The Book of the Damned | Page 7

start, the very strong inclination of science to deny, as
much as it can, external relations of this earth.
This book is an assemblage of data of external relations of this earth.
We take the position that our data have been damned, upon no

consideration for individual merits or demerits, but in conformity with
a general attempt to hold out for isolation of this earth. This is
attempted positiveness. We take the position that science can no more
succeed than, in a similar endeavor, could the Chinese, or than could
the United States. So then, with only pseudo-consideration of the
phenomena of 1883, or as an expression of positivism in its aspect of
isolation, or unrelatedness, scientists have perpetrated such an enormity
as suspension of volcanic dust seven years in the air--disregarding the
lapse of several years--rather than to admit the arrival of dust from
somewhere beyond this earth. Not that scientists themselves have ever
achieved positiveness, in its aspect of unitedness, among
themselves--because Nordenskiold, before 1883, wrote a great deal
upon his theory of cosmic dust, and Prof. Cleveland Abbe contended
against the Krakatoan explanation--but that this is the orthodoxy of the
main body of scientists.
My own chief reason for indignation here:
That this preposterous explanation interferes with some of my own
enormities.
It would cost me too much explaining, if I should have to admit that
this earth's atmosphere has such sustaining power.
Later, we shall have data of things that have gone up in the air and that
have stayed up--somewhere--weeks--months--but not by the sustaining
power of the earth's atmosphere. For instance, the turtle of Vicksburg.
It seems to me that it would be ridiculous to think of a good-sized turtle
hanging, for three or four months, upheld only by the air, over the town
of Vicksburg. When it comes to the horse and the barn--I think that
they'll be classics some day, but I can never accept that a horse and a
barn could float several months in this earth's atmosphere.
The orthodox explanation:
See the Report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society. It
comes out absolutely for the orthodox explanation--absolutely and
beautifully, also expensively. There are 492 pages in the "Report," and

40 plates, some of them marvellously colored. It was issued after an
investigation that took five years. You couldn't think of anything done
more efficiently, artistically, authoritatively. The mathematical parts
are especially impressive: distribution of the dust of Krakatoa; velocity
of translation and rates of subsidence; altitudes and persistences --
Annual Register, 1883-105:
That the atmospheric effects that have been attributed to Krakatoa were
seen in Trinidad before the eruption occurred;
Knowledge, 5-418:
That they were seen in Natal, South Africa, six months before the
eruption.
* * *
Inertia and its inhospitality.
Or raw meat should not be fed to babies.
We shall have a few data initiatorily.
I fear me that the horse and the barn were a little extreme for our
budding liberalities.
The outrageous is the reasonable, if introduced politely.
Hailstones, for instance. One reads in the newspapers of hailstones the
size of hens' eggs. One smiles. Nevertheless I will engage to list one
hundred instances, from the Monthly Weather Review, of hailstones the
size of hens' eggs. There is an account in Nature, Nov. 1, 1894, of
hailstones that weighed almost two pounds each. See Chambers'
Encyclopedia for three-pounders. Report of the Smithsonian Institution,
1870-479--two-pounders authenticated, and six-pounders reported. At
Seringapatam, India, about the year 1800, fell a hailstone --
I fear me, I fear me: this is one of the profoundly damned. I blurt out

something that should, perhaps, be withheld for several hundred
pages--but that damned thing was the size of an elephant.
We laugh.
Or snowflakes. Size of saucers. Said to have fallen at Nashville, Tenn.,
Jan. 24, 1891. One smiles.
"In Montana, in the winter of 1887, fell snowflakes 15 inches across,
and 8 inches thick." (Monthly Weather Review, 1915-73.)
In the topography of intellection, I should say that what we call
knowledge is ignorance surrounded by laughter.
* * *
Black rains--red rains--the fall of a thousand tons of butter.
Jet-black snow--pink snow--blue hailstones--hailstones flavored like
oranges.
Punk and silk and charcoal.
* * *
About one hundred years ago, if anyone was so credulous as to think
that stones had ever fallen from the sky, he was reasoned with:
In the first place there are no stones in the sky:
Therefore no stones can fall from the sky.
Or nothing more reasonable or scientific or logical than that could be
said upon any subject. The only trouble is the universal trouble: that the
major premise is not real, or is intermediate somewhere between
realness and unrealness.
In 1772, a committee, of whom Lavoisier was a member, was
appointed by the French Academy,