned that all the rest of Australia was left to others—or was left, waiting for me to appear, right on scheduled time, most likely. Not rain, but columns of water fell near the town of Avoca, Victoria, and, in the Melbourne Argus, the way of accounting for them was to say that “a waterspout” had burst here. There were wide floods in Tasmania. Fields turned to blanks that were then lumpy with rabbits.

There had been drought in Australia, and floods were a relief to a necessity, but the greater downpour in China interests us more in conditions in China.

It was a time of direst drought and extremest famine in China. Homeward Mail, June 4—that, in some of the more cannibalistic regions, sales of women and children were common. It is said to be almost impossible for anybody to devour his own child. Parents exchanged children.

Down upon monstrous need came relief that was enormous. At Hongkong, houses collapsed under a smash of alleviation. A fury of mercy tore up almost every street in the Colony. The people had prayed for rain. They got it. Godness so loved Hongkong that in the town’s morgue it stretched out sixteen of the inhabitants. At Canton, every pietist proclaimed the efficacy of prayer, and I think he was right about that: but the problem is to tone down all this efficacy. If we will personify what I consider an organism, what he, or more likely she, has not, is any conception of moderation. The rise of the river, at Canton, indicated that up country there had been catastrophic efficacy. At Canton efficacy was so extreme that for months the people were rebuilding.

Show me a starving man—I pay no attention. Show me the starving man—I can’t be bothered. Show me the starving man, on the point of dying—I grab up groceries and I jump on him. I cram bread down his mouth, and stuff his eyes and his ears with potatoes. I rip open his lips to hammer down more food, and bung in his teeth, the better to stuff him. The explanation—it is the god-like in me.

Now, in a Library, we put in calls for the world’s newspapers. Not a hint have we had that there is anything else—nothing in scientific publications of the period—not another word from Mr. Symons—but there is an implement that is mightier than the pen—and we are led on to one of our attempted correlations, by our experiences with it.

Germany—there was a drought so severe that there were public prayers for rain. Something that was called “a waterspout” fell from the sky, and people who did not get all the details went to church about it. Liverpool Echo, May 20—one hundred persons perished.

At the same time, there were public rejoicings in Smyrna, where was staged another assuasive tragedy.

Drought in Russia. Straits Times, June 6—droughts ended by downpours in Bengal and Java. In Kashmir and in the Punjab, violent thunderstorms and earthquakes occurred together (Calcutta Statesman, June 1 and 3). In Turkey, there would have been extremist distress, but about the first of June, amidst woe and thanks-giving, destructive salvations demonstrated efficacy, and for a week kept on spreading joy and misery. Levant Herald, June 4—earthquakes preceded deluges, and then continued with them.

In conventional meteorology, no relation between droughts and exceptional rains is admitted. Our data are of widespread droughts and enormous flows of water. There are two little, narrow strips of views on the margins of our moving pictures. On one side—that there is a beneficent God. On the other side—that there isn’t anything. And every one of us who has paid any attention to the annals of controversies knows that such oppositions usually give in to an intermediacy. May, 1889—widely this earth was in need—widely waters were coming from somewhere. Now—in Organic terms—I am telling of what seems to me to be Functional Teleportation, or enormous manifestations of that which is sometimes, say in Oklahoma, a little drip over a tree.

Volcanic eruptions upon this earth, at times of deluges—and maybe, in a land of the stars, there was an eruption, in May, 1889. In France, May 31st, there was one of the singularly lurid sunsets that are known as “afterglows,” and that appear after volcanic eruptions. There was no known volcanic eruption upon this earth, from which a discharge could have gone to the sky of France. It may have come from a volcanic eruption somewhere else. All suggestiveness is that it came to this earth over no such distance as millions of miles.

Other discharges, maybe—red rain coming down from the sky, at Cardiff, Wales (Cardiff Western Mail, May 26). Red dust falling upon the island of Hyères, off the coast of France, in the Mediterranean—see the Levant Herald, May 29. St. Louis Globe-Democrat, May 30—an unknown substance that for several hours had fallen from the sky—crystalline particles, some pink, and some white. Quebec Daily Mercury, May 25—a fine dust that had the appearance of a snowstorm, falling in Dakota.

Monstrous festivities in Greece—a land that was bedecked with assassinations. Its rivers were garlands—vast twists of vines, budded with the bodies of cattle.

The Malay States gulped. The mines of Kamunting were suctions, into which flowed floods (Penang Gazette, May 24). The Bahama Islands were thirsts—drought and loss of crops—then huge swigs from the sky. Other West Indian islands went on Gargantuan sprees—and I’ll end up a Prohibitionist. Orgies in Greece, and more or less everywhere else—this earth went drunk on water. I’ve experimented—try autosuggestion—you can get a pretty fair little souse from any faucet. Tangier—”great suffering from the drought”—abundant rains, about June 1st. Drought in British Honduras, and heavy rains upon the 1st and 2nd of June. Tremendous downpours described in the newspaper published upon the island of St. Helena. Earthquake at Jackson, California—the next day a gush from the sky broke down a dam. I’m on a spree, myself—Library attendants wheeling me stacks of this earth’s newspapers. Island of Cyprus—a flop from the sky, and the river Pedias went up with a rush from which people at Nicosia narrowly escaped. Torrents in Ceylon. June 4th—a drought of many weeks broken by rains in Cuba. Drought in Mexico—and out of the heavens came a Jack the Ripper. Torn plantations and mutilated cities—rise of the river, at Huezutla—when it subsided the streets were strewn with corpses.

In England, Mr. Symons expressed astonishment, because there had been two deluges.

Deluge and falls of lumps of ice, throughout England. France deluged. Water dropped from the sky, at Lausanne, Switzerland, flooding some of the streets five feet deep. It was not rain. There were falling columns of water from what was thought to be a waterspout. The most striking of the statements is that bulks dropped. One of them was watched. Or some kind of a vast, vaporous cow sailed over a town, and people looked up at her bag of water. Something that was described as “a large body of water” was seen at Coburg, Ontario. It crossed the town, holding its bag-like formation. Two miles away, it dropped. It splashed rivers that broke down all dams between Coburg and Lake Ontario. In the Toronto Globe, June 3, this falling bulk is called “a waterspout.” Fall of a similar bulk, in Switzerland—crops and houses and bridges mixing down a valley, at Sargans. Fall of a bulk, at Reichenbach, Saxony. “It was a waterspout” (London Times, June 6).

This time the fishmonger is a waterspout.

Spain pounded by falling waters: Madrid flooded: many buildings damaged by a violent hailstorm. Deluges in China continuing. Deluges in Australia continuing. Floods in Argentina: people of Ayacuchio driven from their homes: sudden rise of the river, at Buenos Aires. In the South American Journal of this period are accounts of tremendous downpours and devastations in Brazil and Uruguay.

One of these bodies of water that were not rain fell at Chetnole, Dorsetshire, England. The people, hearing crashes, looked up at a hill, and saw it frilled with billows. Watery ruffs, from eight to ten feet high, heaved on the hill. The village was tossed in a surf. “The cause of this remarkable occurrence was for some time unknown but it has now been ascertained that a waterspout burst on Batcombe Hill.” So wrote Mr. Symons, in whose brains there was no more consciousness of all that was going on in the world about him than there was in any other pair of scissors.

It was not ascertained that a waterspout had burst on Batcombe Hill. No waterspout was seen. What was ascertained was that columns of water of unknown origin had fallen high on the Hill, gouging holes, some of them eight or nine feet deep. Though Mr. Symons gave the waterspout-explanation, it did occur to him to note that there was no statement that the water was salty—

These bulks of water, and their pendent columns—that they were waterspouts—

Or that Slaughter had lain with Life, and that murderous mothers had slung off their udders, from which this earth drank through teats that were cataracts.

Wherever the deluges were coming from, I note that, as with phenomena of March, 1913, unseasonable snow fell. Here it was about the first of June, and snow was falling in Michigan. The suggestion is that this was not a crystallization in the summer sky of Michigan, but an effect of the intenser coldness of outer regions, upon water that had come to this earth from storages on a planet, or from a reservoir in Starland. Note back to mention of falls of lumps of ice in England.

Wherever the deluges were coming from, meteors, too, were coming. If we can think that falls of water and falls of meteors were related, we have reinforcement to our expression that water was coming to this needful earth from somewhere else. Five remarkable meteors are told of, in the Monthly Weather Review. In the New York Sun, May 30, is an account of a meteor that exploded in the sky of Putnam County, Florida, and was heard 15 miles around. In Madras, India, where the drought was “very grave,” an extraordinary meteor was seen, night of June 4th (Madras Mail, June 26). In South Africa, where the drought was so extreme that a herd of buffaloes had been driven to a pool within five miles of the town of Uitenhage, a meteor exploded, with detonations that were heard in a line 40 miles long (Cape Argus, May 28). May 22nd—great, detonating meteor, at Otranto, Italy. The meteor that was seen in England and Ireland, May 29th, is told of in Nature, 40-174. For records of three other great meteors, see Nature and Cosmos. There was a spectacular occurrence at Dunedin, New Zealand, early in the morning of May 27th (Otago Witness, June 6). Rumbling sounds—a shock—illumination of the sky—exploding meteor.

In some parts of the United States, there had been extreme need for water. In the New Orleans Daily Picayune are accounts of the “gloomy outlook for crops” in six of the Southern States. About twenty reports upon this drought were published in the Monthly Weather Review.

Rushes of violent mercies—they flooded the south and smashed the north—crash of a dam, at Littleton, New Hampshire—busted dam near Laurel, Pa.—

May, 1889—and Science and Religion—

It is my expression that the two outstanding blessings, benefits, or “gifts of God” to humanity, are Science and Religion. I deduce this—or that the annals of both are such trails of slaughter, deception, exploitation, and hypocrisy that they must be of enormous good to balance with their appalling evils—

Or the craze of medical science for the vermiform appendix. That played out. Now everybody who can pay for it is losing his tonsils. Newspaper headings—”Family of eight relieved of their tonsils”—”Save your pets—dogs and cats endangered by their tonsils.”

Concentrate in one place this bloody fad, or scientific “racket,” and there would be a fury like that at Andover, N. Y., in May, 1889—

A bulk of water, foaming as white as a surgeon—it jabbed a bolt of lightning into Andover. It operated upon farms, and cut off their inhabitants. Trained clouds stood around, and handed out more bolts of lightning. A dam broke, and a township writhed upon its field of operations. Another dam broke—but the operations were successes, and, if there was much destruction, that was because of a complication of other causes.

May 31st—Johnstown, Pa.—

If I can’t think of massacre apart from devotions, I think that a lake ran mad with religious mania. It rushed down a valley, and, if I’m right about this, it bore on its crest, the most appalling of all symbols—the mast of a ship that was crossed by a telegraph pole. In a pogrom against houses, it clubbed out their occupants, with bridges. It impaled homes upon the steeples of churches. Its watery Cossacks, mounted on billows, flogged factories. And then, along the slopes of the Conemaugh Valley, it told its beads with strings of corpses.

Earthwide droughts—prayers to many gods—something vouchsafed catastrophes—

That from somewhere else in existence, vast volumes of water were sent to this arid earth, or were organically teleported—

Or that, by coincidence, and unseen, waterspout after waterspout rose from the Atlantic, and rose from the Pacific: from the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and from the Mediterranean; from the Gulf of Mexico, the English Channel, Lake Ontario—or that such an extension of such fishmongering is a brutalization of conveniences—Or that from somewhere in a starry shell that is not enormously far away from this earth, more than a Mississippi streamed to this needful earth, and forked the disasters of its beneficence from Australia to Canada.

15,000 persons were drowned at Johnstown. Chicago Tribune, June 10, 1889—”The people of Johnstown have lost all faith in Providence. Many have thrown away their Bibles, and since the disaster have openly burned them.”

By the providential, I mean the organically provided for.

By God, I mean an automatic Jehovah.

Chapter 24

Emissions of arms—the bubbling of faces, at crevices—fire and smoke and a lava of naked beings. Out from a crater, discharges of bare bodies boiled into fantastic formations—

Or—five o’clock, morning of Dec. 28, 1908—violent shocks in Sicily. The city of Messina fell in a heap, which caught fire. It is the custom of Sicilians to sleep without nightclothes, and from this crater of blazing wreckage came an eruption of naked beings. Thick clouds of them scudded into thin vapors.

The earth quaked, at Messina, and torrential rains fell. According to Nature, Dec. 31, 1908, a fall of meteorites had been reported in Spain, a few days before the quake. According to the wisemen of our more or less savage tribes, the deluge at Messina, at the time of this quake, fell only by coincidence. No wiseman would mention the fall of meteorites, as having any relation.

There were, at the time, world-wide disturbances, or rather, disturbances, along a zone of this earth—Asia Minor, Greece, Sicily, Spain, Canary Islands, Mexico. But all wisemen who wrote upon this subject clipped off everything else, and wrote that there had been a subsidence of land in Sicily. It is the same old local explanation. Scientists and priests are unlike in some respects, but they are about equally parochial.

Dec. 3, 1887—from a plinth of ruins, an obelisk of woe sounded to the sky.

It was at Roggiano, Italy. 900 houses were thrown down by an earthquake. The wail that went up from the ruins continued long before individual cries could be distinguished. Then the column of woe shattered into screams and prayers.

The survivors said that they had seen fires in the heavens. In Cosmos, n. s., 69-422, we are told that Prof. Agamennone had investigated these reported celestial blazes. But they were new lights upon old explanations. A blazing sky could have nothing to do with a local, geological disturbance. The orthodox explanation was that a stratum of rocks had slipped. What could the slip of rocks have to do with sky-fires? We are told that the Professor had reduced all alleged witnesses of the blaze in the heavens to one, who had told about it, “with little seriousness.” What had suggested levity to him, as to scenes of ruination and slaughter, was not enquired into: but the story is recorded as a jest, and it may be all the more subtle, because the fun of it is not obvious.

About 6 A.M., Feb. 23, 1887, at Genoa, Italy, burst a dam of conventional securities. There was a flood of human beings. An earthquake cast thousands of people into the streets. The sky was afire. There was a pour to get out of town. It was a rush in a glare. If, at the time of a forest fire, a dam should burst, thousands of logs, leaping red in the glare, would be like this torrent of human forms under a fiery sky. In other places along the Riviera, the quake was severe. At other places was made this statement that orthodox science will not admit—that the sky was afire. See Pop. Sci. News, 21-58. It will not be admitted, or it is said to be merely a coincidence. See L’Astronomie, 1887, p. 137—that at Apt (Vaucluse) a fiery appearance had been seen, and that then had come a great light, like a Bengal fire—”without doubt coincidences.”

The 16th of August, 1906—and suddenly people, living along the road to Valparaiso, Chile, lost sight of the city. There had come “a terrible darkness.” With it came an earthquake. The splitting of ground, and the roar of falling houses—intensest darkness—and then a voice in this chaos. It was a scream. People along the road heard it approaching.

Chile lit up. Under a flaming sky, the people of Valparaiso were running from the smashing city—people as red as flames, under the glare in the heavens: screaming and falling, and leaping over the bodies of the fallen—an eruption of spurting forms that leaped and were extinguished. This reddened gush from Valparaiso—rising, falling shapes—brief faces and momentary arms—it was like looking at vast flames and imagining that spurts of them were really living beings. In Nature, 90-550, it is said that 136 reports upon illuminations in the sky, at Valparaiso, had been examined by Count de Ballore, the seismologist. At one stroke, he bobbed off 98 of them, saying that they were indefinite. He said that the remaining 38 reports were more or less explicit, but came from a region where at the time, a deluge was falling. He clipped these, too. For a wonder there was an objection: a writer in the Scientific American, 107-67, pointed out that De Ballore so dismissed the subject, without enquiring into the possibility that the quake and the deluge were related.

Had he admitted the possibility of relationship, dogma would have slipped upon dogma, and upon the face of this earth there would have been a subsidence of some ignorance.

“The lights that were seen in the sky,” said De Ballore, “were very likely only searchlights from warships.”

“The whole sky seemed afire” (Scientific American, 106-464). In Symons’ Met. Mag., 41-226, William Gaw, of Santiago, describing the blazing heavens, writes that it seemed as if the sober laws of physics had revolted.

“Or,” said De Ballore, “the people may have seen lights from tram cars.”

It does not matter how preposterous some of my own notions are going to seem. They cannot be more out of accordance with events upon this earth than is such an attribution of the blazing sky of a nation to searchlights or to lamps in tram cars. If I should write that the stars are probably between forty and fifty miles away, I’d be not much more of a trimmer of circumstances than is such a barber, whose clips are said to be scientific. Maybe they are scientific. Though, mostly, barbers are artists, some of them do consider themselves scientific.

Upon July 11th, 1856, the sun rose red in the Caucasus. See Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (London), Sept. 21, 1856. At five o’clock in the afternoon, at places where the sun was still shining red, there was an earthquake that destroyed 300 houses. There was another quake, upon the 23rd of July. Two days later, black water fell from the sky, in Ireland (News of the World, Aug. 10, 1856).

And what has any part of that to do with any other part of that? If a red-haired girl, or a red shirt on a clothesline, had been noted here, there would be, according to orthodox science, no more relation with earthquakes than there could be between a red sun and an earthquake. Black water falling in Ireland—somebody spilling ink in Kansas.

The moon turned green.

For two observations upon a green moon that was seen at a place where an earthquake was going to occur, see the Englishman (Calcutta), July 14 and 21, 1897. One of the observations was six days before, and the other one day before, the quake in Assam, June 12, 1897. It was a time of drought and famine, in India.

The seismologist knows of no relation between a green moon, or a red sun, and an earthquake, but the vulcanologist knows of many instances in which the moon and the sun have been so colored by the volcanic dusts and smokes that are known as “dry fogs.” The look is that “dry fogs,” from a volcanic eruption, came to the sky of India, one of them six days before, and the other one day before, a catastrophe.

The mystery is this:

If there had been a volcanic eruption somewhere else, why not volcanic appearances in Italy, or Patagonia, or California—why at this place where an earthquake was going to occur?

Coincidence.

Upon the 11th of June, in Upper Assam, where, upon the 12th, the center of the earthquake was going to be, torrents fell suddenly from the sky. A correspondent to the Englishman, July 14, writes that this deluge was of a monstrousness that exceeded that of any other downpour that he had ever seen in Assam, or anywhere else.

At 5:15 P.M., 12th of June, there was a sight at Shillong that would be a marvel to the more innocent of the text-book writers. I tell so much of clipping and bobbing and shearing, but also there may be considerable innocence. Not a cloud in the sky—out of clear, blue vacancy, dumped a lake. This drop of a bulk of water, or transportation, or teleportation, of it, was at the time of one of the most catastrophic of earthquakes, centering farther north in Assam.

This earthquake was an earthstorm. Hills were waves, and houses cast adrift were wrecked on them. Out into fields stormed people from villages, and long strings of them, in white summer garments, were lines of surf on the earthwaves. Breakers of them spumed with infants. In a human storm, billows of people crashed against islands of cattle. It is not only in meteorology that there are meteorological occurrences. The convulsions were so violent that there was scene-shifting. When the people recovered and looked around, it was at landscapes, changed as if a curtain had gone down and then up, between acts of this drama. They saw fields, lakes, and roads that, in the lay of the land, before the quake, had been hidden. It is not only in playhouses that there are theatrical performances. It is not exclusively anywhere where anything is, if ours is one organic existence, in which all things are continuous.

There were more deluges that will not fit into conventional explanations. Allahabad Pioneer, June 23, 1897—extremest droughts—the quake—enormous falls of water.

There are data for thinking that somewhere there was a volcanic eruption. Another datum is that, at Calcutta, after the earthquake, there was an “afterglow.” “Afterglows” are exceptional sunsets, sometimes of an auroral appearance, which are reflections of sunlight from volcanic dust high in the sky, continuing to be seen an hour or so later than ordinary sunsets. Friend of India, June 15—”The entire west was a glory of deepest purple, and the colors did not fade out, until an hour after darkness is usually complete.”

Something else that I note is that in many places in Assam, the ground was incipiently volcanic, during the earthquake. Countless small craters appeared and threw out ashes.

Considering the volcanic and the incipiently volcanic, I think of a relation between the catastrophe in Assam and a volcanic eruption somewhere else.

But there is findable no record of a volcanic eruption upon this earth to which could be attributed effects that we have noted.

I point out again that, if there were a volcanic eruption in some part of our existence, external to this earth, or upon this earth, it would, unless a special relation be thought of, be as likely to cause an “afterglow” in England or South Africa, as in India. The suggestion is that somewhere, external to this earth, if in terrestrial terms there is no explanation, there was a volcanic eruption, and that the earthquake in India was a response to it, and that bulks of water and other discharges came from somewhere else exclusively to a part of this earth that was responsively, or functionally, quaking, because a teleportative current of some kind, very likely electric, existed between the two centers of disturbances.

Upon the 25th of June, dust fell from the sky, near Calcutta (The Englishman, July 3). In the issue of this newspaper, of July 14th, a meteorologist, employed in the Calcutta Observatory, described “a most peculiar mist,” like volcanic smoke, which had been seen in the earthquake-regions. In his opinion it was “cosmic dust,” or dust that had fallen to this earth from outer space. He said nothing of possible relationship with the earthquakes. He would probably have called it “mere coincidence.” Then he told of a fall of mud, upon the 27th of June, at Thurgrain (Midnapur). There was a fall of mud, in the Jessore District of Bengal, night of June-29th. “It fell from a cloudless sky, while the stars were shining” (Madras Mail, July 8).

Suppose it were “cosmic dust.” Suppose with the conventionalists that this earth is a swiftly moving planet that had overtaken a cloud of “cosmic dust,” in outer space. In one minute, this earth would be more than one thousand miles away from this point of contact, by orbital motion, and would turn away axially.

But other falls of dust came upon India, while the shocks were continuing, as if settling down from an eruption somewhere else, to a world that was not speeding away orbitally, and to a point that was not turning away by daily rotation.

Five days after the first fall of dust, “a substance resembling mud” fell at Ghattal (Friend of India, July 14). For descriptions of just such a “dry fog,” as has often been seen in Italy, after an eruption of Vesuvius, see the Madras Mail, July 5, and the Friend of India, July 14—”a perpetual haze on the horizon, all around,” “sky covered with thick layers of dust, resembling a foggy atmosphere.” About the first of July, mud fell at Hetamphore (Beerbhoom) according to the Friend of India, July 14.

I list these falls of dust and mud, but to them I do not give the importance that I give to the phenomena that preceded this earthquake. I have come upon nobody’s statement that they were of volcanic material. But it may be that there were other precipitations, and that they were of a substance that is unknown upon this earth,

In the Englishman (Calcutta), July 7, a correspondent wrote that, several days before, at Khurdah, there had been a shower at night, and that the air became filled with the perfume of sandalwood. The next morning everything was found covered with “a colored matter, which emitted the scent of sandalwood.” About the same time, somebody else wrote to the Madras Mail (July 8) that, at Nadia, there had been a fall from the sky, of a substance “more or less resembling the sandal used by natives in worshiping their gods.”

The moon turns green before an earthquake.

Torrential rains precede an earthquake.

We have only begun listing phenomena that appear before catastrophes. They are interpretable as warnings. Clipped from events, by barber-shop science.

There was an investigation of phenomena in Assam. It was scientific, in the sense that the tonsorial may be the scientific. Dr. Oldham enormously reduced a catastrophe to manageable dimensions. He lathered it with the soap of his explanations, and shaved it clean of all unconventional details. This treatment of “Next!” to catastrophes is as satisfactorily beautifying, to neat, little minds, as are some of the marcel waves that astronomers have ironed into tousled circumstances. For a review of Dr. Oldham’s report, see Nature, 62-305. There is no mention of anything that was seen in the sky, nor of anything that fell from the sky, nor of occurrences anywhere else. Dr. Charles Davison, in A Study of Recent Earthquakes, gives 57 pages to his account of this catastrophe, and he, too, mentions nothing that was seen in the sky, or that fell from the sky. He mentions no simultaneous phenomena anywhere else. It is a neat and well-trimmed account, but there’s a smell that I identify as too much bay rum.

Simultaneous phenomena that always are left out of a conventionalist’s account of an earthquake—one of the most violent convulsions ever known in Mexico, while the ground in India was quaking. There was a glare in the sky, and the Mexicans thought that the glare was volcanic. If so, no active volcano in Mexico could be found (New Orleans Daily Picayune, June 22). Deluges fell upon this quaking land. One of the falls of water, upon a Mexican town, drowning some of the inhabitants, is told of, in the San Francisco Chronicle, June 17.

In all this part of our job, our opposition is not so much denial of data, as assertions that the occurrences in which we see relationship were only coincidences. If I ever accept any such explanation, I shall be driven into extending it to everything. We’ll have a theory that in our existence there is nothing but coincidence: and, according to my experience with theorists, we’ll develop this theory somewhat reasonably. Chemical reactions, supposed to be well-known and accounted for, do not invariably work out, as, according to formula, they should work out. Failures are attributed to impurities in chemicals, but perhaps it is only by persistent coincidence, like that of glares so often occurring at times of earthquakes, that water appears when oxygen and hydrogen unite. Meteors frequently fall to this earth during earthquakes, but that may be only by coincidence, just as offsprings so often appear after marriage—indicating nothing exclusively of relationships, inasmuch as we have heard of cases of alleged independent reproduction. Let the feminists become only a little more fanatical, and they will probably publish lists of instances of female independence. It is either that our data are not of coincidences, or that everything’s a coincidence.

As to some deluges, at times of earthquakes, there is no assertion of coincidence, and there is no mystery. There’s an earthquake, and water falls from the sky. Then it is learned that a volcano—one of this earth’s volcanoes—had been in eruption, and that, responsively to it, the earth had quaked, and that volumes of water, some of them black, and some of them not discolored, had been discharged by this volcano, falling in bulks, or falling in torrential rains upon the quaking ground. Sometimes the sky darkens during earthquakes, and there is no assertion of coincidence, and there is no mystery. Upon March 11, 1875, for instance, a vast, black cloud appeared at Guadalajara, Mexico. There was an earthquake. See L’Année Scientifique, 1876-322. In this instance, the darkened sky at the time of an earthquake was explained, because it was learned that both phenomena were effects of an eruption of the volcano Caborucuco. There have been unmysterious showers of meteors, or of fireballs that looked like meteors, at times of earthquakes. There were eruptions upon this earth, and the fireballs, or meteors, came from them. There were especially spectacular showers of volcanic bombs that looked like meteors, or that were meteors, during the eruptions in Java, August, 1883; New Zealand, June, 1886; West Indies, May, 1902.

But our data are of such phenomena in the sky, during earthquakes, at times when no terrestrial volcano that could have had such effects was active.

So far we have not correlated with anything that could be considered a volcanic eruption anywhere in regions external to this earth. Now we are called upon, not only for data seemingly of volcanic eruptions in a nearby starry shell around this earth, but for data that may be regarded as observations upon celestial volcanoes in action.

Chapter 25

With a surf and a glare, this earth quaked a picture—Or, in the monistic sense, there was, in Peru, a catastrophe that was a hideous and magnificent emotion. It is likely that there’s a wound in a brain, at a time of intensest excitement—

Red of the writhing earth, and red of the heaving ocean—and, in between, a crimson gash of surf, slashed from Ecuador to Chile—

Or so was visualized a rage, by super-introspection.

According to the midgets of orthodoxy, such a picture cannot be accepted. See the little De Ballore school of criticism. But quakes that were pictures by a very independent artistry—

Snow that was white on the peaks of mountains—cataclysm—peaks struck off—avalanches of snow, glaring red, gushing in jugular spouts from the decapitations. Glints from the fiery sky—upon land and sea, tossing houses and ships were spangles. Forests lashed with whips of fire, from which shot out sparks that were birds and running animals.

Aug. 13, 1868—people in Peru, rushing from their falling houses, stumbling in violations of streets, seeing the heavens afire, crying: “El Vulcan!”

Away back in the year 1868, scientific impudence had not let loose, and there was no scientific clown to laugh off a blazing sky, with a story of lights in horse cars. The mystery of this occurrence is in the belief in Peru that there was, somewhere, at this time, a volcanic eruption.

Cities were flung in the sea. The sea rushed back upon ruins. It doubled all ordinary catastrophes by piling the wrecks of ships upon the ruins of houses. Fields poured over cliffs into the Bay of Arica. It was a cataract of meadows. We have gone far in our demonstration of continuity, which has led from showers of frogs to storms of meadows.

Vast volumes of water fell from the sky. It was appalling providence: this water was needed. The waters soaked into the needful earth, and surplus beneficences made new rivers. In the streams, there was a ghastly frou-frou of torrents of corpses, and the coast of Peru was frilled with fluttering bodies. Almost Ultimate Evil could be stimulated by such a lingerie. These furbelows of dead men, flounced in the waves, were the drapery of Providence.

Upon August 19th, there was another violent quake, and again there was a glare in the sky. Both times there was no accounting for such a spectacle except by thinking that there had been an eruption in Peru. According to the New York Herald, September 29, the volcano Moquequa was suspected. London Times, October 21—letter from someone who had seen the flaming sky, and had heard that Canderave was the volcano. It was said that the eruption had been at Aqualonga, and then that it had not been Aqualonga, but Cayambe. An illumination in the sky, lasting several hours, is described in Comptes Rendus, 67-1066, and here a writer gives his opinion that the volcano was Saajama. Other observers of the glare said that it came from Cotopaxi. Cosmos, n. s., 3-3-367—it was supposed that Cotocachi was the volcano. But it is not possible to find anything of this disagreement in any textbook: all agree upon attributing to one volcano—it was Mt. Misti.

New York Herald, Oct. 30, 1868—that Mt. Misti had not been active.

See Comptes Rendus, 69-262—the results of M. Gay’s investigations—that, in this period, not one of the suspected volcanoes had been active. See the Student, 4-147.

Sometimes volcanic eruptions upon this earth shine, at a distance, like stars. It will be my acceptance that new stars are new volcanic eruption in Starland. For a description of a terrestrial eruption that shone like a star, see the Amer. Jour. Sci., 2-21-144. See a description, in the New York Times, Sept. 23, 1872, of an eruption of Mauna Loa, which far away looked star-like.

At 12:30 P.M., September 4th, appeared something that has often been seen at Naples, when Vesuvius has discharged. It was like the volcanic discharge that we have noted, at Guadalajara, Mexico. A dense, mountain-like cloud appeared, in the western sky, at Callao, Peru. The earth heaved with violence equal to that of August 13th.

New York Tribune, October 7—that in the southwestern sky was seen a star.

It is my expression that this was the star that broke Peru.

Night of Feb. 4, 1872—another glare in the sky—that the constellation Orion was afire—that a tragedy upon this earth began in the sky, with a spectacle that excited peoples of this earth, from Norway to South Africa—but that, underlying tragedies written by human beings, or wrought in sky and lands, are the same conventions, and that Organic Drama is no more likely to let catastrophe come, without preceding phenomena that may be interpreted as warnings, than would stagecraft of this earth permit final calamity, without indications of its approach—

That a surprise was preceded by a warning that was perhaps of the magnitude of a burning of all the forests of North America—testimony of the sun and the moon to coming destruction—announcements that were issued in blazes—showers of gleaming proclamations—brilliant and long-enduring advertisement—

But that mind upon this earth was brutalized with dogmas—and that scientific wisemen, stupefied by a creed, presided over a slaughter, or were surprised when came the long and brilliantly advertised.

This night of Feb. 4, 1872—a blaze in the constellation Orion. From centers of alarm upon this earth there was telegraphing. City called upon city. People thought that a neighboring community was burning. In the West Indies, island called upon island. In each island, the glare in the sky was thought to come from a volcanic eruption in some other island. At Moncalieri, Italy, an earthquake, or a response in this earth to cataclysm somewhere else, was recorded by seismographs. There may have been special relation with the ground, in Italy.

With this glare, which was considered auroral, because there was no other way of conventionally explaining it, though auroras never have been satisfactorily explained, came meteors. Denza recorded them, as seen in Italy, and noting the seeming relation to the glare, explained that the seeming relation was only a coincidence. That’s got to be thought by everybody who opposes all that this book stands for. If it was not a coincidence, the meteors came to this earth from wherever the glare was. If the glare was in the constellation Orion, Orion may be no farther from Italy than is San Francisco.

Upon the night of February 22nd, another glare was seen in the sky, and “by coincidence,” it was identical in all respects, except magnitude, with the glare of the 4th. “By coincidence” again meteors appeared. See Comptes Rendus, 74-641.

Five days after this second seeming eruption in Orion, dust fell from the sky, at Cosenza, Italy (C. R., 74-826).

The meteors that were seen at the time of the first glare were extraordinary. They appeared only in the zone of Italy. As seen with the glare, in India, they are told of in the Allahabad Pioneer Mail, February 12, and the Bombay Gazette, February 19. See other records of ours of zone-phenomena.

Sixteen days after the second glare in Orion, reddish yellow dust fell in Sicily, and continued to fall the second day, and fell in Italy.

Trembling trillions—or a panic of immensities—and the twinkles of the stars are the winks of proximities—and our data are squeezing supposed remoteness into familiarities—because, if from a constellational eruption, dust drifted to this earth in a few weeks, it did not drift trillions of miles—

But was this dust a discharge from a volcano?

It was volcanic dust, according to Prof. Silvestri. See the Jour. Chem. Soc. London, 25-1083. Prof. Silvestri thought that it must have come from an eruption somewhere in South America. But my notes upon phenomena of this year 1872 are especially numerous, and I have no record of any eruption in South America, or anywhere else—upon this earth—to which could be attributed this discharge.

For records of a stream of events that then started flowing, see Comptes Rendus, vols. 74, 75, and Les Mondes, vol. 28. In Italy, upon the first of April, began successions of “auroral” lights and volleys of meteors. Night of April 7-8—many meteors, at Mondovi, Italy. Solar and lunar haloes, which may, or may not, be attributed to the presence of volcanic dusts, were seen in Italy, April 6th, 7th, and 8th. Two days later, Vesuvius became active, but there were only minor eruptions.

There was uneasiness in Italy. But it was told, in Naples, that the wisemen were watching Vesuvius. Because of the slight eruptions, some of the peasants on the slopes began to move. These were a few of the untrustful ones: the others believed, when the wisemen said that there was no reason for alarm. Night after night, while this volcano in Italy was rumbling, meteors came to the skies of Italy. There is no findable record that they so came anywhere else. They came down to this one part of this earth, as if this earth were stationary.

April 14th—the third arrival of dust—volumes of dust, of unknown origin, fell from the sky, in Italy.

There was alarm. The sounds of Vesuvius were louder, but a quiet fall of dust, if from the unknown, spreads an alarm of its own.

The wisemen continued to study Vesuvius. They paid no more attention to arrivals of dusts and meteors in the sky of a land where a volcano was rumbling, than to arrivals of song birds or of tourists, in Italy. Their assurances that there was no reason for alarm, founded only upon their local observations, held back upon the slopes of the volcano all but a few disbelievers—

The 20th of April—

Eruption of Vesuvius.

Convolutions of clouds—scrimmages of brains that had broken out of an underground academy of giants—trying to think for themselves—struggling to free themselves from subterranean repressions. But clouds and brains are of an underlying oneness: struggles soon relapsed into a general fogginess. Volcanic or cerebral—the products are obscurities. Naples was in darkness.

The people of Naples groped in the streets, each in a hellish geometry of his own, each seeing in a circle, a few yards in diameter, and hearing, in one dominant roar, no minor sounds more than a few yards away. Streams of refugees were stumbling into the streets of Naples. People groped in circles, into which were thrust hands, holding up images, or clutching loot. Fragments of sounds in the one dominant roar—geometricity in bewilderment—or circles in a fog, and something dominant, and everything else crippled. The flitting of feet, shoulders, bandaged heads—cries to the saints—profanity of somebody who didn’t give a damn for Vesuvius—legs of a corpse, carried by invisibles—prayers to God, and jokers screeching false alarms that the lava was coming.

A blast from the volcano cleared away smoke and fog. High on Vesuvius—a zigzag streak of fire. It was a stream of lava that looked fixed in the sky. With ceaseless thunder, it shone like lightning—a bolt that was pinned to a mountain.

Glares that were followed by darkness—in an avalanche of bounding rocks and stumbling people, no fugitive knew one passing bulk from another, crashing rocks and screaming women going by in silence, in the one dominant roar of the volcano. When it was dark, there were showers of fire, and then in the glares, came down dark falls of burning cinders. In brilliant illuminations, black rains burned the running peasants. Give me the sting of such an ink, and there’d be running.

Somewhere, in the smoke and flames, on the mountain side, fell a sparrow. According to conventional theologians, this was noted.

The next day there was another flow down the slopes of Vesuvius. It was of carts that were laden with bodies.

Possibly this was overlooked, if attention was upon the sparrow. See data to come, for a more matured opinion.

In at least one mind, or quasi-mind, or whatever we think are minds, upon this earth, there was awareness of more than coincidence between flows of meteors in Italy and a volcanic eruption in Italy. In Comptes Rendus, 74-1183, M. Silberman tells of the meteors in Italy, and the eruption of Vesuvius, and gives his opinion that there was relation. It was a past generation’s momentary suspicion. The record is brief. There was no discussion. To this day, no conventional scientist will admit that there is relation. But, if there is, there is also another relation. That is between his dogmas and the slaughters of people.

In orthodox terms of a moving earth crossing orbits of meteor streams, to which any one part of this earth, such as the Italian part, could have no especial exposure to meteors so moving, there is no explanation of the repeated arrivals of meteors, especially, or exclusively, in Italy, except this—

Night after night after night—

Coincidence after coincidence after coincidence.

Our unorthodox expression is that it was because this earth is stationary.

According to data that have been disregarded about sixty years, it may be that there was a teleportative, or electrolytic, current between a volcano of this earth and a stellar volcano. If we think that a volcano in a land that we call the Constellation Orion interacted with a volcano in Italy—as Vesuvius and Etna often interact—there must be new thoughts upon the distance of Orion.

The one point that every orthodox astronomer would contest, or deride—because its acceptance would be followed by acceptance of this book as a whole—is that the glare that seemed to be in Orion, was in Orion.

These are the data for thinking that the glare that seemed to be in Orion, was in Orion, which cannot be vastly far away:

The glare in the sky, early in the evening of Feb. 4, 1872, was west of Orion, as if cast by reflection from an eruption below the horizon. But, when Orion appeared in the east, the glare was in Orion, and it remained in Orion. At Paris, all beams of light came from Orion, after 8 P.M. (Comptes Rendus, 74-385). In England—in Orion (Symons’ Met. Mag., 7-1). In South Africa, the point from which all beams diverged was in Orion (Cape Argus, February 10). An account by Prof. A. C. Twining, of observations in the United States, is published in the Amer. Jour. Sci., 3-3-273. This “remarkable fact,” as Prof. Twining calls it, but without attempting to explain, is noted—that, from quarter past seven o’clock, in the evening, until quarter past ten, though Orion had moved one eighth of its whole revolution, the light remained in Orion.

There is no conventional explanation to oppose us. My expression is that the glare so remained in Orion, because it was in Orion. Anybody who thinks that the glare was somewhere between this earth and the constellation will have to account not only for the fixedness of it in a moving constellation, but for its absence of parallax, as seen in places as far apart as South Africa and the United States.

Chapter 26

Horses erect in a blizzard of frogs—and the patter of worms on umbrellas. The hum of lady birds in England—the twang of a swarm of Americans, at Templemore, Ireland. The appearance of Cagliostro—the appearance of Prof. Einstein’s theories. A policeman dumps a wild man into a sack—and there is alarm upon all continents of this earth, because of a blaze in a constellation—

That all are related, because all are phenomena of one, organic existence—just as, upon Aug. 26, 1883, diverse occurrences were related, because all were reactions to something in common.

Aug. 26, 1883—people in Texas excitedly discussing a supposed war in Mexico—young men in Victoria, Australia, watching a snowstorm, the first time in their lives—crowds of Chinamen hammering on gongs—staggering sailors in a vessel, off the Cape of Good Hope.

I have data for thinking that, somewhere beyond this earth, and not enormously far away, there was, before these occurrences, an eruption. About August 10th, of this year 1883, at various places, appeared “afterglows” that cannot be traced to terrestrial eruptions. Upon the 13th of August, an “afterglow” was reported from Indiana, and, ten days later, from California (Monthly Weather Review, 1883-289). Upon the 21st and 22nd, “afterglows” appeared in South Africa (Knowledge, 5-418).

There was no known eruption upon this earth, by which to explain these atmospheric effects, but there was a disturbance upon this earth, and the circumstances were similar to those in Italy, in April, 1872. The volcano Krakatoa, in Java, was in a state of minor activity. It was not considered alarming.

Upon the 25th of August, a correspondent to the Perth (Western Australia) Inquirer—see Nature, 29-388—was traveling far inland, in Western Australia. He was astonished to see ashes falling from the sky, continuing to fall, all afternoon. If this material came from regions external to this earth, it came down, hour after hour, as if to a point upon a stationary earth. An attempt to explain was that there may have been an eruption in some little-known part of Australia. In Australian newspapers, there is no mention of an eruption in Australia, at this time; and in my own records, there is only one instance, and that one doubtful, of an eruption in Australia, at any time. I am not here including New Zealand. There was, at this time, no eruption in New Zealand.

Krakatoa was in a state of minor activity. Wisemen from Batavia, localizing, like the wisemen at Vesuvius, in April, 1872, were studying only Krakatoa. Considered as a thing in itself, out of relation with anything else, conditions here were not alarming. The natives were told that there was no danger—and natives—Columbia University, or east side, west side, New York City—or Java—believe what the wisemen tell them.

April 19, 1872—the dust of unknown origin that fell from the sky—it preceded, by one day, the eruption of Vesuvius.

Aug. 25, 1883—the ashes of unknown origin that fell from the sky

August 26—Krakatoa exploded. It was one of this world’s biggest noises, and surrounding mountains doffed their summits. Or, like a graduating class at Annapolis, they fired off their peaks, which came down, as new reefs in the ocean. The bombs that shot out were like meteors. The mountain was a stationary meteor-radiant, and shot out Krakatoatids. Had the winds gone upward, the new meteor stream would have been also of houses and cattle and people. The explosion shattered shores so that all charts were useless.

Krakatoa paused.

Early in the morning of the 27th, the Straits of Sunda went up. The units of its slaughters were villages. 95 villages went up, in waves that were 90 feet high, 100 feet high, 120 feet high. From the 95 villages, tens of thousands of humans were recruited, and they went dead into warring confusions. In the gigantic waves, armies of the dead were flung upon each other. There was no more knowledge of what it was all about than in many other battles. Charges of dead men rushed down the waves, and were knocked into rabbles by regiments spouting up from the bottom. Onslaughts of corpses—and in the midst of them appeared green fields that were the tops of palm trees. Raiders in thousands dashed over momentary meadows, and there were stampedes that were as senseless as the charges.

Stone clouds were rolling over the conflict. Furies of dead men were calming under bulks of pumice, and slimy palm trees were protruding. The waves were going down under pressures of pumice, twenty feet deep, in places. Battlefields on land have, after a while, turned quiet with graveyards: but change in the Straits of Sunda was of the quickest of mortuary transitions. The waves were pressed flat by pumice. There was a gray slab of stone over the remains of the people of 95 villages. Black palms, heavy with slime, drooped on each side of this long, gray slab.

By volcanic dust, the sun was dimmed so that unseasonable coldness followed. In places in Victoria, Australia, where for twenty-five years snow had not been seen, snow fell. I’d like to have this especially noted—that at places far away, the volcanic bombs were mistaken for meteors—or they were meteors. An account of volcanic bombs from Krakatoa, which looked like “shooting stars,” as seen from a vessel, about 90 miles from the volcano, is published in the Cape Times (Weekly Edition), Oct. 3, 1883. At Foochow, China, the glare in the sky was like an aurora borealis. For this record, which is important to us, see the Rept. Krakatoa Committee, Roy. Soc., p. 269. People in Texas heard sounds, as if of a battle. Off the Cape of Good Hope, vessels lurched in waves from the catastrophe.

It is my expression that the explosion of Krakatoa was stimulated by, or was a reaction to, an eruption in a land of stars that is not enormously far away. Afterglows that were seen after August 26th were attributed to Krakatoa—

That the preceding afterglows and the fall of ashes were of materials that drifted to this earth, from an eruption somewhere else, passing over a distance that cannot be considered vast, in a few weeks, or a few days—

And that the light of a volcanic eruption somewhere in the sky was seen by people of this earth.

See the Perth Inquirer, October 3—a correspondent tells of several observations, early in September, upon a brilliant light that had been seen in the sky, near the sun. There was a beam of light from it, and the observers thought that it was a comet. This appearance is described as conspicuous. If so, it was seen at no Observatory in Australia.

The circumstance that no professional astronomer in Australia saw this brilliant light brings up, in any normally respectful mind, doubt that there was such a light. But this appearance in the sky is the central datum of our expression, and I am going to make acceptable that, even though it was reported only by amateurs, there was at this time a conspicuous new appearance in the heavens. New Zealand—silence in the Observatories—but reports from amateurs, upon a “very large” light in the sky. See the New Zealand Times, Sept. 20, 1883. That a yarn in Australia could quickly spread to New Zealand? Ceylon—an unknown light that was seen in the sky of Ceylon, about a week after the eruption of Krakatoa (Madras Athenaeum, September 22).Straits Times, October 13—an appearance like a comet, in the sky, at Samarung, where the natives and the Chinese were terrified, and burned incense for protection from it. England—observation, upon the night of August 28th, by Captain Noble, a well-known amateur astronomer. Whatever the professionals of Australia and New Zealand were doing, the professionals of England were doing likewise, if doing nothing is about the same wherever it’s done. In Knowledge, 4-173, Capt. Noble tells of a sight in the heavens that he describes as “like a new and most glorious comet.” An amateur in Liverpool saw it. Knowledge, 4-207—an object that looked like the planet Jupiter, with a beam from it. However, one professional astronomer did report something. Prof. Swift, at Rochester, N. Y., saw, nights of September 11 and 13, an object that was supposed by him to be a comet, but if so, it was not seen again (Observatory, 6-343).

There was a beam of light from this object: so it was thought to be a comet. See coming data upon beams of light that have associated with new stars.

The first observation upon a new light in the sky was two nights after the explosion of Krakatoa. It may have been shining, conspicuous but unseen, at the time of the eruption.

The matter of the supposed velocity of light, or the hustle of visibility, comes up in the mind of a conventionalist. But, if in the past, scientists have determined the velocity of light to be whatever suited their theories, I feel free for any view that I consider suitable. Look it up, and find that once upon a time the alleged velocity of light agreed with supposed distances in this supposed solar system, and that when changed theories required changes in these distances, the velocity of light was cut down to agree with the new supposed distances. In the kindergarten of science, the more or less intellectual infants who have made these experiments have prattled anything that the child-like astronomers have wanted them to prattle. A conventionalist would say that, even if there were a new star, at a time of terrestrial catastrophe, light of it would not be seen upon this earth, until years later. My expression is that so close to this earth are the stars that when a new star appears, or erupts, effects of it are observable upon this earth, and that, whether because of closeness, or because there is no velocity of light, it is seen immediately—or is seeable immediately—if amateurs happen to be looking.

Upon the night of Aug. 6, 1885, while all the professional astronomers of this earth were attending to whatever may be professional astronomical duties, a clergyman made an astronomical discovery. The Rev. S. H. Saxby looked up at a new star, in the nebula of Andromeda, and he saw it.

There is much of uppishness to anybody who says, or announces, that of all cults his cult is the aristocrat. But most of his upward looking is likely to be at the supposed altitude of himself. All over this earth, professional astronomers were looking up at themselves. In England and Ireland, three amateurs, besides the Rev. S. H. Saxby, being probably of only ordinary conceit, looked up beyond themselves, and saw the new star. For the records, see the English Mechanic, of this period. Whatever the professional astronomers of the United States were looking up at, they saw nothing new. But somebody, in the U. S. A., did see the new star. Sidereal Messenger, 4-246—an amateur in Red Wing, Minnesota. It was not until August 31st that upness in an Observatory related to the stars. Finally a professional astronomer either looked up, or woke up; or waking up, looked up; or looking up, woke up.

The whole nebula of Andromeda shone with the light of the new star. Several observers thought that the newly illuminated nebula was a comet (Observatory, 8-330). From the light of the new star the whole formation lighted up, like a little West Indian island, at a time of an eruption in it. According to conventionalists, this nebula is 60 × 60 × 24 × 365 × 8 × 186,000 miles in diameter, and light from a new star, central in it, would occupy four years in traversing the whole. But as if because this nebula may not be so much as 60 × 186,000 inches in diameter, no appreciable time was occupied, and the whole formation lighted up at once.

Other indications—whatever we think we mean by “indications”—that the nebula of Andromeda is close to this earth:

Sweden—and it was reported that wild fowl began to migrate, at the earliest date (August 16th) ever recorded in Sweden—

Flap of a wild duck’s wings—and the twinkles of a star—the star and the bird stammered a little story that may some day be vibrated by motors, oscillating back and forth from Vega to Canopus. So the birds began to fly.

It was because of unseasonable coldness in Sweden. Unseasonable coldness is a phenomenon of this earth’s volcanic eruptions. It is attributed to the shutting off of sunlight by volcanic dusts. The temperature was lower, in Sweden, than ever before recorded, in the middle of August (Nature, 32-427). Upon August 31st, the new star reached maximum brilliance, and upon this date the temperature was the lowest that it had ever been known to be, in the last of August, in Scotland (Nature, 32-495).

All very well—except that unusual coldness may be explained in various ways, having nothing to do with volcanoes

See Nature, 32-466, 625—that nine days after the first observation upon the new star in Andromeda, an afterglow was seen in Sweden. There is no findable record of a volcanic eruption, upon this earth, to which this phenomenon could be attributed. September 3rd, 5th, 6th—afterglows appeared in England. These effects continued to be seen in Sweden, until the middle of September.

I don’t know whether these data are enough to jolt our whole existence into a new epoch, or not. From what I know of the velocity of thought, I should say not.

If a volcanic discharge did drift from Andromeda to Sweden, it came from a northern constellation to a northern part of this earth, as if to a part of this earth that is nearest to a northern constellation. But, if Andromeda were trillions of miles away, no part of this earth could be appreciably nearer than any other part, to the constellation. If repeating afterglows, in Sweden, were phenomena of repeating arrivals of dust, from outer space, they so repeated in the sky of one part of this earth, because this earth is stationary.

I note that I have overlooked the new star in Cygnus, late in the year 1876. Perhaps it is because this star was discovered by a professional astronomer that I neglected it. However, I shall have material for some malicious comments. Upon the night of Nov. 24, 1876, Dr. Schmidt, of the Athens Observatory, saw, in the constellation Cygnus, a new star. It was about third magnitude, and increased to about second. Over all the Observatories of this earth, this new star was shining magnificently, but it was not until December 9th that any other astronomer saw it. It was seen, in England, upon the 9th, because, upon the 9th, news reached England of Dr. Schmidt’s discovery. I note the matter of possible overclouding of the sky in all other parts of this earth, at this time. I note that, between the dates of November 24th and December 9th, there were eight favorable nights, in England.

It so happens that I have record of what one English astronomer was doing, in this period. Upon the night of November 25, he was looking up at the sky.

Meteoric observations are conventionalities.

New stars are unconventionalities.

See Nature, Dec. 21, 1876—this night, this astronomer observed meteors.

There was a volcanic eruption in the Philippines, upon the 26th of November. About two weeks later, a red rain fell in Italy.

There is considerable in this book that is in line with the teachings of the most primitive theology. We have noted how agreeable I am sometimes to the most southern Methodists. It is that scientific orthodoxy of today has brutally, or mechanically, or unintelligently, reacted sheerly against all beliefs of the preceding, or theological, orthodoxy, and has reacted too far. All reactions react too far. Then a reaction against this reaction must of course favor, or restore, some of the beliefs of the earlier orthodoxy.

Often before disasters upon this earth there have been appearances that were interpretable as warnings.

But if a godness places kindly lights in the sky, also is it spreading upon the minds of this earth a darkness of scientists. This is about the beneficence of issuing warnings, and also seeing to it that the warnings shall not be heeded. This may not be idiocy. It may be “divine plan” that surplus populations shall be murdered. In less pious terms we may call this maintenance of equilibrium.

If surplusages of people upon this earth should reduce, and if then it should, in the organic sense, becomes desirable that people in disaster-zones should live longer, or die more lingeringly, provided for them are phenomena of a study of warnings, a study that is now, or that has been, subject to inhibitions.

Aug. 31, 1886—”Just before the sun dropped behind the horizon, it was eclipsed by a mass of inky, black clouds.” People noted this appearance. It was like the “dense, mountain-like cloud” that appeared, at Callao, Peru, before the earthquake of Sept. 4, 1868. But these people were in a North American city. Meteors were seen. They were like the fire balls that have shot from this earth’s volcanoes. Luminous clouds, such as have been seen at times of this earth’s eruptions, appeared, and people watched them. There was no thought of danger. There was a glare. More meteors. The city of Charleston, South Carolina, was smashed.

People running from their houses—telegraph poles falling around them—they were meshed in coils of wires. Street lamps and lights in houses waved above, like lights of a fishing fleet that had cast out nets. It was a catch of bodies, but that was because minds had been meshed in the net of a cult, woven out of the impudence of the De Ballores and the silences of the Davisons, spread to this day upon every school of this earth.

The ground went on quaking. Down from the unknown came, perhaps, a volcanic discharge upon this quaking ground. Whether it were volcanic dust, or not, it is said, in the New York World, September 4, that “volcanic dust” was falling, at Wilmington, North Carolina.

September 5th—a severe shock, at Charleston, and a few minutes later came a brilliant meteor, which left a long train of fire. At the same time, two brilliant meteors were seen, at Columbia, S. C. See almost any newspaper, of the time. I happen to take from the London Times, September 7.

There was another discharge from the unknown—or a “strange cloud” appeared, upon the 8th of September, off the coast of South Carolina. The cloud hung, heavy, in the sky, and was thought to be from burning grass on one of the islands. Charleston News and Courier, September to—that such was the explanation, but that no grass was known to be burning.

If a procession starts at Washington Square, New York City, and, if soldiers arrive in Harlem, and then keep on arriving in Harlem, I explain that, in spite of all the eccentricities of Harlem, Harlem is neither flying away from the procession, nor turning on 125th Street, for an axis. Meteors kept on coming to Charleston. They kept on arriving at this quaking part of this earth’s surface, as if at a point on a stationary body. The most extraordinary display was upon the night of October 22nd. There was a severe quake, at Charleston, while these meteors were falling. About fifty appeared (New York Sun, November 1). About midnight, October 23-24, a meteor exploded over Atlanta, Georgia, casting a light so intense that small objects on the ground were visible (New York Herald, October 25). A large meteor, at Charleston, night of October 24th (Monthly Weather Review, 1886-296). An extraordinary meteor, at Charleston, night of the 28th, is described, in the News and Courier, of the 29th, as “a strange, celestial visitor.”

“It was only coincidence.”

There is no conventional seismologist, and there is no orthodox astronomer, who says otherwise.

In the Friend of India, June 22, 1897, is another record of some of the meteors that were seen in Charleston: that, at the time of the great quake, Prof. Oswald saw meteor after meteor shoot from an apparent radiant near Leo. Carl McKinley, in his Descriptive Narrative of the Earthquake of August 31, 1886, records a report from Cape Romain Light Station, upon “an unusual fall of meteors during the night.”

Again a volcanic discharge came to this point—or a fall of ashes was reported. In the News and Courier, November 20, it is said that, about ten days before, ashes had fallen from the sky, at Summerville, S. C. It is said that the material was undoubtedly ashes. Then it is said that it had been discovered that, upon the day of this occurrence, there had been “an extensive forest fire near Summerville.”

Monthly Weather Review, October and November, 1886—under “Forest and Prairie Fires,” there is no mention of a forest fire, either small or extensive, in either North or South Carolina.

Summerville, and not Charleston, was the center of the disturbances. Ashes came from somewhere exactly to this central point.

In A Study of Recent Earthquakes, Dr. Charles Davison gives 36 pages to an account of phenomena at Charleston. He studies neither meteors nor anything else that was seen in the sky. He studiously avoids all other occurrences upon this earth, at this time. Refine such a study to a finality of omissions, and the vacancy of the imbecile is the ideal of the student. I approve this, as harmless.

The other occurrences were enormous. Destruction in South Carolina was small compared with a catastrophe in Greece. Upon the day of the first slight shock, at Charleston (August 27th), there was a violent quake in Greece, and at the same time, torrents poured from the sky, in Turkey, carrying away houses and cattle and bridges (Levant Herald, September 8). Thousands of houses collapsed, and hundreds of persons perished. This day, there was a shock, at Srinagar, Kashmir: shocks in Italy and Malta; and increased activity of Vesuvius. Just such an inky cloud as was seen at Charleston, was seen in the eastern Mediterranean, at the time of the catastrophe in Greece—reported by the captain of the steamship La Valette—see Malta Standard, September 2—”a mass of thick, black smoke, changing into a reddish color.” “The sea was perfectly calm, at the time.” In the sky of Greece, there was a glare, like the light of a volcanic eruption (Comptes Rendus, 103-565) .

I confess to a childish liking for making little designs, or arrangements of data, myself. And every formal design depends upon blanks, as much as upon occupied spaces. But my objection to such a patternmaker as Dr. Davison is to the preponderance of what he leaves out. In Dr. Davison’s 36 pages upon the lesser catastrophe, at Charleston, he spins thin lines of argument, in a pretty pattern of agreements, around omissions. It is his convention that all earthquakes are of local, subterranean origin—so he leaves out all appearances in the sky, and mentions none of the other violences that disturbed a zone around this earth. It is a monstrous disproportion, when a mind that should be designing embroidery takes catastrophes for the lines and blanks of its compositions.

It is my expression that if a clipper of data should mislay his scissors, or should accidentally let in an account of one of the many localized repetitions of meteors, he would tell of an indication that this earth is, or is almost, stationary. Night of October 10th—meteors falling at Srinagar, Kashmir. There was an earthquake. Shocks and falls of meteors continued together. According to my searches in Indian newspapers, these repeating meteors were seen nowhere else. As to zone-phenomena, I point out that there is a difference of only one degree of latitude between Charleston and Srinagar. For the data, see the Times of India, November 5.

If a string of meteors should be flying toward this earth, and if the first of them should fall to this earth, at Srinagar, how is anybody going to think of the rest of them falling exactly here, if this earth is speeding away from them? Sometimes I am almost inclined to have a little faith, of course not in general reasoning, but anyway in my own reasoning, and I go on to observe that a long string of meteors can be thought of, as coming down to the one point where the first fell, if that point is not moving away from them. But I begin to suspect that the trouble with me is that I am simple-minded, and that mine enemies, whom I call “conventionalists,” are more subtle than I am, and prefer their views, because mine are so obvious. Of course this earth is stationary, in a surrounding of revolving stars so far from far away that an expedition could sail to them. But no dialectician, of any fastidiousness, would be attracted by a subject so easy to maintain.

Back to data—geysers spouted from the ground, at Charleston, and there were sulphurous emissions. The ground was incipiently volcanic and charged electrically.

Meteors and smoky discharges and glares and falls of ashes and enormous pours of water, as if from a volcano that was moving around a zone of this earth. And there is no knowing when, in the year 1886, disturbances began in the constellation Andromeda.

In the Observatory, 9-402, it is said that, upon September 26th, a new star in the Andromeda nebula had been reported by one astronomer, but that, according to another astronomer, there was no such new star. Astronomical Register, 1886-269—that, upon October 3rd, a new star in this nebula had been photographed. I think of our existence as a battery—an enormous battery, or, in the cosmic sense, a little battery. So I think of volcanic regions, or incipiently volcanic regions, in a land of the stars and in a land of this earth, as electrodes, which are mutually perturbative, and between which flow quantities of water and other volcanic discharges, in electrolytic, or electrically teleportative, currents. According to data, I think that some teleportations are instantaneous, and that some are slow drifts. To illustrate what I mean by stimulation, most likely electric, by interacting volcanoes, and transportation, or electric teleportation, of matter, between mutually affective volcanoes, I shall report a conversation, which, unlike mere human dialogue, was seen, as well as heard.

Upon the evening of Sept. 3, 1902, at Martinique, where the volcano Mont Pelée humps high, Prof. Angelo Heilprin, as he tells in his book, Mont Pelée, saw southward, at sea, electric flashes. They were in the direction of La Soufrière, the volcano upon the island of St. Vincent, 90 miles away. La Soufrière was flashing. Then Pelée answered. Pelée hugely answered, in tones befitting greater magnitude. A dozen flickers in the southern sky—and then Pelée speaking up, with a blinding, electric opinion. The little female volcano, or anyway the volcano with a feminine name, nagged and nagged, and was then answered with a roar. This bickering kept up a long time. About 5 o’clock, morning of the 4th, there was another appearance, upon the southern horizon. It was a dense bulk of smoke from La Soufrière. It drifted slowly. It went directly to Pelée, and massed about Pelée.

There’s no use arguing with a little, female volcano: she casts out obscurations. But there may be enormous use for this occurrence regarded as data.

Chapter 27

Once upon a time, one of this earth’s earlier scientists pronounced, or enunciated, or he told a story, which was somewhat reasonable, of a flood, and of all the animals of this earth saved, as species, in a big boat. Perhaps the story was not meant seriously by its author, but was a satire upon the ambitious boat-builders of his day. It is probable that all religions are founded upon ancient jokes and hoaxes. But, considering the relative fewness of the animals that were known to the scientists, or the satirists, of that early time, this story was as plausible as the science, or as the best satire, of any time. However data of such a host of animals piled up that the story of the big boat lost its plausibility.

Note that our data are upon events of which the founders of the present so-called science of astronomy knew little, or knew nothing. Orthodox astronomy has been systematized, without considering new stars, their phenomena and indications. It is a big-boat story. Once upon a time it was plausible. It is in the position of the orthodox geology of former times, when a doctrine was formulated without consideration for fossils and sedimentary rocks. But, when fossils and sedimentary rocks were incorporated, they forced a radical readjustment. New stars were not taken into the so-called science of astronomy, by the builders of that system, because no astronomer ever saw, or reported, a new star, between the years 1670 and 1848. Presumably new stars have not started appearing all at once in modern times. Presumably, in this period of 178 years, many new stars appeared, and were not seen, though we shall have data for thinking that some of them shone night after night with the brilliance of first magnitude. One would like to know what, when time after time, the sky was probably spectacular with a new light, the astronomers were doing, in these 178 years. We may be able to answer that question, if we can find out what the astronomers are doing now.

There is not agreement among the wisemen. Virtually there is, by the wisemen of our tribes, no explanation of new stars. The collision-theory is heard of most.

Always—provided there have been little boys and other amateurs to inform them—the wise ones tell of stars that have collided. They have never told of stars that are going to collide.

Why is a story always of stars that have collided? Assuming now that, instead of being points in a revolving shell, stars are swiftly moving bodies, there must be instances of stars that are going to collide, some days, weeks, or years from any given time. It is too much to assume that only dark stars collide, or the preponderance of dark stars would be so great that the sky would be black with Inky Ways. So far, we have not a fair impression of how frequently new stars appear. It will be said that stars that are so close to each other that, in a year or so, they will collide, have, because of their enormous distance from this earth, the appearance: of one point of light.

This takes us to one of the solemnest and laughablest of the wise men’s extravagances. It is their statement that, after two stars have collided, they can, by means of the spectroscope, pick out in what is to the telescope only one point of light, the fragments of an alleged collision, the velocities and the directions of these parts.

If any spectroscopist can do this thing that the reading public is told that he can do, never mind about parts where he says there has been a collision, but let him pick out a point in the sky, which is of parts that are going to collide. Let him tell where a new star is going to be: otherwise let him go on being told, by amateurs, where a new star is.

New stars appear. There are disturbances upon this earth—there are volcanic appearances in the sky—volumes of smoke and dust roll down upon this earth.

And the meaning of it all may some day be—”Skyward ho!” Storms, upon a constellation’s vacant areas, of Poles and Russians. A black cloud appears in the sky of Lyra, and down pours a deluge of Italians. Drifting sands of Scandinavians sift down to a star.

Jan. 5, 1892—just such a fiery blast as has often torn down the slopes of Vesuvius, shot across the State of Georgia. It was “a black tornado, filled with fire” (Chicago Tribune, January 7). About this time, there were shocks in Italy, and, in the evening, people in many parts of New York State were looking up and wondering at a glare in the sky. The next day they had something else to wonder about. There were shocks in New York State. Upon the 8th, dust that was perhaps volcanic, but that had probably been discharged from no volcano of this earth, fell from the sky, in Northern Indiana. 14th—”tidal wave” in the Atlantic, and a shock, at Memphis, Tennessee. Snow fell in Mobile, Alabama, where there had been only four falls of snow in seventy years. Floods in New England. Quakes in Japan, 15th, 16th, 17th. At this time began an eruption of Tongariro, New Zealand. “Tidal wave,” or seismic wave, in Lake Michigan, upon the 18th. For references, see the New York newspapers. The Philadelphia Public Ledger, January 27, reported a fall, from the sky, of a mass of fire into a town in Massachusetts, upon the 20th. At this time, Rome, Italy, was quaking. Shocks in France, two days later. Shocks in Italy and Sicily. January 24th—a great meteor, with thunderous detonations, shot over Cape Colony, South Africa (Cape Argus, February 2 and 4). A drought, at Durango, Mexico, was broken by rain, the first to fall in four years. Upon the night of the 26th, there was a glare in the sky that alarmed people throughout Germany. Severest shock ever known in Tasmania, upon the 27th, and shocks in many places in Victoria, Austrialia. In the night sky of England, people watched a luminous cloud (Nature, 45-365; 46-127).

There was a new star.

In all the Observatories of this earth, not a professional astronomer had observed anything out of the ordinary: but, in Edinburgh, a man who knew nothing of astronomical technicalities (Nature, 45365) looked up at the sky, and saw the new star, night of February 1st. Throughout this period of the glares and the shocks and the seeming volcanic discharges, a new star, or a new celestial volcano, had been shining in the constellation Auriga. The amateur, Dr. Anderson, told the professionals. They examined photographs, and learned that they had been photographing the new star since December 1st.

The look of data is that volcanic dust drifted from a new star to the sky of this earth, in Indiana, in not more than 39 days.

For four hours, upon the 8th of January, dust came down from the sky, in Northern Indiana, and if it did come from regions external to this earth, it came settling down, hour after hour, as if to a point upon a stationary earth. I have searched in many scientific periodicals, and in newspapers of all continents, finding record of no volcanic eruption upon this earth, by which to explain.

La Nature, 41-206—that this dust had been analyzed, and had been identified as of volcanic origin. Science, 21-303—that this dust had been analyzed, and had been identified as not of volcanic origin. Monthly Weather Review, January, 1892—”It was in all probability of volcanic origin.”

I have records of five other new stars, which, from Dec. 21, 1896, to Aug. 10, 1899, appeared at times of disturbances upon this earth; times of deluges and of volcanic discharges that cannot be attributed to terrestrial volcanoes. Two of the discoveries were made by amateurs. The other discoveries were made by professionals, who, with nothing at all resembling celerity, learned, by examining photographic plates, that new stars that had been looked at by astronomers had been recorded by cameras. The period of one of these incelerities was eleven years. See Nature, 85-248.

Star after star has appeared, as a minute point, or as a magnificent sight in the heavens, and the professional astronomers have been un-observatory. They have been notified by amateurs. We shall have records of youngsters who have seen what they were not observing. The first of the bright infants, of whom I have record, is Seth Chandler, of Boston. I have it that anybody who is only 19 years old, or, for that matter, 29, is a youngster. Seth was 19 years old. Upon May 12, 1866, an amateur astronomer, named Birmingham, at Tuam, Ireland, notified the professional astronomers, who were looking somewhere else, that there was a new star in the constellation Corona Borealis. In the United States, the professional astronomers were busily engaged looking in other directions. Upon the night of the 14th, Seth Chandler interrupted their observations, telling them that there was something to look at. For any pessimist, who is interested in what becomes of exceptionally bright boys, and the disappointing records of many of them, I note that when this bright youngster grew up, he became a professional astronomer.

What on earth—or pretty nearly assuredly unrelated to the skies—were the professionals doing, February, 1901? Night of February 22nd—and Dr. Anderson, the amateur who had discovered Nova Aurigae, nine years before, looked up at the constellation Perseus, and, even though he had probably been befoozling himself with astronomical technicalities ever since, saw something new, and knew the new, when he saw it. It was a magnificent new star. It was a splendor that scintillated over stupidity—not a professional, at any of this earth’s Observatories, knew of this spectacle, until informed by Dr. Anderson. Usually it is said that Dr. Anderson discovered this star, but his claim has been contested. In Russia, it was recorded that, nine hours earlier, at a time when the sleepiest of the Observatories had not yet closed down, or had not yet quit not observing, the new star had been discovered by Andreas Borisiak, of Kieff. Andreas was a schoolboy.

Before the discovery of this new star in Perseus, or Nova Persei, there had been appearances like volcanic phenomena, unattributable, however, to any volcano of this earth. Upon the morning of February 13th, deep-greenish-yellow clouds, spreading intensest darkness, appeared in France (Bull. Soc. Astro. de France, March, 1901). Upon the 16th, a black substance fell from the sky, in Michigan (Monthly Weather Review, 29-465). There was the extreme coldness that often results from interferences with sunlight, by volcanic dust. At Naples, three persons were found to have frozen to death, night of the 13th (London Daily Mail, February 15). A red substance fell with snow, near Mildenhall (London Daily Mail, February 22). It may have been functionally transmitted organic matter. “Pigeons seemed to feed upon it.”

I have data for thinking that at least four nights before Dr. Anderson’s observation, this new star, or a beam from it, though unseen at all Observatories, was magnificently visible. I think so, because, upon the night of the 18th, somebody in Finchley (London) and somebody in Tooting (London) saw something that they thought was a comet. Upon the night of the 10th, somebody in Tottenham saw it. A story of three somebodies who had seen something that was missed by all this earth’s professional astronomers, would not be worth much, if told after an announcement of a discovery, but these observations were told of in the London Daily Mail, published upon the morning of February 22nd, before Dr. Anderson was heard from.

Sixteen days after the Anderson observation, dust arrived upon this earth—or it fell from the sky—in volumes that were proportional to this outburst of first magnitude in the heavens. The new star at its brightest was of the magnitude of Vega. Dust, of the redness of many volcanic dusts, and of no African deserts that one hears anything of—and if African deserts ever are red, moving picture directors, who are strong for realism, or, rather, sometimes are, should hear about this—fell from the sky. It came down, upon the 9th and 10th of March, in Sicily, Tunis, Italy, Germany, and Russia. A thick orange-red stain was reported from Ongar, Essex, England, upon the 12th (London Daily Mail, March 19).

The standardized explanation was published. I shall oppose it with heresy. Throughout this book, I say that all expressions of mine are only mental phenomena, and sometimes may be rather awful specimens, even at that. But, if we examine our opposition, and find it wanting, and if my own expression includes much that it left out, my own expression is not wanting, whether it’s wanted, or not. Two wisemen wrote the standardized explanation. The red dust had come from an African desert. See Nature, 66-41.

They wrote that they had traced this dust to a hurricane in an African desert, pointing out that, upon the first day, it had fallen in Tunis. That looked like a first fall near an African desert.

But the meteorologists are not banded like the astronomers. For a record of a fall, not so near an alleged African desert, see Symons’ Met. Mag., 1902-25—that while this dust was falling in Tunis, also it was falling in Russia. That this dust did come to this earth from outer space—see the Chemical News, 83-159—Dr. Phipson’s opinion that it was meteoric. That may be accepted as the same as volcanic.

My own expression—

That a hurricane that could have strewn Europe with dust, from the Mediterranean to Denmark, and from England to Russia, could have been no breeze fluttering obscurely in some African desert, but a devastating force that would have fanned all Northern Africa into taking notice

Lagos (Gold Coast) Record, March-April, 1901—no mention of a whirlwind of any kind in Africa. In the Egyptian Gazette (Alexandria) there is nothing relating to atmospheric disturbances. There is nothing upon any such subject noted in the Sierra Leone News. Al-Moghreb (Tangier) reports the falls of dust in Europe, but mentions no raising of dust anywhere in Africa.

But there was a new star.

The standardized explanation is perforated with omissions. It seems unthinkable that mind upon this earth could be so bound down to this earth by this thing of gaps, until we reflect that so are all nets fabricated. In Austria, while this dust was falling, the earth quaked. What could such an occurrence have to do with dust from an African desert? Omitted. But at the time of this quake, something else was seen, and it may have been a volcanic bomb that had been shot from a star. London Daily Mail, March 13—a great meteor was seen. Dust falling in Tunis—and that was told. More of the omitted—see the Levant Herald, March 11—that while the dust was falling in Tunis, there were violent earthquakes in Algeria. Something else that was left out—see the English Mechanic, 73-96, and the Bull. Soc. Astro. de France, April, 1901—that, upon March 12th, ashes fell from the sky, at Avellino, Italy.

Vesuvius, April, 1872—

Krakatoa, August, 1883—

Charleston, August, 1886—

Time after time after time—

And now May, 1902—in the hollow of their ignorance, two of these conventionalists held 30,000 lives.

May, 1902—there was another surprise. It, too, was preceded by announcements that were published by mountains, and were advertised in columns of fire upon pages of clouds.

In April and May, 1902, across a zone of this earth, also outside the zone, there were disturbances. More than earth-wide relations are indicated, to start with. Eruptions of Mt. Pelée, Martinique, began upon April 20th, the date of the Lyrids. However, in this book, I am omitting many data upon a seeming relation between dates of meteor streams and catastrophes. Then the volcano La Soufrière, island of St. Vincent, B. W. I., broke out. Upon the day of an earthquake in Siberia (April 12th) mud fell from the sky, in widely separated places, in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. See Science, n.s., 15-872; New York Herald, April 14, 1902; Monthly Weather Review, May, 1902.

There may have been an eruption in some other part of one relatively small existence, or organism. There may have been a new star. In the English Mechanic, 75-291, a correspondent in South Africa told that, in the constellation Gemini, night of April 16th, he had seen an appearance like a new red star. He thought that it might have been not a star, but a mirage of the red light of the Cape Town lighthouse.

The white houses of St. Pierre, Martinique—a white city, spread up on the slopes of Mt. Pelée. Early in May, there were panics in St. Pierre. Pelée was convulsed, and the quavering city of St. Pierre shook out inhabitants. Desertion of the city was objected to by its rulers, and the Governor of the island called upon two wisemen, Prof. Landes and Prof. Doze, for an authoritative opinion.

They had studied the works of Dr. Davison.

There were shocks in Spain, and in France. La Soufrière was of continuing violence. A volcano broke out in Mexico. Quakes in the Fiji Islands. Violent quake in Iceland. Volcanic eruption at Cook’s Inlet, Alaska.

Prof. Landes and Prof. Doze were studying Mt. Pelée.

An eruption of cattle and houses and human beings, in Rangoon, Burma—or “the most terrible storm remembered.” A remarkable meteor was seen at Calcutta. In Java, the Rooang volcano broke out. There were rumblings of an extinct volcano in France. In Guatemala, with terrific electrical displays, enormous volumes of water fell upon earthquakes.

Profs. Doze and Landes “announced” that there was, in Pelée’s activity, nothing to warrant the flight of the people. See Heilprin, Mont Pelée, p. 71. Governor Mouttet ordered a cordon of soldiers to form around the city, and to permit nobody to leave.

Upon the 7th of May, a sky in France turned black with warning. See back to other such “coincidences” with catastrophes. Soot and water, like ink, fell from the sky, at Parc Saint Maur (Comptes Rendus, 134-1108).

Upon this day, the people of St. Pierre were terrified by the blasts from Pelée. No inhabitant of the city was permitted to leave, but, as recorded by Heilprin, the captain of the steamshipOrsolina did break away. They tried to hold him. The “pronouncement” was read to him, and officialdom threatened him, but, with half a cargo, he broke away. His arrival at Havre is told of, in the Daily Messenger (Paris) June 22. The authorities of the Port of St. Pierre had refused to give him clearance papers, but, terrified by the blasts from the volcano, he had sailed without them.

The people of St. Pierre were trying to escape, but they were bound to the town by chains of soldiers. Even in discreetly worded accounts, we read of these people, running in droves in the streets. In storms of ashes, turned back at all outskirts, by the soldiers, they were running in whirlpools.

Not one word of retreat, nor of any modification, came from the two Professors. They had spoken in accordance with the dogmas of their deadly cult. Considered locally, an effusion of ashes was not considered alarming, and no relationship with wider disturbances could be admitted. The Professors had spoken, and the people of St. Pierre were held to the town. The people were hammered and stabbed back, or they were reasoned with, and persuaded to stay. Just how it was done, one has to visualize for oneself. It was done.

At night there was a lull. Then blasts came from the volcano. Screaming people ran from the houses.

The narrow streets of this white city were dark with people, massing one way, only to gather against the military confines, sweeping some other way, only to be turned back by soldiers. Had there been darkness some of them might have escaped, but even at sea the glare from the volcano was so intense that the crew of a passing steamship, Lord Antrim, were almost blinded.

As seen from the sea, the streets, hung up on the mountainside, distorted by smoke and glare, fluttered. Long narrow crowds darkening these fluttering streets—folds of white garments of a writhing being, chained, awaiting burning. Upon the morning of the 8th, the city of St. Pierre was bound to the stake of Mt. Pelée.

There was a rush of flames. In the volcanic fires that burned the city, 30,000 persons perished.

Chapter 28

Early in October, 1902, vast volumes of smoke, of unknown origin, obscured all things at sea, and made navigation difficult and dangerous, from the Philippines to Hongkong, and from the Philippines to Australia. I do not know of anything of terrestrial origin that, with equal density, ever has had such widespread effects. Vesuvius has never been known to smoke up the whole Mediterranean. Compared with this obscuration, smoke at a distance from Krakatoa, in August, 1883, was only a haze. For an account, see the Jour. Roy. Met. Soc., 30-285. Hongkong Telegraph, October 25—that a volcanic eruption in Sumatra had been reported. Science, n.s., 23-193—that there had been no known eruption in Sumatra—that perhaps there had been enormous forest fires in Borneo and Sumatra. Sarawak (Borneo) Gazette, October-November, 1902—no record of any such fires.

There came something that was perhaps not vaster, but that was more substantial. If a story of a sand storm in a desert is dramatic, here is a story of a continent that went melodramatic. Upon the 12th of November, upon all Australia, except Queensland, dust and mud fell from the sky. Then densest darkness lit up with glares. Fires were falling from the sky.

Sometimes there are abortive embryos that are mixtures—an eye looking out from ribs—other features scattered. Fires and dust and darkness—mud that was falling from the sky—Australia was a womb that was misconceiving.

A fire ball burst over a mound, which flickered; and frightened sheep ran from it—or, reflecting glares in the sky, a breast leered, and stuck out a long, red mob of animals. A furrowed field—or ribs in a haze—and a stare from the embers of a bush fire. An avenue of trees, heavy with mud, sagging upon a road that was pulsing with carts—or black lips, far from jaws, closing soggily upon an umbilical cord, in vainly attempted suicide.

Fire balls started up fires in every district in Victoria. They fell into cities, and set fire to houses. At Wycheproof, “the whole air seemed on fire.” All day of the 12th, and the next day, dust, mostly red dust, sifted down upon Australia, falling, upon the 13th, in Queensland, too. Smoke rolled in upon Northern Australia, upon the 14th. A substance that fell from it was said to be ashes. One of the descriptions is of “a light, fluffy, grey material” (Sydney Daily Telegraph, November 18).

How many of those who have a notion that they’re pretty well-read, have ever heard of this discharge upon Australia? And what are the pretty well-read but the pretty well-led? Little of this tremendous occurrence has been told in publications that are said to be scientific, and I take from Australian newspapers: but accounts of some of the fire balls that fell from the sky were published in Nature, vol. 67. There are reports from about 50 darkened, stifled towns, in the Sydney Herald, of the 14th—”business suspended”—”nothing like it before, in the history of the colony”—”people stumbling around with lanterns.” Traffics were gropes. Mail coaches reached Sydney, nine hours late. Ashes with a sulphurous odor fell in New Zealand, upon the 13th (Otago Witness, November 19). The cities into which fell balls of fire that burned houses were Boort, Allendale, Deniliquin, Langdale, and Chiltern.

Smoke appeared in Java, and the earth quaked. A meteorite fell, at Kamsagar (Mysore), India. Upon this day of the 12th, a disastrous deluge started falling, in the Malay States: along one river, seven bridges were carried away.

There was no investigation. However, passing awareness did glimmer in one mind, in England. In a dispatch to the newspapers, Dec. 7, 1902, Sir Norman Lockyer called attention to the similarity between the dust and the fire balls in Australia, and the dust and the fire balls from volcanoes in the West Indies, in May, of this year.

Our own expression depends upon whether all this can be attributed to any eruption upon this earth, or not. The smoke, in October, cannot be so explained. But was there any particular volcanic activity upon this earth, about Nov. 12, 1902?

The most violent eruption of Kilauea, Hawaii, in 20 years, was occurring, having started upon the 10th of November. There was a geyser of fire from the volcano Santa Maria, in Guatemala, having started upon October 26th. About the 6th of November, Colima, in Mexico, began to discharge dense volumes of smoke. The volcano Savii, in Samoa, broke out, upon the 13th, having been active, though to no great degree, upon October 30th. According to a dispatch, dated November 14th, there was an eruption in the Windward Islands, West Indies. Stromboli burst into eruption upon the 13th. About this time, Mt. Chullapata, in Peru, broke out.

But the smoke that appeared, with an earthquake, in Java, was the spans of an ocean and a continent far away. New Zealand is nearer all these volcanoes, except Stromboli, than is Australia, but dust and ashes fell a day later in New Zealand. Fire balls fell enormously in Australia. Not one was reported in New Zealand. Nothing appeared between New Zealand and these volcanoes, but dense clouds of smoke, between Australia and the Philippines, delayed vessels until at least November 10th (Hobart Mercury, November 21). So we regard the unexplained smoke of October and November, as continuous with the discharges of November 12th, and relate both, as emanations from one source, which is undiscoverable upon this earth.

There was a new star.

Popular Astronomy, 30-60—that, in October, 1902, a new star appeared in the southern constellation Puppis.

Upon the 19th of November, a seismic wave, six feet high, crashed upon the coast of South Australia (Sydney Morning Herald, November 20). Upon this day the new star shone at its maximum of 7th magnitude.

See our expression upon phenomena of August, 1885. If, in November, 1902, a volcanic discharge came to Australia from a southern constellation, it came as if from a star-region to the nearest earth-region. But, if constellations be trillions of miles away, no part of this earth could be appreciably nearer than any other part, to any star.

So extraordinary was terrestrial, volcanic activity at this time, that it will have to be considered. Like other expressions, our expression here is that mutually affective outbursts spread from the land of the stars to and through the land of this earth, firing off volcanoes in the disturbances of one organic and relatively little whole.

It was a time of extremest drought in Australia. Thunderstorms that came, after November 12th, were described as terrific.

As a glimmer of awareness, Lockyer told of the fire balls that came with the dust to Australia, and the suggestion to him was that there had been a volcanic discharge. But there was something that he did not tell. He did not know. It was told of in no scientific publication, and it reached no newspaper published outside Australia. After the first volley of fire balls, other fire balls came to Australia. I have searched in newspapers of all continents, and it is my statement that no such fire balls were reported anywhere else. All were so characterized that it will be accepted that all were of one stream. Perhaps they came from an eruption in the constellation Puppis, but my especial expression is that, if all were of one origin, and if, days apart, they came to this earth, only to Australia, they so localized, because this earth is stationary.

For references, see the Sydney Herald, and the Melbourne Leader. There was a meteoric explosion, at Parramatta, November 13th. A fire ball fell and exploded terrifically, at Carcoar. At Murrumburrah, N. S. W., dust and a large fire ball fell, upon the 18th. A fire ball passed over the town of Nyngan, night of the 22nd, intensely illuminating sky and ground. Upon the night of the 20th, as reported by Sir Charles Todd, of the Adelaide Observatory, a large fire ball was seen, moving so slowly that it was watched four minutes. At 11 o’clock, night of the 21st, a fire ball of the apparent size of the sun was seen at Towitta. An hour later, several towns were illuminated by a great fire ball. Upon the 23rd, a fire ball exploded at Ipswich, Queensland. It is of especial importance to note the record of one of these bombs, or meteors, that moved so slowly that it was watched four minutes.

From Feb. 12 to March 1, 1903, dusts and discolored rains fell along the western coast of Africa, upon many parts of the European Continent, and in England. The conventional explanation was published: there had been a whirlwind in Africa.

I have plodded for more than twenty years in the Libraries of New York and London. There are millions of persons who would think this a dreary existence.

But the challenges—the excitements—the finds.

Any pronouncement by any orthodoxy is to me the same as handcuffs. It’s brain cuffs. There are times when I don’t give a damn whether the stars are trillions of miles away or ten miles away—but, at any time, let anybody say to me, authoritatively, or with an air of finality, that the stars are trillions of miles away, or ten miles away, and my contrariness stirs, or inflames, and if I can’t pick the lock of his pronouncements, I’ll have to squirm out some way to save my egotism.

So then the dusts of February and March, 1903—and the whirlwind-explanation—and other egotists will understand how I suffer. Simply say to me, “Mere dusts from an African desert,” and I begin to squirm like an Houdini.

Feb. 12 to March 1, 1903—”dusts from an African desert.”

I get busy.

Nature, 75-589—that some of this dust, which had fallen at Cardiff, Wales, had been analyzed, and that it was probably volcanic.

But the word “analyzed” is an affront to my bigotries—conventional chemist—orthodox procedures—scientific delusions—more coercions.

I am pleased with a find, in the London Standard, Feb. 26, 1903. It is of no service to me, especially, now, but, in general, it is agreeable to my malices—a letter from Prof. T. G. Bonney, in which the Professor says that the dust was not volcanic, because there was no glassy material in it—and a letter from someone else, stating that in specimens of the dust that were examined by him, all the particles were glassy.

“It was dust from an African desert.”

But I have resources.

One of them is Al-Moghreb. How many persons, besides myself, have ever heard of Al-Moghreb? Al-Moghreb is mine own discovery.

The dust came down in England, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, and along the west coast of Africa. Here’s the question:

If there had been an African hurricane so violent as to strew a good part of Europe, is it not likely that there would have been awareness of it in Africa?

Al-Moghreb (Tangier)—no mention of any atmospheric disturbance that would bear out the conventional explanation. Lagos Weekly Record—Sierra Leone Weekly News—Egyptian Gazette—no mention.

And then one of those finds that make plodding in Libraries as exciting as prospecting for nuggets—

February 14th, of this year—one of the most extraordinary phenomena in the history of Australia. In magnitude it was next to the occurrences of the preceding November. In the blackest of darkness, dust and mud fell from the sky. Melbourne Age, February 16—three columns of reports, upon darkness and dust and falling mud, in about 40 widespread towns in New South Wales and Victoria.

The material that fell in Australia fell about as enormously as fell the dusts in Europe. There is no mention of it in any of the dozens of articles by conventionalists, upon the phenomena in Europe. It started falling two days after the first fall of dust, west of Africa. It was coincidence, or here is an instance of two enormous volumes of dust that had one origin.

There was an unnoticed hurricane in Africa, which strewed Europe, and daubed Australia, precipitating nowhere between these two continents; or two vast volumes of dust were discharged from a disturbance somewhere beyond this earth, drifting here, arriving so nearly simultaneously that the indications are that the space between the source and this stationary earth is not of enormous extent, but was traversed in a few days, or a few weeks.

There was no known eruption upon this earth, at this time. If here, but unknown, it would have to be an eruption more tremendous than any of the known eruptions of this earth.

There was a new star.

It was found, by a professional astronomer, upon photographs of the constellation Gemini, taken upon March 8th (Observatory, 22-245). It may have existed a few weeks before somebody happened to photograph this part of the sky.

“Cold-blooded scientists,” as we hear them called—and their “ideal of accuracy”—they’re more like a lot of spoiled brats, willfully determined to have their own way. In Cosmos, n.s., 69-422, were reported meteoric phenomena, before the destructive earthquake in Calabria, Italy, Sept. 8, 1905. It was said—or it was “announced”—that Prof. Agamennone was investigating. It would have been a smash to conventional science if Prof. Agamennone had confirmed these reports. We know what to expect. According to the account in Cosmos, first came a fall of meteors, and then, three-quarters of an hour later, to this same place upon this probably stationary earth, came a great meteor. It exploded, and in the ground was a shock by which 4,600 buildings were destroyed, and 4,000 persons were killed.

A volume of sound from crashing walls, in billows of roars from falling roofs, sailed like a ship in a storm. When it sank, lamentations leaped from it.

Because of underlying oneness, the sounds of a catastrophe are renderable in the terms of any other field of phenomena. Structural principles are the same, either in phonetic or biologic anatomy. A woe, or an insect, or a centipede is a series of segments.

Or the wreck of a city was a cemetery. Convulsed into animation, it was Resurrection Day, as not conceived of by religionists. Concatenations of sounds arose from burials. Spinal columns of groans were exhuming from ruination. Articulations of sobs clung to them. A shout that was jointed with oaths reached out from a hole. A church, which for centuries had been the den of a parasite, sank to a heap. It was a maw that engulfed a congregation. From it came the chant of a litany that was a tapeworm emerging from a ruptured stomach.

Choruses broke into moans that were rows of weeping willows. A prayer crossed a field of murmurs, and was gored by a blasphemy. Tellers of beads told ladders, up which ran profanities. Then came submergence again, in a chorus.

In earthquake lands, it is the belief of the people that there is a godness that, at times of catastrophes, directs them to flock to churches. My own theology is in agreement. It is by such concentrations that the elimination of surplusages is facilitated. But, if Virgin Marys were replaced by images of Mrs. Sanger, there would be no such useful murders.

It is said, in the Bull. Soc. Astro. de France, October, 1905, that luminous phenomena had preceded this catastrophe, in Calabria. Observations upon appearances in the sky were gathered by Prof. Alfani, and were recorded by him, in the Revista di Fisca. But it was Prof. Agamennone’s decision upon reported phenomena in the sky that was awaited by the scientific world. From time to time, in scientific periodicals, there was something to the effect that he was investigating.

Not only meteors were told of. There was a fall of dust, from the sky, at Tiriolo.

Explained.

There had been an eruption of Stromboli.

Comptes Rendus, 141-576—report by M. Lacroix, who had been living near Stromboli, at the time—that, at this time of the fall of dust, there had been no more than normal activity of Stromboli.

Long afterward, the result of Prof. Agamennone’s investigation was published. He could find only one witness.

It is not easy to think of an organic control that would beguile its human supernumeraries into manageable concentrations, for eliminative purposes, and also permit a Prof. Agamennone to conceive of warnings for them. But, if in super-metabolism, there is, as in sub-organisms, the katabolism of destructions, also there are restorations. Anabolic vibrations, known to the people of this earth, as “sympathy” and “charity,” shook from pockets as far away as California, money that rebuilt the mutilated tissues of Italy.

Something else that every conventionalist will explain as “mere coincidence” is that down from the sky came deluges upon the quaking land of Calabria. There was widespread need for water, at this time.

India—”pitiable,” as described in accounts of one of the severest of droughts. The wilt of a province—the ebb of its life is at the rate of 2,000 of its starving inhabitants, a day, into the town of Sind. Its people shrivel, and its fields, burned brown, wrinkle with trains of dark-skinned refugees. A band of natives in a desolate copse—trunks and limbs of leafless, little trees, and shrunken arms and legs merge in one jungle of emaciation. A starving native, flat in a field—he has crawled away from the long, white cloud of dust of a trampled road. It might be hell anywhere, but there are glimpses of the especial hell that is India. Breech-clout of the starving native—pinned to it, a string of jewels, which, though dying, he had stolen. Long, wide cloud of dust that is a landscape-girdle—and it is emblazoned with a rajah’s elephants.

There was intense suffering, at Lahore. All the gods were prayed to for rain.

Upon the 9th of September, there was an earthquake, at Lahore. All the gods answered at once, combining their deliveries, with an efficiency that smashed houses. Allahabad Pioneer Mail, September 15—”houses collapsing in great numbers, and the occupants wandering homeless.” “Such an occurrence at this season is most unprecedented, and has taken everybody by surprise” (Times of India, September 16).

Main Street—any good-sized American city—a dull afternoon—the barber shop and the cigar store on the corner—much dullness—

A sudden frenzy—Main Street rushes out of the town.

Or a human mind in a monotonous state of smugness—there’s a temptation, or the smash of a conviction, and something that it has taken for a principle rushes out of it, in a torrent of broken beliefs—

That delirium, or frenzy—or anything else mental or human—is not exclusively mental or human—but just what are my data for thinking that the principal street of an American city ever did rush out of the town?

Well, something similar. It was at the time of the deluges in India. There was a monstrous fall of water in Kashmir.

Many of the inhabitants of the city of Srinagar, Kashmir, lived in rows of houseboats, upon the river Jhelum, a sluggish, muddy stream, with so little visible motion that, between the rows, it looked like a smooth pavement. It suddenly went up 17 feet. The two long rows of houseboats rushed away.

Another river in Kashmir smashed a village. On its banks it left parallel confusions.

Notch a butterfly’s wings—this is mutilation. But correspondingly notch the other wing, and there is balance. Two mutilations may be harmony. The doubly hideous may be beautiful. If, on both sides of the river that was a subsiding axis, mothers simultaneously screamed over the bodies of children, this correspondence was the soul of design. Two anguishes, neatly balanced in parallel lines of wreckage, satisfy the requirements of those who worship godness as only harmony.

A quaking zone of Europe and Asia was deluged. Drought in Turkey—earthquakes—plentiful rain (Levant Herald, September 1i, 18). Tremendous falls of water and shocks were continuing in Calabria. Spain was flooded.

September 27th—another severe shock, at Lahore; and, this day, again dust, of unknown origin, fell from the sky, in Calabria. A current of hot air came with it. According to the Levant Herald, October 9, many persons were asphyxiated. According to description, it was a volcanic blast that cannot be traced to origin upon this earth. If it came from somewhere beyond this earth, such a repetition in Calabria is a coincidence, or is an indication that this earth is stationary. It is easier to call it a coincidence.

There was a new star.

Upon the night of August 18th, an “auroral” beam, such as has often been seen in the sky, at times of volcanic eruptions upon this earth, and at times of new stars, was seen in England (English Mechanic, 82-88). Upon the gist of August, Mrs. Fleming, at Harvard University Observatory, looking over photographic plates, saw that a new star had been recorded, on and after the 18th. The new star, diminishing, continued to shine during September.

Our expression upon “auroral” beams is that vast beams of light have often been seen in the sky, at times when terrestrial volcanoes were active; that similar appearances have been seen at times of new stars, and may be considered light-effects of volcanoes, not terrestrial. For records of several of these beams, one while Stromboli was violent, Sept. 1, 1891, and one, July 16, 1892, while one of the greatest eruptions of Etna was occurring, see Nature, vols. 44 and 45, and Popular Astronomy, 10-249. For one of the latest instances, see newspapers, April 16, 1926: while Mauna Loa, Hawaii, was in eruption, a beam of light was seen in Nebraska.

There’s a new light in the heavens, and there’s a disturbance upon this earth, as if an interaction that could not occur, if trillions of miles intervene.

“Mere coincidence.”

There’s a quake in Formosa, and there’s a quake in California.

“Only coincidence,” say the conventionalists, who are committed to local explanations.

April 18, 1906—the destruction of San Francisco. The Governor of California appointed a commission of eight Professors to investigate the catastrophe. The eight Professors ignored, as coincidence, everything else that had occurred at the time, and explained in the usual, local, geological terms. In Nature, 73-608, is published Dr. Charles Davison’s explanation, which is in terms of a local subsidence. Dr. Davison mentions nothing else that occurred at the time.

At the time—a disastrous quake in Formosa, and the most violent eruption of Vesuvius since April, 1872; activity in a long-dormant volcano in the Canary Islands; quake in Alberta, Canada; sudden rise and fall of Lake Geneva, Switzerland; eruption of Mt. Asama, Japan.

See back to the occurrence of St. Pierre, Martinique. May, 1902—30,000 persons, who perished properly—blackened into cinders, with academic sanction. They turned into ashes, but the principles of an orthodoxy were upheld.

January, 1907—and the ignoramuses of Jamaica. They saved their own lives, because they did not know better.

About 3 o’clock, afternoon of Jan. 14, 1907, there was sudden darkness, at Kingston, Jamaica. People cried to one another that an earthquake was coming, and many of them ran to parks and other open spaces. The earthquake came. The people who ran to the open spaces lived, but a thousand of the others were killed by falling houses.

A web that was spun of dogmas caught a thousand victims. After the quake, the ruins of Kingston sprawled like a spider, stretching out long, black lines that were trains of hearses. But all who ran to the parks, believing that appearances in the sky did mean that catastrophe upon earth was coming, lived. I have given data for thinking that a De Ballore, or any other conventionalist, would ridicule these people for so interpreting “a mere coincidence.”

October, 1907, and March, 1908—falls, from the sky, of substances like soot and ashes—catastrophes upon this earth and new stars that were discovered by amateurs. See the English Mechanic, 86-237, 260, and the Observatory, 31-215.

Dec. 30, 1910—new star—disastrous earthquakes—an enormous fall, from the sky, of a substance like ashes. The new star, Nova Lacertae, was discovered by Dr. Espin, a professional astronomer. Photographic records were looked up. Almost six weeks this star had been shining, unobserved at this earth’s Observatories. It was visible without a telescope (5th magnitude).

For almost six weeks, a new star had shone over the Observatories of this earth, and no milkman had reported it. However, without chagrin, we note this remissness, because it is no purpose of this book to spout eulogies to the amateur in science. It is only in astronomy that the humiliation of professionals by amateurs is common. I have no records of little boys running into laboratories, startling professors of chemistry, or physics, with important discoveries. The achievements of amateurs in astronomy rank about with a giving of information, upon current events, to a Rip Van Winkle. I’ll not apologize, because no night watchman hammered for several hours upon the front door of an Observatory, rudely disturbing the spiders.

Chapter 29

Why don’t they see, when sometimes magnificently there is something to see?

The answer is the same as the answer to another question:

Why, sometimes, do they see when there is nothing to see?

In the year 1899, Campbell, the astronomer, “announced” that the star Capella is a spectroscopic binary, or has a companion-star, as determined by the spectroscope. Astronomers of Greenwich Observatory investigated. One of them looked through the telescope, and he said, or rather, announced, that he saw it. Another of the astronomers looked for the companion. He announced that he saw it. Eight other astronomers followed. Each announced that he saw it. But now the astronomers say that this alleged companion cannot be seen in any telescope. See Duncan, Astronomy, p. 335.

The Andromeda nebula is said to be so far away that, though a description of a nearby view of its parts would read like divorce statistics in the United States, no dissolving motion can be seen by observers on this earth. In astronomical books, published in the past, appeared reproductions of photographs of this nebula, which were as artfully touched up, I should say, as any life of a saint ever was by any theologian. It was given a most definitely spiral appearance, to convey an impression of whirlpool-motion. But the nebula-theory of existence has passed away. In astronomical books of recent date we see no such definite look of a whirlpool in pictures of the Andromeda nebula, but more of a stratified appearance. The astronomers see whatever they want to see—when they do see—and then see to it that we see as they see. So, though according to our records, one would think otherwise, there is considerable seeing by astronomers.

If I look at a distant house, and see faces appearing at windows, something seems to tell me that the stoop of the house is not flying in one direction, the roof of it scooting some other way, and every brick upon a jamboree of its own. Of course, minutely, there are motions. But, if the house is not so far away as to prevent the seeing of new faces looking out, I argue that other changes, such as the roof in a frenzy to get away from the stoop, would, if there were such incompatibilities, be visible. Of course this is only argument. If we can have neat little expressions, that’s mentality’s profoundest.

The Andromeda nebula is said to be so far away that tremendous motions of its parts cannot be seen.

But more than fifty new stars in it have been seen, looking out.

So we are realizing how numerous new stars are, if in one little celestial formation more than fifty have been seen. If amateur astronomers were as numerous as amateur golf players, for instance, we’d realize much more.

Pronounced changes, such as appearances and disappearances of stars, have been watched, but no change in relative positions of stars has ever been watched occurring. There are parts of the sky that are dusty with little stars. If they were not such good-looking little things, the heavens would be filthy with them. But no grain of these shining sands has ever been watched changing its position relatively to other grains. All recorded changes of positions are so slight that some of them may be attributed to inaccuracies in charting, in earlier times, and some to various stresses that have nothing to do with independent motions. Just here we are not discussing the alleged phenomena of “companion stars.” But our own expressions require that there be small changes in positions of stars, just as terrestrial volcanoes change slightly. Not a star has ever been seen to cross another star, but observations upon other changes in the stars are frequent.

For records of five new stars in five months, see Popular Astronomy, March, 1920.

Many of the so-called new stars have been sudden flares of faint old stars. Upon this earth there have been sudden flares in volcanic craters that were dormant, or that were supposed to be extinct. And it was not by collision. Nothing came along and knocked against them.

Apart from our expressions upon organic suppressions, it is easy enough to understand one aspect of the origin of the present astronomical doctrine. It was in a time of mathematicians, to whom astronomical observations were secondary. The only one of these earlier ones who was an industrious observer (Tycho Brahé) gave his opinion that this earth is stationary. The rest of them did little observing, and spent their time calculating. Nowadays new stars are seen often, but, for 178 years, the calculators saw not one of them. In their time it was considered crude, or vulgar, to see. Mentality always has been bullied by snobbery. In the times of the founders of astronomical dogmas, observations were sneered at, and were called empiricism. Any way that is not the easiest way always is held in contempt, until competition forces harder methods. The easiest of all affectations is the aristocratic pose, if by aristocracy we mean minimization of doing anything. There’s a coarseness to anybody who works. Give this a thought—he might sweat. Amateurs, out in their back yards, see, with their little spyglasses, much that the professionals miss, but they catch colds. When a back yard amateur, like W. F. Denning, reports something, that represents patience and snuffling. Denning blew his nose, and kept his eyes open. The inmates of Observatories, when not asleep, are calculating. It’s easier on brains, and it’s easier on noses. Back in times when little boys were playing hop-scotch and marbles, and had not yet taken up the new sport of giving astronomers astronomical information, or in those times when only astronomers were attending somewhat to astronomical matters, and when therefore changes in stars were unheard of, arose the explanation of vast distances, to account for unobserved changes.

The look is that stars do not change positions relatively to one another for the same reason that Vesuvius and Etna do not. Or there are very slight changes of position, just as relatively to each other Vesuvius and Etna change: but no star has ever been seen to pass over any other star, any more than has Vesuvius ever been seen sailing in the sky over Etna.

Other changes of stars that are said to be so far away that changes of position cannot be seen, have been noted. For a discussion of stars that have disappeared, see Nature, 99-159. For a list of about 40 missing stars, see Monthly Notices, R. A. S., 77-56. This list is only supplementary to other lists.

Upon March 14, 1912, the newspapers told that the discovery of a new star had been “announced” by the Kiel Observatory, Germany. No reader of newspapers, of that time, would suppose otherwise than that vigilant astronomers, at least worth their keep, knew when a new star appeared.

Early in the morning of March 11th, earthquakes of unusual intensity were recorded at many places in the United States. At Harvard University, the calculators announced that the center of the quake was in the West Indies, or Mexico. Newspaper readers, if they paid any attention, were properly impressed with this ability of intellectuals in Massachusetts to know what was going on in the West Indies, or Mexico. But newspapers the next day told of a quake, upon the 11th, of Triangle Island, off Vancouver, B. C., and of nothing in either the West Indies or Mexico. At Victoria, B. C., it was calculated that the center of the quake was in the Pacific Ocean, 400 miles westward. The same readers, forgetting just where the calculators of Harvard had placed the quake, thought it marvelous how the scientists can know these things.

Sometimes distant skies turn black with the shadows of disasters. Had this quake centered in a densely populated region, we’d have another datum of a distant fall of probably volcanic material, about the time of a catastrophe. Upon the day of the quake, black water fell from the sky, near Colmer, about 30 miles from London (Jour. Roy. Met. Soc., 38-275). The rain was not muddy, but was like diluted ink. Somebody thought that it was soot from London. Somebody else thought not, pointing out that, if this were so, ink, not much diluted, would often fall in London.

The night of the 12th, the astronomers of this earth’s Observatories were calculating. Wherever the town of Dombass, Norway, is, the astronomers of Kiel, Germany, were disturbed by a telegram. It was from an amateur, named Enebo, telling that there was a new star in the constellation Gemini, and that it was visible without a telescope. Astronomers in other parts of this earth were notified. They looked up from what they considered astronomical matters, and saw what the amateur had discovered.

In November, 1913, an astronomer photographed a part of the constellation Sagittarius. I don’t know what his idea was. Perhaps simply and somnambulically he photographed, and had no ideas. Six years later, somebody found out that he had photographed a new star. Then other photographs were examined. Astronomers are pretty keen at detecting something that has been pointed out to them, and they learned that they had photographed this star, rising from 10th to 7th magnitude, between the 21st and the 22nd of November.

Wanted—something by way of data for us.

Like every other theorist, we find just that—

Nature, 94-372—that, seven days after the maximum of this new star, an afterglow, which can be attributed to no known volcanic eruption upon this earth, was seen in the sky, in Italy, France, Belgium, and England.

April 25, 1917—a professional astronomer photographed a new star (magnitude 6.5) in the constellation Hercules. The next day there was a disastrous earthquake in Italy. Upon May 1st, a great quake—perhaps in the constellation Hercules—whereabouts unknown to this earth’s scientists—was registered by this earth’s seismographs (Nature, 99-472).

Domes of Observatories look like big snail shells. Architectural symbolism. It took the astronomers about three years to learn that they had photographed the new star in Hercules (Pop. Astro., March, 1920). If newspaper editors were like astronomers, they’d send out photographers, rather busily, and, perhaps years later, if they could condescend from journalism into doing some newspaper work, they’d examine plates. They’d tell of a fire that had occurred long before. They’d write up some fashion notes upon the modes in their readers’ childhood. Like dealers in stale stars, they’d wonder at a lack of public interest.

Upon March 6, 1918, black rain fell from the sky, in Ireland (Symons’ Met. Mag., 53-29). If our preconceptions so direct, we relate this occurrence with smoky discharges from factory chimneys of South Wales, or somewhere else in Great Britain—and it is better that we do not ask why black rains are not common near Pittsburgh. Or we note that the next night there was in the sky a crimson appearance that worried many communities in Europe and North America. For a week there were, in the newspapers of New York and London, descriptions of this glare, and comments upon it. People thought that there was a great fire somewhere. I give data for thinking that there may have been a volcanic eruption somewhere.

March 6th—the fall of black rain. March 7th—the glare in the sky. March 9th—down upon this earth fell dusts in volumes that were proportional to the glare. See Amer. Jour. Sci., Monthly Weather Review, and Sci. Amer., of this period. There was a fall of dust in Wisconsin, and in Michigan; and there was a fall of dust in Vermont. These falls, so far apart—in Ireland, in Western States, and in Vermont—look like what is called indication of an origin somewhere beyond this earth. There is no findable record of any disturbance upon this earth, by which to explain. No new star was reported, but there may have been a stellar eruption in a part of the daytime sky, reflecting in a glare, at night. There may have been relation with an occurrence in June. In the meantime, there were several remarkable glares in the sky.

Early in the evening of June 8th, of this year 1918, two men, one of them in Madras, India, and the other in South Africa, looked up at the sky, and saw a brilliant new star in the constellation Aquila. Each of them notified an Observatory, which had not been observing. Evening of the 8th—Harvard University Observatory notified by an amateur. The astronomers of Harvard had seen nothing new, but telegram after telegram came to them from other amateurs. Whatever else the astronomers of Lick Observatory were doing, I don’t know. They were probably calculating. But they, too, were receiving telegrams, and when told, by amateurs, to look up at the sky, and see a new star, they looked up at the sky, and saw the new star. See Pubs. Astro. Soc. Pacific, August, 1918. Besides the amateur in Madras, an amateur in Northern India notified the Observatories (Nature, 102-105). English Mechanic, August 9—professionals of New Zealand notified by an amateur. In Nature, 101-285, is published a list of amateurs, who, in England, had reported this new star to official centers of unobservation. There is only one record of a professional astronomer, who, without information from amateurs, saw this new star. One of the astronomers of Greenwich Observatory had looked up at the sky, and had seen this new star. Nature, 101-285—that he had seen it, but had not recognized that it was a new star. One of the amateurs who saw it, and recognized it, was a schoolboy named Wragge (London Times, June 21). The Lisbon Observatory was notified by a boy, aged 14 (Observatory, 41-292).

Chapter 30

I am thinking of an abstraction that was noted by Aristotle, and that was taken by Hegel, for the basis of his philosophy: That wherever there is a conflict of extremes, there is an outcome that is not absolute victory on either side, but is a compromise, or what Hegel called “the union of complementaries.”

Our own controversy is an opposition of extremes:

That this earth moves swiftly;

That this earth is stationary.

In terms of controversies and their outcomes, I cannot think that either of these sides can be altogether right, or will absolutely defeat the other, when comes some way of finding out, and settling this issue.

The idea of stationariness came first. Then, as a sheer, mechanical reaction—inasmuch as Copernicus had not one datum that a conventionalist of today would accept as meaning anything—came the idea of a swiftly moving earth. An intermediate view will probably appear and prevail.

My own notion of equilibrium between these extremes, backed up with our chapters of data, is that, within a revolving, starry shell that, relatively to the extravagances of the astronomical extremists, is not far away, this roundish earth is almost central, but is not absolutely stationary, having various slight movements. Perhaps it does rotate, but within a period of a year. Like everybody else, I have my own notions upon what constitutes reasonableness, and this is my idea of a compromise.

The primary view had for its support the highest mathematical authoritativeness of its era. Now, so has the secondary view. Mathematics has been as subservient to one view as the other.

Mostly our data have been suggestive, or correlative, but it may be that there are visual indications of a concave land in the sky, or of a substantial shell around this earth. There are dark places in the sky, and some of them have the look of land. They are called “dark nebulae.” Some astronomers have speculated upon them, as glimpses of a limiting outline of a system as a whole. See back to Dolmage, quoted upon this subject. My own notion is of a limiting, outlining substance that I call a “shell.” “Dark nebulae” have the look of bare, or starless, patches of a shell. Some of them may be formations that are projections from a shell. They hang like super-stalactites in a vast and globular cave. At least one of these appearances has the look of a mountain peak. In several books by astronomers plates of this object have appeared. See Duncan’s Astronomy. It is known as the Horse-head nebula. It stands out, as a vast, sullen refusal to mix into a frenzy of phosphorescent confetti. It is a solid-looking gloom, such as, some election night, the Woolworth Building would be, if Republican, and all the rest of Broadway hysterical with a Democratic celebration. Over its summit comes light, like the fringe of dawn topping a mountain. Something is shining behind this formation, but penetrates no more than it would shine through a mountain.

It may be that relatively there are few stars—that hosts of tiny lights in the sky are reflections, upon irregularities of the shell-land, from large stars.

Among expressions that I have not developed is one that is suggested by a circumstance that astronomers consider strange. This is that some variable stars have a period of about a year. Just what variations of stars that are said to be trillions of miles away could have to do with a period upon this ultra-remote earth cannot be conceived of in orthodox terms. The suggestion is that these lights, with variations corresponding with advances and recessions of the sun, moving spirally around this almost stationary earth, are reflections of sunlight from points of land, or from lakes in extinct, or dormant craters. It may be that many variations of light that have been attributed to “companions” are tidal phenomena in celestial lakes that shine as reflections from the sun, or from other stars, which may be lakes of molten lava.

There is a formation in the constellation Cygnus that has often been noted. It is faintly luminescent, but this light, according to Prof. Hubble, is a reflection from the star Deneb. It is shaped like North America, and it is known as the America nebula. Out from its Gulf of Mexico are islands of light. One of these may be a San Salvador some day.

Like Alaska to birds from the north, the Horse-head nebula stands out from its background, like something to fly to.

Star after star after star has blazed a story, sometimes publishing tragedy on earth, illustrated with spectacles in the heavens. But, when transcribed into human language, these communications are depopularized with “determinations” and “pronouncements.” So our tribes have left these narratives of fires and smokes and catastrophes to the wisemen, who have made titanic tales unintelligible with their little technical jargons. The professionals will not unprofessionalize; they will not give up their system. Where have the wisemen ever done so among the Eskimos, or the hairy Ainus, the Zulus, or the Kaffirs? Whatever we are, they are acting to keep us whatever we are, as the Zulus are kept whatever they are. We are beguiled by snoozers, who have been beaten time after time by schoolboys.

There’s a fire in the sky, and ashes and smoke and dust reach this earth, as sometimes after an eruption of Vesuvius, discharges reach Paris. There may be volcanoes in a land of the sky, so close to this earth that, if intervening space be not airless and most intensely cold, an expedition could sail away in a dash to the stars that would be a bold and magnificent trifle.

Chapter 31

Besides the new star, which was an object so conspicuous that it was discovered widely, except by astronomers, there was another astronomical occurrence in the month of June, 1918—an eclipse of the sun. It was observed in Oregon. We can’t expect such a check up as when Coogan’s Bluff and the Consolidated Gas Company get into astronomy, but Oregonians set their alarm clocks, and looked up at the sky. See Mitchell’s Eclipses of the Sun, p. 67—the astronomers admitted an error of 14 seconds in their prediction.

Measurements of ordinary refinement are in hair-breadths, but a hair is coarse material to the ethereal astronomers, who use filaments spun by spiders. And just where do the astronomers get their cobwebs? This book of ours is full of mysteries, but here is something that is not one of them.

My own opinion is that an error of only 14 seconds is a very creditable approximation. But it is a huge and grotesque blunder, when compared with the fairy-like refinements that the astronomers dream are theirs, in matters that cannot be so easily checked up.

To readers who are not clear upon this point, I repeat that predictions of eclipses cannot be cited in support of conventionality against our own expressions, because, whether upon the basis that this earth moves, or is stationary, eclipses can be predicted—and Lo! come to pass. But Lo! if, looking on, there be an intelligent representative of the Consolidated Gas Company, or an Oregonian with an alarm clock, predictions aren’t just exactly what they should be.

We have divided astronomers into professionals and amateurs: but, wherever there are differences there is somewhere the merging-point that demonstrates continuity. W. F. Denning represents the amateur-professional merging-point. He has never had a job—though it does not look to me that job is the right word—in an Observatory, but he has written a great deal upon astronomical matters. He is an accountant, in the city of Bristol, England. Has nothing to do with Observatories, but has a celebrated back yard. Upon the night of Aug. 20, 1920, Denning sat in his back yard, and, in surroundings that were touched up most unacademically by cats on the fences, though Observatory-like enough, with snores from back windows, he discovered Nova Cygni III. This is another instance of a new star appearing close to where there had been preceding new stars, as if all were eruptions in one region of especially active volcanic land. There were earthquakes in this period. In the United States, there were the sudden deluges that are called “cloudbursts.” Upon the night of August 28th, a seismic wave drowned 200 persons, on the island of Saghalien, off the east coast of Siberia.

For four nights, astronomers of the so-called Observatories had been photographing this star. Students of phenomena of somnambulism will be interested in our data. When Denning woke up the astronomers, they looked at what they had been unconsciously doing, and learned that from the 16th of the month, this star had risen from 7th to about 3rd magnitude. A star of 3rd magnitude is a conspicuous star. In the whole sky there are (photographic magnitudes) only 111 of this size. At any one time not more than 40 of them are visible. The limit of visibility, without a telescope, is somewhere between the 6th and 7th magnitudes. So it is said. According to our data, the limit of seeing depends upon who’s looking.

I wonder what ironic fellow first called these snug, little centers of inattention Observatories. He had a wit of his own, whoever he was.

Discovery of the new star, if not a comet, of Aug. 7, 1921, has been attributed to a professional wiseman (Director Campbell, of Lick Dormitory). But it was a brilliant and conspicuous appearance. Most of the new stars that professionals have discovered, or have had discovered for them, by the not very eagle-eyed females of Harvard, have been small points on photographic plates. English Mechanic, 114-211—records of observations by four amateurs, before the time of Director Campbell’s “discovery.” One of these observations was twenty-four hours earlier.

Sometime ago, I read an astronomer’s complaint against heavy traffic near an “Observatory.” Though now I have different ideas as to an astronomer’s dislike for disturbance, night times, I was not so experienced then, and innocently supposed that he meant that delicate instruments were jarred.

A convention of Methodist ministers—and how agreeable it would be to note, in the midst of preciseness and purity, one of these parsons standing on his head

Or see the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1922—upon page 400 there is a diagram.

Mistakes that I make—and errors of yours—

Contrasting with the much-advertised divinity of the astronomers.

Page 400—in the midst of a learned treatise upon “adiabatic expansions” and “convective equilibrium” is printed a diagram. It is upside down.

I attended this convention of pedantries, of course inspired by a religious faith that is mine that I’d not have to look far for a crook in its bombast, or somewhere a funny little touch of waywardness in its irreproachability, but especially I attended to pick out something of which, in this year 1922, the astronomers were boasting, to contrast with something they were doing. I picked out a long laudation upon an astronomer who had received a gold medal for predicting the motions of a star-cluster for a term of 100,000,000,000 years, to contrast with—

Sept. 20, 1922—an eclipse of the sun—see Mitchell’s Eclipses of the Sun, p. 67—and the predictions by the astronomers. They made one error of 16 seconds, and another error of 20 seconds.

There are persons who do not believe in ordinary fortune tellers. Yet, without a quiver in their credulities, they read of an astronomical gypsy who tells the fortunes of a star for 100,000,000,000 years, though, according to conventionality, that star is 60 × 60 × 24 × 365 × 100,000 times farther away than is the moon, motions of which cannot be exactly foretold, unless the observations are going to be, say at Bahia de Paranagua, or somewhere in Jungaria.

The eclipse of Sept. 20, 1922, was checked up by police constables, in Australia. But the eclipse of Oct. 21, 1930, was observed at Niuafou. This time the dispatches sent by the astronomers told of “a complete success.” “The eclipse began exactly as predicted.”

There are records of seeming new stars that have blazed up, like spasmodic eruptions, then dying out. For Dr. Anderson’s report upon one of these appearances, May 8, 1923, see Popular Astronomy, 31-422. Upon the 7th, Etna was active; earthquake in Anatolia; extraordinary rise and fall of the Mediterranean, at Gibraltar. The “Observatories” missed Dr. Anderson’s observation, but at one of them a small, new star was photographed, night of May 5th. I neglected to note whether, on a photographic plate, this was immediately detected. See Pop. Astro., 31-420.

Upon Feb. 13, 1923, an increase of the star Beta Ceti was reported. There was interest in the newspapers. Maps of the sky were published. If newspapers start first-paging astronomical occurrences, putting down X-marks for stars, as well as for positions of bodies of the murdered, there will be more interest. This is dangerous to the astronomers, but so long as their technicalities hold out, they have good protection. Even so there might be inquiries into what the “Observatories” are doing, when, time after time, only amateurs are observing. The “Observatories” had of course missed this rise of Beta Ceti, but, when told by an amateur where to look, professionals at Yerkes and Juvisy confirmed the report. For the fullest account, see the Bull. Soc. Astro. de France, of this period. Upon February 22nd, a yellow dust, perhaps a discharge from an increased volcanic activity in Cetus, fell from the sky, in Westphalia (London Evening Standard, February 27). The amateur, this time, was a schoolboy, aged 16.

Night of May 27, 1925—the Rip Van Winkles of the South African “Observatory” were disturbed by an amateur. He told them that there was a new star in the southern constellation Pictor. When they were aroused, the Rips looked up and saw the new star, and then stayed awake long enough to learn that somnambulically they had, for months, been photographing it. For months it had been gleaming over the “Observatories” of four continents.

There are slits in the domes of Observatories.

The fixed grin of a clown—the slit in the dome of an Observatory.

Sept. 21, 1930—that the astronomers had ascertained the heat received from a thirteenth magnitude star to be 631 times that of the heat from the faintest star visible to the unaided eye—that this faintest visible star radiates upon the whole United States no more heat than the sun radiates upon one square yard of said U. S.

A grin in the dark—or the sardonic slit in any Observatory, night times. Most likely the inmates haven’t a notion what is symbolized. But we contrast an alleged perception of 631 times the inconceivable with this item, in Popular Astronomy, 1925, p. 540:

That 44 nights before the amateur’s discovery, Nova Pictoris had shone as a star of third magnitude, and had been perceived by no astronomer.

The Building That Laughs—as a modern Victor Hugo would call an Observatory with a slit in it.

Fixed grin of the clown—and, according to theatrical conventions, his head is full of seriousness.

Sept. 24, 1930—this is what came from a Building That Laughed, though its dome was full of astronomers:

That, according to spectroscopic determinations, at Mt. Wilson, a distant nebula is moving away from this earth, at a rate of 6,800 miles a second; that, upon the day of the calculations, the distance of this nebula was 75,000,000 × 60 × 60 × 24 × 365 × 186,000 miles.

To appreciate the clownishness of this, see our data for accepting that the spectroscope tells about what is told by tea leaves in a teacup—which is considerable, if one wants to be told considerable. To realize the pathos of this, think of the grinning old clown, whose gags have played out; who is driven to most extravagant antics to hold a little attention.

Our general expression is that the inmates of this earth’s “Observatories” are not astronomers, but are mathematicians. Since medieval times there has never been a shake-up in this system of ancient lore, comparable with Lyellism in geology, or Darwinism in biology, or the reconstructions of thought brought about by radioactivity, in physics and chemistry. Einsteinism was a slight shock, but it is concerned with differences of minute quantities. Mathematicians are incurable. They are inert to the new, because the new is a surprise, and mathematics concerns itself with the expected. It does occur to me that there might be good results, if the next millionaire who contemplates donating a big telescope, should, instead, send around to the “Observatories” big quantities of black coffee: but such is the concordance between the twinkles of the stars and the nods of drowsy heads that I’d not much like to disturb such harmony.

Nova Pictoris, like many other so-called new stars, was an increase of an old star. For twenty-five years it had from time to time been photographed as a speck of the 12th magnitude.

There is nothing on any photographic plate to indicate that another star was going to collide with it. It went up, just as dimly shining, or only slightly active, volcanoes of this earth sometimes become violent.

No star has ever been seen to cross another star, but just such changes as have been seen in volcanoes of this earth have been seen in stars. Mostly, in their books, astronomers, telling of what they call “proper motion,” do all that they can to give an impression of the stars as moving with tremendous velocities, but here is Newcomb (Astronomy for Everybody, p. 327) quoted upon the subject: “If Ptolemy should come to life, after his sleep of nearly eighteen hundred years, and be asked to compare the heavens as they are now with those of his time, he would not be able to see the slightest difference in the configuration of a single constellation.”

And, if Ptolemy should come back, and be asked to compare the Mediterranean lands as they are now with those of his time, he would not be able to see the slightest difference in the configuration of any land—even though erosions of various kinds have been constant.

What Orion was, Orion is, in the sense that what the configuration of Italy was, it now is—in the sense that in all recorded time Italy has been booting Sicily, but has never scored a goal.

There is no consistency, and there is no inconsistency in our hyphenated state of phenomenal being: there is consistency-inconsistency. Everything that is inconsistent with something is consistent with something else. In the oneness of allness, I am, in some degree or aspect, guilty of, or infected with, or suffering from, everything that I attack. Now, I, too, am aristocratic. Let anybody else who is as patrician as I now am read this book, and contrast the principles of orthodox astronomy with the expressions in this book, and ask himself:

Which is the easier and lazier way, with the lesser necessity for effort, and with the lesser need for the use of brains, and therefore the more aristocratic view:

That for, say eighteen hundred years, stars have scarcely moved, because, though changes in them have often been seen, they are too far away for changes in them to be observed;

Or that the stars have scarcely moved, because they are points in a shell-like formation that holds them in place?

However, the orthodox visualization of stars rushing at terrific velocities, in various directions, and never getting anywhere, is so in accordance with the unachievements of all other phenomenal things that I’d feel my heresies falter were it not for other data—But what of other data—or of other circumstances?

In this day of everybody’s suspicion against “circumstantial evidence,” just what is not generally realized is that orthodox astronomy is founded upon nothing but circumstantial evidence. Also all our data, and repetitions and agreements of data, are nothing but circumstantial evidence. Simply mention “circumstantial evidence” relatively, say to a murder trial, and most of us look doubtful. Consequently I have only expressions and acceptances.

Other data—or other circumstances—

Last of March, 1928—that Nova Pictoris had split into two parts. Part was seen to have moved from part, as divisions occur in this earth’s volcanoes.

So then, when changes of positions of stars do occur, the stars are not so far away that changes of position cannot be seen.

Ten little astronomers squinting through a tube—or more characteristically employed—or looking at a mirror. They had been told, upon the highest authority, that the star Capella had a companion. Said they—or announced they—they saw it—or perceived it. Having calmed down, in the matter of “dust from an African desert,” but seeming to have a need for something to be furious about, I now turn my indignations upon “companion stars.” Most persons have, in their everyday affairs, plenty to annoy them: but it seems that I must have something of exclusiveness to my annoyances. If stars be volcanoes in a concave land, surrounding this earth, the notion of “companion stars” perhaps enrages me, because I do not visualize one volcano revolving around another volcano. If some stars do revolve around other stars, I may as well give up this book, as a whole—or I shall have to do some explaining.

Which won’t be much trouble. Explaining is equilibrating. That is what all things phenomenal are doing. I now have a theory that once upon a time our existence was committed as a bad error, and that everything in it has been excusing itself, or has in one way or another been equilibrating, ever since. It is as natural to a human being to explain as it is to a lodestone to adjust to a magnet.

Let anybody look up “determinations” upon the “dark companion” of Algol, for instance. He will find record not of a theory, but of theory after theory replacing one another. In the matter of the light ones, let him look up data upon the “light companion” of Sirius. He will read in the textbooks that around Sirius a light star revolves, with a most accurately known period, which demonstrates the soundness of mathematical astronomy. But, in scientific journals, which are not so uncompromisingly committed to propaganda, he will read that this is not so. A faint light has, at various times, been reported near Sirius, in positions that do not accord with the calculated orbit. For no mention of this discrepancy, read the books that reach the general public.

March, 1928—the split of Nova Pictoris. There was cataclysm in a southern constellation. At the same time there were catastrophes in southern parts of this earth. See back to other expressions upon seeming relations between parts of this earth and parts of the sky that would be nearest to each other, if the stars be points in a shell of land that is not enormously far away, but could not be appreciably nearer, if the stars were trillions of miles away. I take all data from New York newspapers. Quakes in Italy, and a glare in the sky at the time (March 31st) of a quake in Smyrna—”sky aflame.” The heaviest rain in 50 years poured in Honduras, April 9th—Peru shaking, this day—such a fall of snow in Chile that 200 persons and thousands of farm animals were reported to be buried in drifts—quakes and panics in Mexico—

Orthodoxy—all this by mere coincidence—

Our expression—that nebulous rings were going out from Nova Pictoris, just as rings of smoke and dust go out from Vesuvius, during an eruption.

The 14th of April was the day of the Bulgarian devastations. Quakes continuing in Bulgaria—quakes in Mexico—towns rocking in southern Mexico—quakes continuing in Peru. Quakes in Greece, on the 19th—a violent snowstorm in Poland, this day. Torrents were pouring upon the quaking land of Bulgaria. A De Ballore, or a Davison, or a Milne, would not mention these torrents, in an account of this quake. The severest shock ever recorded in Johannesburg, South Africa, occurred upon the 21st. The next day, Corinth, Greece, was wrecked, and torrents fell from the sky, at the time of this quake.

Nova Pictoris broke into four parts—and the cities of Greece wailed rushes of people. Seeming discharges moving out from the new star—and “A five-hour rain of mud filled streets ankle high, causing terror at Lemburg and Cernowitz, today” (New York Sun, April 27th).

Wails of the cities of Greece—and they subsided into sodden despairs that were processions of stretchers. Somewhere in a building that collapsed, fell a sparrow.

The road from Corinth—refugees and their belongings—

Terrified mules, up on their hind legs, hoofing storms of bundles—yells and prayers and the laughter of jokers—a screaming woman, shaking bloody hands—her fingers had been hacked off, for the rings on them. Crying kids, whose parents were pulps—prayers to God, or to the blessed something or another—the screams of the woman, with stumps of fingers—

Sudden consciousness of a pulsation.

A rhythm of gleams appears in distant sunlight.

Stars that are watched through the windows of prisons—or through openings in any of the other hells of this earth—and it may be that if all the stars should start to twinkle in unison, the hells of this earth would vibrate out of existence.

There’s a rhythm of gleams on distant bayonets. Along the road is marching a column of soldiers.

The swing of these gleams—and it tranquilizes panic. It glistens into new formations. There are long lines of sparkles in sunlight—tin cups are undulating toward soup kettles.

Somewhere else there is an injured sparrow. Storages in its body are giving to its needs from their substance—the tranquilizing of its heart beats, and the reduction of its fever—the rebuilding of its tissues.

A British squadron appears in the Bay of Corinth—an Italian warship—an American cruiser. From centers of the American Near East Relief are streaming 6,000 blankets—10,500 tents—5,000 cases of condensed milk—carloads of flour.

If we can think that around this earth, and not too vastly far away, there is a starry shell, here are the outlines within which to think of our existence as an organism.

Nov. 28, 1930—an enormous fall, from the sky, of dust and mud, in France. I shall not get perhaps all worked up again about this, but I mention that it was attributed to a hurricane in the Sahara Desert.

Dec. 5, 1930—the poisonous gas, in Belgium. See back to the account, in this book.

Accept that these two phenomena were probably volcanic discharges, from regions external to this earth—if for them there be no terrestrial explanation—one in France and one in Belgium—arriving relatively near each other, but a week apart—and here is another of our data of this earth’s stationariness.

This earth broke out, as if responsively to disturbances somewhere else—volcanic eruptions and disastrous quakes.

December 24-26—violent quakes in Argentina and in Alaska—and, between these far-distant places, there was a spectacular arrival of something that may have been a volcanic bomb from a stellar volcano. New York Times, Dec. 26, 1930—the great meteor that was seen and heard in Idaho. “The crash, heard for miles, was described as `like an earthquake.’”

The deluge that was “only a coincidence,” poured upon the quaking land of Argentina. “Rain fell in such torrents that the water was three feet deep in several parts of Mendoza City.” A “strange glow” was seen in the sky. “Great spears of colored lights flashed across the sky.”

Into the month of January, 1931, disturbances upon this earth continued. There may have been a new star. I have the authority of amateurs for thinking so. New York Times, Jan. 7, 1931—that, at San Juan, Porto Rico, morning of January 6th, from ten o’clock until noon, a strange star had been seen in the western sky. According to an opinion from the Weather Bureau, it may have been, not a star, but the planet Venus. This Venus-explanation of lights that have been seen in the sky, in the daytime, is a standard explanation; but according to records it has often not applied.

Catastrophes and deluges—and, if we can accept that around this earth there is only a thin zone of extreme coldness, which, by the stresses of storms and other variations, may often be penetrated by terrestrial evaporations, so that, unless replenished from reservoirs somewhere else, this earth would go dry, we can understand a mechanism of necessary transportations of floods from the stars to this earth.

Flows of insects and the patter of frogs, and the Pilgrims cross the Atlantic Ocean. Metabolism in the foot of a frog—and in the United States a similar readjustment is known as the Civil War. The consciousness of philosophers and theologians and scientists, and to some degree of everybody else, of a state of Oneness—and my expression is that the misinterpretation has been in trying to think of Universality, or the Absolute. Give me more data for thinking that around this earth there is a starry shell that is not vastly far away, and here is the base for a correlation of all things phenomenal.

Chapter 32

Star after star after star—and the signs that there were, at the times of them. Quake after quake after quake—and the sights in the sky, at the times of them. Star after quake after deluge—the sky boils with significances—there are tempests of indications.

There’s a beam of light in the sky, and it dips into a star. Spattering ponds of ink, it scribbles information. The story is that a vast and habitable land surrounds this earth. It is fertile, if showers of organic substances that have fallen from the sky, came from there. The variable stars are intermittent signs that are advertising enormous real estate opportunities. The story is declaimed by meteors, but most of us stolid ones aren’t going to be persuaded by any such sensational appeal to the emotions. The story is more obscurely told with clouds of dust that strew Europe. Most of us can’t take a hint the size of a continent.

The searchlights of the sun play upon a celebration in the sky. It has been waiting ages to mean something. Just at present known as the Milky Way, it’s the Broadway of the Sky, and some day explorers from this earth may parade it—

If this earth is stationary.

According to a great deal in this book, that may be a matter of no importance, nor bearing. If we accept that Teleportation, as a “natural force,” exists, and suspect that some human beings have known this and have used it; and, if we think that the culmination of a series of tele-operations will be the commercial and recreational teleportation of objects and beings, we are concerned little with other considerations, and conceive of inhabitants of this earth willing themselves—if that’s the way it’s done—to Mars, or the moon, or Polaris. But I take for a proposition that there is an underlying irony, if not sadism, in our existence, which rejoices in driving the most easily driven beings of this earth into doing, at enormous pains and expenses, the unnecessary—the building of complicated telegraph-systems, with the use of two wires—then reducing to one wire—then the discovery that the desired effects could be achieved wirelessly. Labors and sufferings of early Arctic explorers to push northward over piles of ice, at a rate of three or four miles a day—then Byrd does it with a whir.

Consequently, I concern myself with data for what may be a new field of enormous labors and sufferings, costs of lives and fortunes, misery and bereavements, until finally will come awareness that all this is unnecessary.

Upon this basis of mechanical and probably unnecessary voyagings—unless to something disasters to the beings of this earth be necessary—the most important consideration is whether this earth is stationary. There can be no mechanical, or suffering exploration from something that is somewhere one day, and the next day 60 × 60 × 24 × 19 miles away from there.

Then comes the subject of conditions surrounding this earth. If common suppositions be right, or if this earth be surrounded by a void that is intensely cold, penetration to anywhere beyond would probably be, anyway at present, impossible.

I compare ideas upon outer space with former ideas upon spaces in the Arctic regions. Resistances to the idea of exploration are similar. But in the wintertime, Arctic regions are not colder than are some of the inhabited parts of Canada. Stefansson, the Arctic explorer, has written that the worst blizzards ever seen by him were in North Dakota. Prevailing ideas as to the intensity of cold surrounding this earth, and preventing exploration, may be as far astray as are prevailing ideas as to Arctic coldness.

Outer space may not be homogeneously cold, and may be zoned, or pathed, with warm areas. Everything of which one knows little has the guise of homogeneousness. If anybody has a homogeneous impression of anything, that is something that he is going to be surprised about.

In the London Daily Mail, Jan. 29, 1924, Alan Cobham tells of one of his flights in India. “The air was quite warm, at 17,000 feet, but, as we descended to lower altitudes, it become gradually cooler, and, at 12,000 feet it was icy cold.”

“The higher the colder” is a fixed idea, just as formerly was the supposition that the farther north the colder the atmosphere. Many reports by aviators and mountain climbers agree. Everybody who does anything out of the ordinary has to think that he suffered. It is one of his compensations. But fixed ideas have a way of not staying fixed.

I’d like to know how astronomers get around their idea that comets are mostly of a gaseous composition, if gases would solidify at the temperature in which they suppose those comets to be moving.

But stationariness—and what’s the good of any of these speculations and collections of data, if by no conceivable agility could a returning explorer board a world scooting away from him at a rate of 19 miles a second?

In early times, upholders of the idea of stationariness of this earth argued that a swiftly moving planet would leave its atmosphere behind. But it was said that the air partakes of the planet’s motions. Nevertheless, it was agreed that, far from this earth’s surface, air, if existing, would not partake of the motions. No motions of this earth away from them have ever been detected by aviators but it is said that they have not gone up high enough. But will an aviator, starting northward, from somewhere near the equator, partaking we’ll say of an axial swing of 1,000 miles an hour, making for a place where the swing is, we’ll say, 800 miles an hour, be opposed by the westward motion that he started with, amounting to 200 miles an hour, at his destination? How would he ever get there, without consciously opposing this transverse force, from the beginning of his flight? In the winter of 1927-28, flying south, and then north, Col. Lindbergh reported no indication of different axial velocities. Whether this earth is stationary, or not, his experience was the same as it would be if this earth were stationary. Or Admiral Byrd over the south pole of this earth. From a point of this earth, theoretically of no axial motion, he flew northward. He flew over land, which, relatively to his progress, spun with increasing velocity, according to the conventionalists. It cannot be said that the air around him was strictly partaking of this alleged motion, because gusts were blowing in various directions. Admiral Byrd started northward, from a point of no axial swing, partaking, himself, of no axial swing, and, as he traveled northward, the land underneath him did not swing away from him. The air was moving in various directions.

There is another field of data. There have been occurrences in the sky which, according to conventionalists, destroy the idea of the stationariness of this earth, and prove its motions. Trying to prove anything is no attempt of mine. We shall have an expression upon luminous night clouds and meteor trains.

Rather often have been observed luminous night clouds, or night clouds that shine, presumably by reflected sunlight, but with the sun so far below the horizon of observers upon this earth that so to reflect its light the clouds would have to be 50 or 60 miles high, according to calculations. At this height, it is conceded, whatever air there may be does not partake of this earth’s motions. If this earth be rotating from west to east, these distant clouds, not partaking of terrestrial motion, would seem to move, as left behind, from east to west. For an article upon this subject, see the New York Times, April 8, 1928.

The statement that such clouds do not partake, and do seem to move from east to west, has been published by conventionalists. To an observer in Central Europe, they should, as left behind, seem to move from east to west, at a rate of about 500 miles an hour by terrestrial rotation. The statement has been made that one of these clouds was seen to “move,” from east to west, the way it should “move,” at exactly the rate that should be.

I make the statement that luminous night clouds have moved north, south, east, and west, sometimes rapidly, and sometimes slowly. If somebody can, with data that will have to be accepted, show that, more than once, luminous night clouds have moved from east to west, at a rate of 500 miles an hour in a latitude where they “should” move at a rate of 500 miles an hour I shall be glad to regret that I have backed the wrong theory—except that you can’t down any theorist so easily or at all—and up I’ll bob, pointing out that this is another of the shoulds that shouldn’t, and that the conventionalists forgot about compounding their 500 miles an hour with this earth’s supposed orbital motion of 19 miles a second.

All data upon this subject that I know anything of are interpretable as indications that this earth is stationary. For instance, look up, in Nature, and other English, and French, scientific journals, observations upon the great meteor train of Feb. 22, 1909. This appearance was thought to be as high as any luminous night cloud has been thought to be. It was so high that it was watched in France and in England. Here was something, which, because it came from externality, was not partaking of any of this earth’s supposed motions. Then it should have shot away from observers, by the compounding of two velocities. Whether it came to a stationary earth or not, it hung in the sky, as if it had come to a stationary earth, drifting considerably, but remaining in sight, about two hours.

According to this datum—and it is only one of many—an explorer could go up from this earth 50 or 60 miles, and though, according to orthodox pronouncements, the earth would spin away from him, the earth would not spin away from him.

There are data for thinking that aviators, who have gone up from the surface of this earth, as far as they supposed they could go, have missed entering conditions that, instead of being cold, may be even warmish, and may exist all the way to a not so very remote shell of stars. Somebody may want to know how it is that, if there be such data, they are not commonly known. But somebody else, who has read this book at all carefully will not ask that question.

An expression of mine is that all human achievements are compounded with objectives. Let someone go without food for a week, and that is a record of human endurance. Someone else makes his objective a week and a day, and achieves, in a dying condition. The extension goes on, and someone lives a month without food, and reaches the limit of human endurance. Aviators have set their minds upon surpassing the records of other aviators. It is possible that, with its objective a star, an expedition from this earth could, by merely reaching the limit of human endurance, arrive there.

Current Literature, September, 1924—that, 50 miles up, the air is ten times as dense as used to be supposed, and that is considerably warmer than at lower levels.

See Nature, Feb. 27, 1908, and following issues—experiments with balloons that carried temperature-recording instruments. According to Mr. W. H. Dines, about 30 balloons, which had been sent up, in Great Britain, in June, 1907, had moved through increasing coldness, then coming to somewhat warmer regions. This change was recorded at a height of about 40,000 feet.

Monthly Weather Review, 1923, page 316—that, away from this earth, the temperature falls only to a height of about 7 miles, where it is from 60 to 70 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit). “But from this altitude to as high as balloons have gone, which is about 15 miles, the temperature has remained about the same.”

It is said that, according to observations upon light-effects of meteor trains, there are reasons for thinking that, in their zone of from 30 to 50 miles above this earth’s surface, conditions are mild, or not even freezing.

For data that may indicate, in another field of observations, that, not enormously far away, there is a shell around this earth, see the newspapers of Aug. 20, 1925. According to data collected by the Naval Research Laboratory there is something, somewhere in the sky, that is deflecting electro-magnetic waves of wireless communications, in a way that is similar to the way in which sound waves are sent back by the dome of the Capitol, at Washington. The published explanation is that there is an “ionized zone” around this earth. Those waves are rebounding from something. More was published in the newspapers, May 21, 1927. The existence of “a ceiling in the sky” had been verified by experiments at Carnegie Institution. Sept. 5, 1930—a paper read by Prof. E. V. Appleton, at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. the “ionized zone” is not satisfactory. “The subject is as puzzling as it is fascinating, and no decisive answer to the problem can be given at present. From Norway had been reported experiments upon short-wave transmissions, which had been reflected back to this earth. They had come back, as if from a shell-like formation, around this earth, not unthinkably far away.

THE END