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Title: New lands
Author: Charles Fort
Author of introduction, etc.: Booth Tarkington
Release date: March 24, 2026 [eBook #78289]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Boni and Liveright, 1923
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78289
Credits: Tim Lindell, David King, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW LANDS ***
New Lands
NEW LANDS
BY
CHARLES FORT
Introduction by
BOOTH TARKINGTON
BONI & LIVERIGHT PUBLISHERS: NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY
BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK
INTRODUCTION
“Personally” (as we are more wont to say in our youth than in our other
ages) I find that a book with an Introduction always worries me a
little. I want to read the book itself, not the Introduction, but for
some reason I have a feeling that it is my unpleasant _duty_ to read the
Introduction. Usually I decide to read the book first and the
Introduction afterward; but then my reading is tainted throughout by my
sense of guilt; for I have learned by experience that I never do read
the Introduction afterward. So, in time, I have reached the conclusion
that an Introduction ought to inform the reader’s mere first glance that
he needn’t feel guilty if he doesn’t read it even afterward. Adopting
this view, the author of the present Introduction finds himself
perfectly equipped for his task. Readers might be made much more
uncomfortable if the Introduction of “New Lands” were what such a book
might conventionally expect: a professionally scientific
writer—preferably an outraged practising astronomer.
* * * * *
A few years ago I had one of those pleasant illnesses that permit the
patient to read in bed for several days without self-reproach; and I
sent down to a bookstore for whatever might be available upon criminals,
crimes and criminology. Among the books brought me in response to this
morbid yearning was one with the title, “The Book of the Damned.”
I opened it, not at the first page, looking for Cartouche Jonathan Wild,
Pranzini, Lacenaire, and read the following passage:
“The fittest survive.
What is meant by the fittest?
Not the strongest; not the cleverest—
Weakness and stupidity everywhere survive.
There is no way of determining fitness except in that a thing does
survive.
‘Fitness’ then, is only another name for ‘survival.’”
Finding no Guiteau or Troppmann here, I let the pages slide under my
fingers and stopped at this:
“My own pseudo-conclusion:
That we’ve been damned by giants sound asleep, or by great
scientific principles and abstractions that cannot realize
themselves: that little harlots have visited their caprices upon us;
that clowns, with buckets of water from which they pretend to cast
thousands of good-sized fishes have anathemized us for laughing
disrespectfully, because, as with all clowns, underlying buffoonery
is the desire to be taken seriously; that pale ignorances, presiding
over microscopes by which they cannot distinguish flesh from nostoc
or fishes’ spawn or frogs’ spawn, have visited upon us their wan
solemnities. We’ve been damned by corpses and skeletons and mummies,
which twitch and totter with pseudo-life derived from conveniences.”
With some astonishment, I continued to dip into the book, sounding it
here and there, but did not bring up even so well-damned a sample of the
bottom as Benedict Arnold. Instead I got these:
“An object from which nets were suspended—
Deflated balloon with its network hanging from it—
A super-dragnet?
That something was trawling overhead?
The birds of Baton Rouge.
I think that we’re fished for. It may be we’re highly esteemed by
super-epicures somewhere.”
... “Melanicus.
That upon the wings of a super-bat, he broods over this earth and
over other worlds, perhaps deriving something from them: hovers on
wings or wing-like appendages, or planes that are hundreds of miles
from tip to tip—a super-evil thing that is exploiting us. By Evil I
mean that which makes us useful.”
... “British India Company’s steamer _Patna_, while on a voyage up
the Persian Gulf. In May, 1880, on a dark night about 11:30 P. M.
there suddenly appeared on each side of the ship an enormous
luminous wheel, whirling around, the spokes of which seemed to brush
the ship along ... and although the wheels must have been some 500
or 600 yards in diameter, the spokes could be distinctly seen all
the way round.”
... “I shall have to accept that, floating in the sky of this earth,
there are often fields of ice as extensive as those on the Arctic
Ocean—volumes of water in which are many fishes and frogs—tracts of
land covered with caterpillars—”
... “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.”
... “A race of tiny beings
They crucified cockroaches.
Exquisite beings—”
But here I turned back to the beginning and read this vigorous and
astonishing book straight through, and then re-read it for the pleasure
it gave me in the way of its writing and in the substance of what it
told. Doré should have illustrated it, I thought, or Blake. Here indeed
was a “brush dipped in earthquake and eclipse”; though the wildest
mundane earthquakes are but earthquakes in teapots compared to what goes
on in the visions conjured up before us by Mr. Charles Fort. For he
deals in nightmare, not on the planetary, but on the constellational
scale, and the imagination of one who staggers along after him is
frequently left gasping and flaccid.
Now he has followed “The Book of the Damned” with “New Lands” pointing
incidentally to Mars as “the San Salvador of the Sky,” and renewing his
passion for the dismayingly significant “damned—” tokens and strange
hints excluded by the historically mercurial acceptances of “Dogmatic
Science.” Of his attack on the astronomers it can at least be said that
the literature of indignation is enriched by it.
To the “university-trained mind” here is wildness almost as wild as
Roger Bacon’s once appeared to be; though of course even the layest of
lay brothers must not assume that all wild science will in time become
accepted law, as some of Roger’s did. Retort to Mr. Fort must be left to
the outraged astronomer, if indeed any astronomer could feel himself so
little outraged as to offer a retort. Lay brethren are outside the
quarrel and must content themselves with gratitude to a man who writes
two such books as “New Lands” and “The Book of the Damned”; gratitude
for passages and pictures—moving pictures—of such cyclonic activity and
dimensions that a whole new area of a reader’s imagination stirs in
amazement and is brought to life.
BOOTH TARKINGTON.
PART I
NEW LANDS
CHAPTER ONE
Lands in the sky—
That they are nearby—
That they do not move.
I take for a principle that all being is the infinitely serial, and that
whatever has been will, with differences of particulars, be again—
The last quarter of the fifteenth century—land to the west!
This first quarter of the twentieth century—we shall have revelations.
There will be data. There will be many. Behind this book, unpublished
collectively, or held as constituting its reserve forces, there are
other hundreds of data, but independently I take for a principle that
all existence is a flux and a re-flux, by which periods of expansion
follow periods of contraction; that few men can even think widely when
times are narrow times, but that human constrictions can not repress
extensions of thoughts and lives and enterprise and dominion when times
are wider times—so then that the pageantry of foreign coasts that was
revealed behind blank horizons after the year 1492, can not be, in the
course of development, the only astounding denial of seeming
vacancy—that the spirit, or the animation, and the stimulations and the
needs of the fifteenth century are all appearing again, and that
requital may appear again—
Aftermath of war, as in the year 1492: demands for readjustments;
crowded and restless populations, revolts against limitations,
intolerable restrictions against emigrations. The young man is no longer
urged, or is no longer much inclined, to go westward. He will, or must,
go somewhere. If directions alone no longer invite him, he may hear
invitation in dimensions. There are many persons, who have not
investigated for themselves, who think that both poles of this earth
have been discovered. There are too many women traveling luxuriously in
“Darkest Africa.” Eskimos of Disco, Greenland, are publishing a
newspaper. There must be outlet, or there will be explosion—
Outlet and invitation and opportunity—
San Salvadors of the Sky—a Plymouth Rock that hangs in the heavens of
Servia—a foreign coast from which storms have brought materials to the
city of Birmingham, England.
Or the mentally freezing, or dying, will tighten their prohibitions, and
the chill of their censorships will contract, to extinction, our lives,
which, without sin, represent matter deprived of motion. Their ideal is
Death, or approximate death, warmed over occasionally only enough to
fringe with uniform, decorous icicles—from which there will be no
escape, if, for the living and sinful and adventurous there be not San
Salvadors somewhere else, a Plymouth Rock of reversed significance,
coasts of sky-continents.
But every consciousness that we have of needs, and all hosts,
departments, and sub-divisions of data that indicate the possible
requital of needs are opposed—not by the orthodoxy of the common
Puritans, but by the Puritans of Science, and their austere,
disheartening, dried or frozen orthodoxy.
Islands of space—see _Sci. Amer._, vol. this and p. that—accounts from
the _Repts. of the Brit. Assoc. for the Ad. of Sci._—_Nature_
etc.—except for an occasional lapse, our sources of data will not be
sneered at. As to our interpretations, I consider them, myself, more as
suggestions and gropings and stimuli. Islands of space and the rivers
and the oceans of an extra-geography—
Stay and let salvation damn you—or straddle an auroral beam and paddle
it from Rigel to Betelgeuse. If there be no accepting that there are
such rivers and oceans beyond this earth, stay and travel upon
steamships with schedules that can be depended upon, food so well cooked
and well served, comfort looked after so carefully—or some day board the
thing that was seen over the city of Marseilles, Aug. 19, 1887, and ride
on that, bearing down upon the moon, giving up for lost, escaping
collision by the swirl of a current that was never heard of before.
There are, or there are not, nearby cities of foreign existences. They
have, or they have not, been seen, by reflection, in the skies, of
Sweden and Alaska. As one will. Whether acceptable, or too preposterous
to be thought of, our data are of rabbles of living things that have
been seen in the sky; also of processions of military beings—monsters
that live in the sky and die in the sky, and spatter this earth with
their red life-fluids—ships from other worlds that have been seen by
millions of the inhabitants of this earth, exploring, night after night,
in the sky of France, England, New England, and Canada—signals from the
moon, which, according to notable indications, may not be so far from
this earth as New York is from London—definitely reported and, in some
instances, multitudinously witnessed, events that have been disregarded
by our opposition—
A scientific priestcraft—
“Thou shalt not!” is crystallized in its frozen textbooks.
I have data upon data upon data of new lands that are not far away. I
hold out expectations and the materials of new hopes and new despairs
and new triumphs and new tragedies. I hold out my hands to point to the
sky—there is a hierarchy that utters me manacles, I think—there is a
dominant force that pronounces prisons that have dogmas for walls for
such thoughts. It binds its formulas around all attempting extensions.
But sounds have been heard in the sky. They have been heard, and it is
not possible to destroy the records of them. They have been heard. In
their repetitions and regularities of series and intervals, we shall
recognize perhaps interpretable language. Columns of clouds,
different-colored by sunset, have vibrated to the artillery of other
worlds like the strings of a cosmic harp, and I conceive of no buzzing
of insects that can forever divert attention from such dramatic
reverberations. Language has shone upon the dark parts of the moon:
luminous exclamations that have fluttered in the lunar crater
Copernicus; the eloquence of the starlike light in Aristarchus; hymns
that have been chanted in lights and shades upon Linné; the wilder,
luminous music in Plato—
But not a sound that has been heard in the sky, not a thing that has
fallen from the sky, not a thing that “should not be,” but that has
nevertheless been seen in the sky can we, with any sense of freedom,
investigate, until first we find out about the incubus that in the past
has suffocated even speculation. I shall find out for myself: anybody
who cares to may find out with me. A ship from a foreign world does, or
does not, sail in the sky of this earth. It is in accordance with
observations by hundreds of thousands of witnesses that this event has
taken place, and, if the time be when aeronautics upon this earth is of
small development, that is an important circumstance to consider—but
there is suffocation upon the whole occurrence and every one of its
circumstances. Nobody can give good attention to the data, if diverting
his mind is consciousness, altogether respectful, of the scientists who
say that there are no other physical worlds except planets, millions of
miles away, distances that conceivable vessels could not traverse. I
should like to let loose, in an opening bombardment, the data of the
little black stones of Birmingham, which, time after time, in a period
of eleven years, fell obviously from a fixed point in the sky, but such
a release, now, would be wasted. It will have to be prepared for. Now
each one would say to himself that there are no such fixed points in the
sky. Why not? Because astronomers say that there are not.
But there is something else that is implied. Implied is the general
supposition that the science of astronomy represents all that is most
accurate, most exacting, painstaking, semi-religious in human thought,
and is therefore authoritative.
Anybody who has not been through what I’ve been through, in
investigating this subject, would ask what are the bases and what is the
consistency of the science of astronomy. The miserable, though at times
amusing, confusions of thought that I find in this field of supposed
research word my inquiry differently—what of dignity, or even of
decency, is in it?
Phantom dogmas, with their tails clutching at vacancies, are coiled
around our data.
Serpents of pseudo-thought are stifling history.
They are squeezing “Thou shalt not!” upon Development.
New Lands—and the horrors and lights, explosions and music of them;
rabbles of hellhounds and the march of military angels. But they are
Promised Lands, and first must we traverse a desert. There is ahead of
us a waste of parallaxes and spectrograms and triangulations. It may be
weary going through a waste of astronomic determinations, but that
depends—
If, out of a dreary, academic zenith shower betrayals of frailty, folly,
and falsification, they will be manna to our malices—
Or sterile demonstrations be warmed by our cheerful cynicisms into
delicious little lies—blossoms and fruits of unexpected oases—
Rocks to strike with our suspicions—and the gush of exposures foaming
with new implications.
Tyrants, dragons, giants—and, if all be dispatched with the skill and
the might and the triumph over awful odds of the hero who himself tells
his story—
I hear three yells from some hitherto undiscovered, grotesque critter at
the very entrance of the desert.
CHAPTER TWO
“Prediction Confirmed!”
“Another Verification!”
“A Third Verification of Prediction!”
Three times, in spite of its long-established sobriety, the _Journal of
the Franklin Institute_, vols. 106 and 107, reels with an astronomer’s
exhilarations. He might exult and indulge himself, and that would be no
affair of ours, and, in fact, we’d like to see everybody happy, perhaps,
but it is out of these three chanticleerities by Prof. Pliny Chase that
we materialize our opinion that, so far as methods and strategies are
concerned, no particular differences can be noted between astrologers
and astronomers, and that both represent engulfment in Dark Ages. Lord
Bacon pointed out that the astrologers had squirmed into prestige and
emolument by shooting at marks, disregarding their misses, and recording
their hits with unseemly advertisement. When, in August, 1878, Prof.
Swift and Prof. Watson said that, during an eclipse of the sun, they had
seen two luminous bodies that might be planets between Mercury and the
sun, Prof. Chase announced that, five years before, he had made a
prediction, and that it had been confirmed by the positions of these
bodies. Three times, in capital letters, he screamed, or announced,
according to one’s sensitiveness, or prejudices, that the “new planets”
were in the exact positions of his calculations. Prof. Chase wrote that,
before his time, there had been two great instances of astronomic
calculation confirmed: the discovery of Neptune and the discovery of
“the asteroidal belt,” a claim that is disingenuously worded. If by
mathematical principles, or by any other definite principles, there has
ever been one great, or little, instance of astronomic discovery by
means of calculations, confusion must destroy us, in the introductory
position that we take, or expose our irresponsibility, and vitiate all
that follows: that our data are oppressed by a tyranny of false
announcements; that there never has been an astronomic discovery other
than the observational or the accidental.
In _The Story of the Heavens_, Sir Robert Ball’s opinion of the
discovery of Neptune is that it is a triumph unparalleled in the annals
of science. He lavishes—the great astronomer Leverrier, buried for
months in profound meditations—the dramatic moment—Leverrier rises from
his calculations and points to the sky—“Lo!” there a new planet is
found.
My desire is not so much to agonize over the single fraudulencies or
delusions, as to typify the means by which the science of Astronomy has
established and maintained itself:
According to Leverrier, there was a planet external to Uranus; according
to Hansen, there were two; according to Airy, “doubtful if there were
one.”
One planet was found—so calculated Leverrier, in his profound
meditations. Suppose two had been found—confirmation of the brilliant
computations by Hansen. None—the opinion of the great astronomer, Sir
George Airy.
Leverrier calculated that the hypothetic planet was at a distance from
the sun, within the limits of 35 and 37.9 times this earth’s distance
from the sun. The new planet was found in a position said to be 30 times
this earth’s distance from the sun. The discrepancy was so great that,
in the United States, astronomers refused to accept that Neptune had
been discovered by means of calculation: see such publications as the
_American Journal of Science_, of the period. Upon August 29, 1849, Dr.
Babinet read, to the French Academy, a paper in which he showed that, by
the observations of three years, the revolution of Neptune would have to
be placed at 165 years. Between the limits of 207 and 233 years was the
period that Leverrier had calculated. Simultaneously, in England, Adams
had calculated. Upon Sept. 2, 1846, after he had, for at least a month,
been charting the stars in the region toward which Adams had pointed,
Prof. Challis wrote to Sir George Airy that this work would occupy his
time for three more months. This indicates the extent of the region
toward which Adams had pointed.
The discovery of the asteroids, or in Prof. Chase’s not very careful
language, the discovery of the “asteroidal belt as deduced from Bode’s
Law”:
We learn that Baron Von Zach had formed a society of twenty-four
astronomers to search, in accordance with Bode’s Law, for “a planet”—and
not “a group,” not “an asteroidal belt”—between Jupiter and Mars. The
astronomers had organized, dividing the zodiac into twenty-four zones,
assigning each zone to an astronomer. They searched. They found not one
asteroid. Seven or eight hundred are now known.
_Philosophical Magazine_, 12-62:
That Piazzi, the discoverer of the first asteroid, had not been
searching for a hypothetic body, as deduced from Bode’s Law, but, upon
an investigation of his own, had been charting stars in the
constellation Taurus, night of Jan. 1, 1801. He noticed a light that he
thought had moved, and, with his mind a blank, so far as asteroids and
brilliant deductions were concerned, announced that he had discovered a
comet.
As an instance of the crafty way in which some astronomers now tell the
story, see Sir Robert Ball’s _Story of the Heavens_, p. 230:
The organization of the astronomers of Lilienthal, but never a hint that
Piazzi was not one of them—“the search for a small planet was soon
rewarded by a success that has rendered the evening of the first day of
the nineteenth century memorable in astronomy.” Ball tells of Piazzi’s
charting of the stars, and makes it appear that Piazzi had charted stars
as a means of finding asteroids deductively, rewarded soon by success,
whereas Piazzi had never heard of such a search, and did not know an
asteroid when he saw one. “This laborious and accomplished astronomer
had organized an ingenious system of exploring the heavens, which was
eminently calculated to discriminate a planet among the starry host ...
at length he was rewarded by a success which amply compensated him for
all his toil.”
Prof. Chase—these two great instances not of mere discovery, but of
discovery by means of calculation according to him—now the subject of
his supposition that he, too, could calculate triumphantly—the
verification depended upon the accuracy of Prof. Swift and Prof. Watson
in recording the positions of the bodies that they had announced—
_Sidereal Messenger_, 6-84:
Prof. Colbert, Superintendent of Dearborn Observatory, leader of the
party of which Prof. Swift was a member, says that the observations by
Swift and Watson agreed, because Swift had made his observations agree
with Watson’s. The accusation is not that Swift had falsely announced a
discovery of two unknown bodies, but that his precise determining of
positions had occurred after Watson’s determinations had been published.
_Popular Astronomy_, 7-13:
Prof. Asaph Hall writes that, several days after the eclipse, Prof.
Watson told him that he had seen “a” luminous body near the sun, and
that his declaration that he had seen two unknown bodies was not made
until after Swift had been heard from.
Perched upon two delusions, Prof. Chase crowed his false raptures. The
unknown bodies, whether they ever had been in the orbit of his
calculations or not, were never seen again.
So it is our expression that hosts of astronomers calculate, and
calculation-mad, calculate and calculate and calculate, and that, when
one of them does point within 600,000,000 miles (by conventional
measurements) of something that is found, he is the Leverrier of the
text books; that the others are the Prof. Chases not of the text books.
As to most of us, the symbols of the infinitesimal calculus humble
independent thinking into the conviction that used to be enforced by
drops of blood from a statue. In the farrago and conflicts of daily
lives, it is relief to feel such a _rapport_ with finality, in a
religious sense, or in a mathematical sense. So then, if the seeming of
exactness in Astronomy be either infamously, or carelessly and
laughingly, brought about by the connivances of which Swift and Watson
were accused, and if the prestige of Astronomy be founded upon nothing
but huge capital letters and exclamation points, or upon the
disproportionality of balancing one Leverrier against hundreds of
Chases, it may not be better that we should know this, if then to those
of us who, in the religious sense, have nothing to depend upon, comes
deprivation of even this last, lingering seeming of foundation, or
seeming existence of exactness and realness, somewhere—
Except—that, if there be nearby lands in the sky and beings from foreign
worlds that visit this earth, that is a great subject, and the trash
that is clogging an epoch must be cleared away.
We have had a little sermon upon the insecurity of human triumphs, and,
having brought it to a climax, now seems to be the time to stop; but
there is still an involved “triumph” and I’d not like to have
inefficiency, as well as probably everything else, charged against us—
The Discovery of Uranus.
We mention this stimulus to the text book writers’ ecstasies, because
out of phenomena of the planet Uranus, the “Neptune-triumph” developed.
For Richard Proctor’s reasons for arguing that this discovery was not
accidental, see _Old and New Astronomy_, p. 646. _Philosophical
Transactions_, 71-492—a paper by Herschel—“An account of a comet
discovered on March 13, 1781.” A year went by, and not an astronomer in
the world knew a new planet when he saw one: then Lexell did find out
that the supposed comet was a planet.
Statues from which used to drip the life-blood of a parasitic cult—
Structures of parabolas from which bleed equations—
As we go along we shall develop the acceptance that astronomers might as
well try to squeeze blood from images as to try to seduce symbols into
conclusions, because applicable mathematics has no more to do with
planetary inter-actions than have statues of saints. If this denial that
the calculi have place in gravitational astronomy be accepted, the
astronomers lose their supposed god; they become an unfocussed
priesthood; the stamina of their arrogance wilts. We begin with the next
to the simplest problem in celestial mechanics: that is the formulation
of the inter-actions of the sun and the moon and this earth. In the
highest of mathematics, final, sacred mathematics, can this next to the
simplest problem in so-called mathematical astronomy be solved?
It can not be solved.
Every now and then, somebody announces that he has solved the Problem of
the Three Bodies, but it is always an incomplete, or impressionistic,
demonstration, compounded of abstractions, and ignoring the conditions
of bodies in space. Over and over we shall find vacancy under supposed
achievements; elaborate structures that are pretensions without
foundation. Here we learn that astronomers can not formulate the
inter-actions of three bodies in space, but calculate anyway, and
publish what they call the formula of a planet that is inter-acting with
a thousand other bodies. They explain. It will be one of our most
lasting impressions of astronomers: they explain and explain and
explain. The astronomers explain that, though in finer terms, the mutual
effects of three planets can not be determined, so dominant is the power
of the sun that all other effects are negligible.
Before the discovery of Uranus, there was no way by which the miracles
of the astro-magicians could be tested. They said that their formulas
worked out, and external inquiry was panic-stricken at the mention of a
formula. But Uranus was discovered, and the magicians were called upon
to calculate his path. They did calculate, and, if Uranus had moved in a
regular path, I do not mean to say that astronomers or college boys have
no mathematics by which to determine anything so simple.
They computed the orbit of Uranus.
He went somewhere else.
They explained. They computed some more. They went on explaining and
computing, year in and year out, and the planet Uranus kept on going
somewhere else. Then they conceived of a powerful perturbing force
beyond Uranus—so then that at the distance of Uranus the sun is not so
dominant—in which case the effects of Saturn upon Uranus and Uranus upon
Saturn are not so negligible—on through complexes of inter-actions that
infinitely intensify by cumulativeness into a black outlook for the
whole brilliant system. The palæo-astronomers calculated, and for more
than fifty years pointed variously at the sky. Finally two of them, of
course agreeing upon the general background of Uranus, pointed within
distances that are conventionally supposed to have been about six
hundred millions of miles of Neptune, and now it is religiously, if not
insolently, said that the discovery of Neptune was not accidental—
That the test of that which is not accidental is ability to do it again—
That it is within the power of anybody, who does not know a hyperbola
from a cosine, to find out whether the astronomers are led by a cloud of
rubbish by day and a pillar of bosh by night—
If, by the magic of his mathematics, any astronomer could have pointed
to the position of Neptune, let him point to the planet past Neptune.
According to the same reasoning by which a planet past Uranus was
supposed to be, a Trans-Neptunian planet may be supposed to be. Neptune
shows perturbations similar to those of Uranus.
According to Prof. Todd there is such a planet, and it revolves around
the sun once in 375 years. There are two, according to Prof. Forbes, one
revolving once in 1,000 years, and the other once in 5,000 years. See
Macpherson’s _A Century’s Progress in Astronomy_. It exists, according
to Dr. Eric Doolittle, and revolves once in 283 years (_Sci. Amer._,
122-641). According to Mr. Hind it revolves once in 1,600 years
(_Smithson. Miscell. Cols._, 20-20).
So then we have found out some things, and, relatively to the
oppressions that we felt from our opposition, they are reassuring. But
also are they depressing. Because, if, in this existence of ours, there
is no prestige higher than that of astronomic science, and, if that
seeming of substantial renown has been achieved by a composition of
bubbles, what of anything like soundness must there be to all lesser
reputes and achievements?
Let three bodies inter-act. There is no calculus by which their
inter-actions can be formulated. But there are a thousand inter-acting
bodies in this solar system—or supposed solar system—and we find that
the highest prestige in our existence is built upon the tangled
assertions that there are magicians who can compute in a thousand
quantities, though they can not compute in three.
Then all other so-called human triumphs, or moderate successes, products
of anybody’s reasoning processes and labors—and what are they, if higher
than them all, more academic, austere, rigorous, exact are the methods
and the processes of the astronomers? What can be thought of our whole
existence, its nature and its destiny?
That our existence, a thing within one solar system, or supposed solar
system, is a stricken thing that is mewling through space, shocking
able-minded, healthy systems with the sores on its sun, its ghastly
moons, its civilizations that are all broken out with sciences; a
celestial leper, holding out doddering expanses into which charitable
systems drop golden comets? If it be the leprous thing that our findings
seem to indicate, there is no encouragement for us to go on. We can not
discover: we can only betray new symptoms. If I be a part of such a
stricken thing, I know of nothing but sickness and sores and rags to
reason with: my data will be postules; my interpretations will be
inflammations—
CHAPTER THREE
Southern plantations and the woolly heads of negroes pounding the
ground—cries in northern regions and round white faces turned to the
sky—fiery globes in the sky—a study in black, white, and golden
formations in one general glow. Upon the night of November 13-14, 1833,
occurred the most sensational celestial spectacle of the nineteenth
century: for six hours fiery meteors gushed from the heavens, and were
visible along the whole Atlantic coast of the United States.
One supposes that astronomers do not pound the ground with their heads,
and presumably they do not screech, but they have feelings just the
same. They itched. Here was something to formulate. When he hears of
something new and unquestionable in the sky, an astronomer is diseased
with ill-suppressed equations. Symbols persecute him for expression. His
is the frenzy of someone who would stop automobiles, railroad trains,
bicycles, all things, to measure them; run, with a yardstick, after
sparrows, flies, all persons passing his door. This is supposed to be
scientific, but it can be monomaniac. Very likely the distress and the
necessity of Prof. Olmstead were keenest. He was the first to formulate.
He “demonstrated” that these meteors, known as the Leonids, revolved
around the sun once in six months.
They didn’t.
Then Prof. Newton “demonstrated” that the “real” period was thirty-three
and a quarter years. But this was done empirically, and that is not
divine, nor even aristocratic, and the thing would have to be done
rationally, or mathematically, by someone, because, if there be not
mathematical treatment, in gravitational terms, of such phenomena,
astronomers are in reduced circumstances. It was Dr. Adams, who,
emboldened with his experience in not having to point anywhere near
Neptune, but nevertheless being acclaimed by all patriotic Englishmen as
the real discoverer of Neptune, mathematically “confirmed” Prof.
Newton’s “findings.” Dr. Adams predicted that the Leonids would return
in November, 1866 and in November, 1899, occupying several years, upon
each occasion, in passing a point in this earth’s orbit.
There were meteors upon the night of Nov. 13-14, 1866. They were
plentiful. They often are in the middle of November. They no more
resembled the spectacle of 1833 than an ordinary shower resembles a
cloudburst. But the “demonstration” required that there should be an
equal display, or, according to some aspects, a greater display, upon
the corresponding night of the next year. There was a display, the next
year; but it was in the sky of the United States, and was not seen in
England. Another occurrence nothing like that of 1833 was reported from
the United States.
By conventional theory, this earth was in a vast, wide stream of
meteors, the earth revolving so as to expose successive parts to
bombardment. So keenly did Richard Proctor visualize the earth so
immersed and so bombarded, that, when nothing was seen in England, he
explained. He spent most of his life explaining. In the _Student_,
2-254, he wrote: “Had the morning of November 14, 1867 been clear in
England, we should have seen the commencement of the display, but not
its more brilliant part.”
We have had some experience with the “triumphs” of astronomers: we have
some suspicions as to their greatly advertised accuracy. We shall find
out for ourselves whether the morning of Nov. 14, 1867 was clear enough
in England or not. We suspect that it was a charming morning, in
England—
_Monthly Notices, R. A. S._ 28-32:
Report by E. J. Lowe, Highfield House, night of Nov. 13-14, 1867:
“Clear at 1.10 A. M.; high, thin cumuli, at 2 A. M., but sky not covered
until 3.10 A. M., and the moon’s place visible until 3.55 A. M.; sky not
overcast until 5.50 A. M.”
The determination of the orbital period of thirty-three years and a
quarter, but with appearances of a period of thirty-three years, was
arrived at by Prof. Newton by searching old records, finding that, in an
intersection-period of thirty-three years, there had been extraordinary
meteoric displays, from the year 902 A.D. to the year 1833 A.D. He
reminds me of an investigator who searched old records for appearances
of Halley’s comet, and found something that he identified as Halley’s
comet, exactly on time, every seventy-five years, back to times of the
Roman Empire. See the _Edinburgh Review_, vol. 66. It seems that he did
not know that orthodoxy does not attribute exactly a seventy-five year
period to Halley’s comet. He got what he went looking for, anyway. I
have no disposition for us to enjoy ourselves at Prof. Newton’s expense,
because, surely enough, his method, if regarded as only experimental, or
tentative, is legitimate enough, though one does suspect him of very
loose behavior in his picking and choosing. But Dr. Adams announced
that, upon mathematical grounds, he had arrived at the same conclusion.
The test:
The next return of the Leonids were predicted for November, 1899.
_Memoirs of the British Astronomical Association_, 9-6:
“No meteoric event ever before aroused such widespread interest, or so
grievously disappointed anticipation.”
There were no Leonids in November, 1899.
It was explained. They would be seen next year.
There were no Leonids in November, 1900.
It was explained. They would be seen next year.
No Leonids.
Vaunt and inflation and parade of the symbols of the infinitesimal
calculus; the pomp of vectors, and the hush that surrounds quaternions:
but when an axis of co-ordinates loses its rectitude, in the service of
a questionable selection, disciplined symbols become a rabble. The Most
High of Mathematics—and one of his supposed prophets points to the sky.
Nowhere near where he points, something is found. He points to a
date—nothing happens.
Prof. Serviss, in _Astronomy in a Nutshell_, explains. He explains that
the Leonids did not appear, when they “should” have appeared, because
Jupiter and Saturn had altered their orbits.
Back in the times of the Crusades, and nothing was disturbing the
Leonids—and if you’re stronger for dates than I am, think of some more
dates, and nothing was altering the orbit of the Leonids—discovery of
America, and the Spanish Armada, in 1588, which, by some freak, I always
remember, and no effects by Jupiter and Saturn—French Revolution and on
to the year 1866, and still nothing the matter with the Leonids—but,
once removed from “discovery” and “identification,” and that’s the end
of their period, diverted by Jupiter and Saturn, old things that had
been up in the sky at least as long as they had been. If we’re going to
accept the calculi at all, the calculus of probabilities must have a
hearing. My own opinion, based upon reading many accounts of November
meteors, is that decidedly the display of 1833 did not repeat in 1866:
that a false priest sinned and that an equally false highpriest gave him
sanction.
The tragedy goes comically on. I feel that, to all good Neo-astronomers,
I can recommend the following serenity from an astronomer who was
unperturbed by what happened to his science, in November, 1899, and some
more Novembers—
Bryant, _A History of Astronomy_, p. 252:
That the meteoric display of 1899 had failed to appear—“as had been
predicted by Dr. Downing and Dr. Johnstone Stoney.”
One starts to enjoy this disguisement, thinking of virtually all the
astronomers in the world who had predicted the return of the Leonids,
and the finding, by Bryant, of two who had not, and his recording only
the opinion of these two, coloring so as to look like another
triumph—but we may thank our sorely stimulated suspiciousness for still
richer enjoyment—
That even these two said no such saving thing—
_Nature_, Nov. 9, 1899:
Dr. Downing and Dr. Stoney, instead of predicting failure of the Leonids
to appear, advise watch for them several hours later than had been
calculated.
I conceive of the astronomers’ fictitious paradise as malarchitectural
with corrupted equations, and paved with rotten symbols. Seeming pure,
white fountains of formal vanities—boasts that are gushing from
decomposed triumphs. We shall find their furnishings shabby with
tarnished comets. We turn expectantly to the subject of comets; or we
turn cynically to the subject. We turn maliciously to the subject of
comets. Nevertheless, threading the insecurities of our various
feelings, is a motif that is the steady essence of Neo-astronomy:
That, in celestial phenomena, as well as in all other fields of
research, the irregular, or the unformulable, or the uncapturable, is
present in at least equal representation with the uniform: that, given
any clear, definite, seemingly unvarying thing in the heavens,
co-existently is something of wantonness or irresponsibility, bizarre
and incredible, according to the standards of purists—that the science
of Astronomy concerns itself with only one aspect of existence, because
of course there can be no science of the obverse phenomena—which is good
excuse for so enormously disregarding, if we must have the idea that
there are real sciences, but which shows the hopelessness of positively
attempting.
The story of the Comets, as not told in Mr. Chambers’ book of that title
is almost unparalleled in the annals of humiliation. When a comet is
predicted to return, that means faith in the Law of Gravitation. It is
Newtonism that comets, as well as planets, obey the Law of Gravitation,
and move in one of the conic sections. When a comet does not return when
it “should,” there is no refuge for an astronomer to say that planets
perturbed it, because one will ask why he did not include such factors
in his calculations, if these phenomena be subject to mathematical
treatment. In his book, Mr. Chambers avoids, or indicates that he never
heard of, a great deal that will receive cordiality from us, but he does
publish a list of predicted comets that did not return. Writing, in
1909, he mentions others for which he had hopes:
Brook’s First Periodic Comet (1886, IV)—“We must see what the years 1909
and 1910 bring forth.” This is pretty indefinite anticipation—however,
nothing was brought forth, according to _Monthly Notices, R. A. S._,
1909 and 1910: the Brooks’ comet that is recorded is Brooks’, 1889.
Giacobini’s Second Periodic Comet (1900, III)—not seen in 1907—“so we
shall not have a chance of knowing more about it until 1914.” No more
known about it in 1914. Borelly’s Comet (1905, II)—“Its expected return,
in 1911 or 1912, will be awaited with interest.” This is pretty
indefinite awaiting: it is now said that this comet did return upon
Sept. 19, 1911. Denning’s Second Periodic Comet (1894, I)—expected, in
1909, but not seen up to Mr. Chambers’ time of writing—no mention in
_Monthly Notices_. Swift’s Comet, of Nov. 20, 1894—“must be regarded as
lost, unless it should be found in December, 1912.” No mention of it in
_Monthly Notices_.
Three comets were predicted to return in 1913—not one of them returned
(_Monthly Notices_, 74-326).
Once upon a time, armed with some of the best and latest cynicisms, I
was hunting for prey in the _Magazine of Science_, and came upon an
account of a comet that was expected in the year 1848. I supposed that
the thing had been positively predicted, and very likely failed to
appear, and, for such common game, had no interest. But I came upon the
spoor of disgrace, in the word “triumph”—“If it does come, it will
afford another astronomical triumph” (_Mag. of Sci._, 1848-107). The
astronomers had predicted the return of a great comet in the year 1848.
In _Monthly Notices_, April, 1847, Mr. Hind says that the result of his
calculations had satisfied him that the identification had been
complete, and that, in all probability, “the comet must be very near.”
Accepting Prof. Mädler’s determinations, he predicted that the comet
would return to position nearest the sun, about the end of February,
1848.
No comet.
The astronomers explained. I don’t know what the mind of an astronomer
looks like, but I think of a fizzle with excuses revolving around it. A
writer in the _American Journal of Science_, 2-9-442, explains
excellently. It seems that, when the comet failed to return, Mr. Barber,
of Etwell, again went over the calculations. He found that, between the
years 1556 and 1592, the familiar attractions of Jupiter and Saturn had
diminished the comet’s period by 263 days, but that something else had
wrought an effect that he set down positively at 751 days, with a
resulting retardation of 488 days. This is magic that would petrify,
with chagrin, the arteries of the hemorrhagicalest statue that ever
convinced the faithful—reaching back through three centuries of
inter-actions, which, without divine insight, are unimaginable when
occurring in three seconds—
But there was no comet.
The astronomers explained. They went on calculating, and ten years later
were still calculating. See _Recreative Science_, 1860-139. It would be
heroic were it not mania. What was the matter with Mr. Barber, of
Etwell, and the intellectual tentacles that he had thrust through
centuries is not made clear in most of the contemporaneous accounts;
but, in the year 1857, Mr. Hind published a pamphlet and explained. It
seems that researches by Littrow had given new verification to a path
that had been computed for the comet, and that nothing had been the
matter with Mr. Barber, of Etwell, except his insufficiency of data,
which had been corrected. Mr. Hind predicted. He pointed to the future,
but he pointed like someone closing a thumb and spreading four fingers.
Mr. Hind said that, according to Halley’s calculations, the comet would
arrive in the summer of 1865. However, an acceleration of five years had
been discovered, so that the time should be set down for the middle of
August, 1860. However, according to Mr. Hind’s calculated orbit, the
comet might return in the summer of 1864. However, allowing for
acceleration, “the comet is found to be due early in August, 1858.”
Then Bomme calculated. He predicted that the comet would return upon
August 2, 1858.
There was no comet.
The astronomers went on calculating. They predicted that the comet would
return upon August 22, 1860.
No comet.
But I think that a touch of mercy is a luxury that we can afford;
anyway, we’ll have to be merciful or monotonous. For variety we shall
switch from a comet that did not appear to one that did appear. Upon the
night of June 30, 1861, a magnificent humiliator appeared in the
heavens. One of the most brilliant luminosities of modern times appeared
as suddenly as if it had dropped through the shell of our solar
system—if it be a solar system. There were letters in the newspapers;
correspondents wanted to know why this extraordinary object had not been
seen coming, by astronomers. Mr. Hind explained. He wrote that the comet
was a small object, and consequently had not been seen coming by
astronomers. No one could deny the magnificence of the comet;
nevertheless Mr. Hind declared that it was very small, looking so large
because it was near this earth. This is not the later explanation:
nowadays it is said that the comet had been in southern skies, where it
had been observed. All contemporaneous astronomers agreed that the comet
had come down from the north, and not one of them thought of explaining
that it had been invisible because it had been in the south. A
luminosity, with a mist around it, altogether the apparent size of the
moon, had burst into view. In _Recreative Science_, 3-143, Webb says
that nothing like it had been seen since the year 1680. Nevertheless the
orthodox pronouncement was that the object was small and would fade away
as quickly as it had appeared. See the _Athenaeum_, July 6, 1861—“So
small an object will soon get beyond our view.” (Hind)
_Popular Science Review_, 1-513:
That, in April, 1862, the thing was still visible.
Something else that was seen under circumstances that can not be
considered triumphant—upon Nov. 28, 1872, Prof. Klinkerfues, of
Göttingen, looking for Biela’s comet, saw meteors in the path of the
expected comet. He telegraphed to Pogson, of Madras, to look near the
star _Theta Centauri_, and he would see the comet. I’d not say that this
was in the field of magic, but it does seem consummate. A dramatic
telegram like this electrifies the faithful—an astronomer in the north
telling an astronomer far in the south where to look, so definitely
naming one special little star in skies invisible in the north. Pogson
looked where he was told to look and announced that he saw what he was
told to see. But at meetings of the R. A. S., Jan. 10 and March 14,
1873, Captain Tupman pointed out that, even if Biela’s comet had
appeared, it would have been nowhere near this star.
Among our later emotions will be indignation against all astronomers who
say that they know whether stars are approaching or receding. When we
arrive at that subject it will be the preciseness of the astronomers
that will perhaps inflame us beyond endurance. We note here the far
smaller difficulty of determining whether a relatively nearby comet is
coming or going. Upon Nov. 6, 1892, Edwin Holmes discovered a comet. In
the _Jour. B. A. A._, 3-182, Holmes writes that different astronomers
had calculated its distance from twenty million miles to two hundred
million miles, and had determined its diameter to be all the way from
twenty-seven thousand miles to three hundred thousand miles. Prof. Young
said that the comet was approaching; Prof. Parkhurst wrote merely that
the impression was that the comet was approaching the earth; but Prof.
Berberich (_Eng. Mec._, 56-316) announced that, upon Nov. 6, Holmes’
comet had been 36,000,000 miles from this earth, and 6,000,000 miles
away upon the 16th, and that the approach was so rapid that, upon the
21st the comet would touch this earth.
The comet, which had been receding, kept on receding.
CHAPTER FOUR
Nevertheless I sometimes doubt that astronomers represent especial
incompetence. They remind me too much of uplifters and grocers,
philanthropists, expert accountants, makers of treaties, characters in
international conferences, psychic researchers, biologists. The
astronomers seem to me about as capitalists seem to socialists, and
about as socialists seem to capitalists, or about as Presbyterians seem
to Baptists; as Democrats seem to Republicans, or as artists of one
school seem to artists of another school. If the basic fallacies, or the
absence of base, in every specialization of thought can be seen by the
units of its opposition, why then we see that all supposed foundations
in our whole existence are myths, and that all discussion and supposed
progress are the conflicts of phantoms and the overthrow of old
delusions by new delusions. Nevertheless I am searching for some wider
expression that will rationalize all of us—conceiving that what we call
irrationality is our view of parts and functions out of relation to an
underlying whole; an underlying something that is working out its
development in terms of planets and acids and bugs, rivers and labor
unions and cyclones, politicians and islands and astronomers. Perhaps we
conceive of an underlying nexus in which all things, in our existence,
are different manifestations—torn by its hurricanes and quaked by the
struggles of Labor against Capital—and then, for the sake of balance,
requiring relaxations. It has its rougher hoaxes, and some of the apes
and some of the priests, and philosophers and wart hogs are nothing
short of horse play; but the astronomers are the ironies of its less
peasant-like moments—or the deliciousness of pretending to know whether
a far-away star is approaching or receding, and at the same time exactly
predicting when a nearby comet, which is receding, will complete its
approach. This is cosmic playfulness; such pleasantries enable Existence
to bear its catastrophes. Shattered comets and sickened nations and the
hydrogenic anguishes of the sun—and there must be astronomers for the
sake of relaxations.
It will be important to us that the astronomers shall not be less
unfortunate in their pronouncements upon motions of the stars than they
have turned out to be in other respects. Especially disagreeable to us
is the doctrine that stars are variable because dark companies revolve
around them; also we prefer to find that nothing fit for somewhat
matured minds has been determined as to stars with light companions that
encircle them, or revolve with them. If silence be the only true
philosophy, and if every positive assertion be a myth, we should easily
find requital for our negative preferences.
Prof. Otto Struve was one of the highest of astronomic authorities, and
the faithful attribute triumphs to him. Upon March 19, 1873, Prof.
Struve announced that he had discovered a companion to the star Procyon.
That was an interesting observation, but the mere observation was not
the triumph. Some time before, Prof. Auwers, as credulous, if not
jocular, as Newton and Leverrier and Adams, had computed the orbit of a
hypothetic companion of Procyon’s. Upon a chart of the stars, he had
drawn a circle around Procyon. This orbit was calculated in
gravitational terms, and a general theme of ours is that all such
calculations are only ideal, and relate no more to stars and planets or
anything else than do the spotless theories of uplifters to events that
occur as spots in the one wide daub of existence. Specifically we wish
to discredit this “triumph” of Struve’s and Auwers’, but in general we
continue our expression that all uses of the calculus of celestial
mechanics are false applications, and that this subject is for æsthetic
enjoyment only, and has no place in the science of astronomy, if anybody
can think that there is such a science. So, after great labor, or after
considerable enjoyment, Auwers drew a circle around Procyon, and
announced that that was the orbit of a companion-star. Exactly at the
point in this circle where it “should” be, upon March 19, 1873, Struve
saw the point of light which, it may be accepted, sooner or later
someone would see. According to Agnes Clerke (_System of the Stars_, p.
173) over and over Struve watched the point of light, and convinced
himself that it moved as it “should” move, exactly in the calculated
orbit. In _Reminiscences of an Astronomer_, p. 138, Prof. Newcomb tells
the story. According to him, an American astronomer then did more than
confirm Struve’s observations: he not only saw but exactly measured the
supposed companion.
A defect was found between the lenses of Struve’s telescope: it was
found that this telescope showed a similar “companion,” about 10″ from
every large star. It was found that the more than “confirmatory”
determinations by the American astronomer had been upon “a long
well-known star.” (Newcomb)
Every astronomic triumph is a bright light accompanied by an imbecility,
which may for a while make it variable with diminishments and then be
unnoticed. Priestcrafts are not merely tyrannies: they’re necessities.
There must be more reassuring ways of telling this story. The good
priest J. E. Gore (_Studies in Astronomy_, p. 104) tells it safely—not a
thing except that, in the year 1873, a companion of Procyon’s was, by
Struve, “strongly suspected.” Positive assurances of the sciences—they
are islands of seeming stability in a cosmic jelly. We shall eclipse the
story of Algol with some modern disclosures. In all minds not convinced
that earnest and devoted falsifiers are holding back Development, the
story, if remembered at all, will soon renew its fictitious lustre. We
are centers of tremors in a quaking black jelly. A bright and shining
delusion looks like beaconed security.
Sir Robert Ball, in the _Story of the Heavens_, says that the period in
which Algol blinks his magnitudes is 2 days, 20 hours, 48 minutes, and
55 seconds. He gives the details of Prof. Vogel’s calculations upon a
speck of light and an invisibility. It is a god-like command that out of
the variations of light shall come the diameters of faint appearances
and the distance and velocity of the unseeable—that the diameter of the
point of light is 1,054,000 miles, and that the diameter of the
imperceptibility is 825,000 miles, and that their centers are 3,220,000
miles apart: orbital velocity of Algol, 26 miles a second, and the
orbital velocity of the companion, 55 miles a second—should be stated
26.3 miles and 55.4 miles a second (Proctor, _Old and New Astronomy_, p.
773).
We come to a classic imposition like this, and at first we feel
helpless. We are told that this thing is so. It is as if we were modes
of motion and must go on, but are obstructed by an absolute bar of
ultimate steel, shining, in our way, with an infinite polish.
But all appearances are illusions.
No one with a microscope doubts this; no one who has gone specially from
ordinary beliefs into minuter examination of any subject doubts this, as
to his own specific experience—so then, broadly, that all appearances
are illusions, and that, by this recognition, we shall dissipate
resistances, monsters, dragons, oppressors that we shall meet in our
pilgrimage. This bar-like calculation is itself a mode of motion. The
static can not absolutely resist the dynamic, because in the act of
resisting it becomes itself proportionately the dynamic. We learn that
modifications rusted into the steel of our opposition. The period of
Algol, which Vogel carried out to a minute’s 55th second, was, after
all, so incompetently determined that the whole imposition was
nullified—
_Astronomical Journal_, 11-113:
That, according to Chandler, Algol and his companion do not revolve
around each other merely, but revolve together around some second
imperceptibility—regularly.
_Bull. Soc. Astro. de France_, Oct., 1910:
That M. Mora has shown that, in Algol’s variations there were
irregularities that neither Vogel nor Chandler had accounted for.
The Companion of Sirius looms up to our recognition that the story must
be nonsense, or worse than nonsense—or that two light comedies will now
disappear behind something darker. The story of the Companion of Sirius
is that Prof. Auwers, having observed, or in his mania for a pencil and
something to scribble upon, having supposed he had observed, motions of
the star Sirius, had deduced the existence of a companion, and had
inevitably calculated its orbit. Early in the year 1862, Alvan Clark,
Jr., turned his new telescope upon Sirius, and there, precisely where,
according to Auwers’ calculations, it should be, saw the companion. The
story is told by Proctor, writing thirty years later: the finding of the
companion, in the “precise position of the calculations”; Proctor’s
statement that, in the thirty years following, the companion had
“conformed fairly well with the calculated orbit.”
According to the _Annual Record of Science and Industry_, 1876-18, the
companion, in half the time mentioned by Proctor, had not moved in the
calculated orbit. In the _Astronomical Register_, 15-186, there are two
diagrams by Flammarion: one is the orbit of the companion, as computed
by Auwers; the other is the orbit, according to a mean of many
observations. They do not conform fairly well. They do not conform at
all.
I am now temporarily accepting that Flammarion and the other observing
astronomers are right, and that the writers like Proctor, who do not say
that they made observations of their own, are wrong, though I have data
for thinking that there is no such companion-star. When Clark turned his
telescope upon Sirius, the companion was found exactly where Auwers said
it would be found. According to Flammarion and other astronomers, had he
looked earlier or later it would not have been in this position. Then,
in the name of the one calculus that astronomers seem never to have
heard of, by what circumstances could that star have been precisely
where it should be, when looked for, Jan. 31, 1862, if, upon all other
occasions, it would not be where it should be?
_Astronomical Register_, 1-94:
A representation of Sirius—but with six small stars around him—an
account, by Dr. Dawes, of observations, by Goldschmidt, upon the
“companion” and five other small stars near Sirius. Dr. Dawes’
accusation, or opinion, is that it scarcely seems possible that some of
these other stars were not seen by Clark. If Alvan Clark saw six stars,
at various distances from Sirius, and picked out the one that was at the
required distance, as if that were the only one, he dignifies our
serials with a touch of something other than comedy. For Goldschmidt’s
own announcement, see _Monthly Notices, R. A. S._, 23-181, 243.
CHAPTER FIVE
Smugness and falseness and sequences of re-adjusting fatalities—and yet
so great is the hypnotic power of astronomic science that it can outlive
its “mortal” blows by the simple process of forgetting them, and, in
general, simply by denying that it can make mistakes. Upon page 245,
_Old and New Astronomy_, Richard Proctor says—“The ideas of astronomers
in these questions of distance have not changed, and, in the present
position of astronomy, based (in such respects) on absolute
demonstration, they can not change.”
Sounds that have roared in the sky, and their vibrations have shaken
down villages—if these be the voices of Development, commanding that
opinions shall change, we shall learn what will become of the Proctors
and their “absolute demonstrations.” Lights that have appeared in the
sky—that they are gleams upon the armament of Marching Organization.
“There can be only one explanation of meteors”—I think it is that they
are shining spear-points of slayers of dogmas. I point to the sky over a
little town in Perthshire, Scotland—there may be a new San Salvador—it
may be a new Plymouth Rock. I point to the crater Aristarchus, of the
moon—there, for more than a century, a lighthouse may have been
signalling. Whether out of profound meditations, or farrago and
bewilderment, I point, directly, or miscellaneously, and, if only a few
of a multitude of data be accepted, unformulable perturbations rack an
absolute sureness, and the coils of our little horizons relax their
constrictions.
I indicate that, in these pages, which are banners in a cosmic
procession, I do feel a sense of responsibility, but how to maintain any
great seriousness I do not know, because still is our subject
astronomical “triumphs.”
Once upon a time there was a young man, aged eighteen, whose name was
Jeremiah Horrox. He was no astronomer. He was interested in astronomic
subjects, but it may be that we shall agree that a young man of
eighteen, who had not been heard of by one astronomer of his time, was
an outsider. There was a transit of Venus in December, 1639, but not a
grown-up astronomer in the world expected it, because the not always
great and infallible Kepler had predicated the next transit of Venus for
the year 1761. According to Kepler, Venus would pass below the sun in
December, 1639. But there was another calculation: it was by the great,
but sometimes not so great, Lansberg: that, in December, 1639, Venus
would pass over the upper part of the sun. Jeremiah Horrox was an
outsider. He was able to reason that, if Venus could not pass below the
sun, and also over the upper part of the sun, she might take a middle
course. Venus did pass over the middle part of the sun’s disc; and
Horrox reported the occurrence, having watched it.
I suppose this was one of the most agreeable humiliations in the annals
of busted inflations. One thinks sympathetically of the joy that went
out from seventeenth-century Philistines. The story is told to this day
by the Proctors and Balls and Newcombs: the way they tell this story of
the boy who was able to conclude that something that could not occupy
two extremes might be intermediate, and thereby see something that no
professional observer of the time saw, is a triumph of absorption:
That the transit of Venus, in December, 1639, was observed by Jeremiah
Horrox, “the great astronomer.”
We shall make some discoveries as we go along, and some of them will be
worse thought of than others, but there is a discovery here that may be
of interest: the secret of immortality—that there is a mortal resistance
to everything; but that the thing that can keep on incorporating, or
assimilating within itself, its own mortal resistances, will live
forever. By its absorptions, the science of astronomy perpetuates its
inflations, but there have been instances of indigestion. See the New
York _Herald_, Sept. 16, 1909. Here Flammarion, who probably no longer
asserts any such thing, claims Dr. Cook’s “discovery of the north pole”
as an “astronomical conquest.” Also there are other ways. One suspects
that the treatment that Dr. Lescarbault received from Flammarion
illustrates other ways.
In the year 1859, it seems that Dr. Lescarbault was something of an
astronomer. It seems that as far back as that he may have known a planet
when he saw one, because, in an interview, he convinced Leverrier that
he did know a planet when he saw one. He had at least heard of the
planet Venus, because in the year 1882 he published a paper upon
indications that Venus has an atmosphere. Largely because of an
observation, or an announcement, of his, occurred the climax of
Leverrier’s fiascos: prediction of an intra-Mercurial planet that did
not appear when it “should” appear. My suspicion is that astronomers
pardonably, but frailly, had it in for Lescarbault, and that in the year
1891 came an occurrence that one of them made an opportunity. Early in
the year 1891. Dr. Lescarbault announced that, upon the night of Jan.
11, 1891, he had seen a new star. At the next meeting of the French
Academy, Flammarion rose, spoke briefly, and sat down without
over-doing. He said that Lescarbault had “discovered” Saturn.
If a navigator of at least thirty years’ experience should announce that
he had discovered an island, and if that island should turn out to be
Bermuda, he would pair with Lescarbault—as Flammarion made Lescarbault
appear. Even though I am a writer upon astronomical subjects, myself, I
think that even I should know Saturn, if I should see him, at least in
such a period as the year 1891, when the rings were visible. It is
perhaps an incredible mistake. However, it will be agreeable to some of
us to find that astronomers have committed just such almost incredible
mistakes—
In _Cosmos_, n. s., 42-467, is a list of astronomers who reported
“unknown” dark bodies that they had seen crossing the disc of the sun:
La Concha Montevideo Nov. 5, 1789;
Keyser Amsterdam Nov. 9, 1802;
Fisher Lisbon May 5, 1832;
Houzeau Brussels May 8, 1845.
According to the _Nautical Almanac_, the planet Mercury did cross the
disc of the sun upon these dates.
It is either that the Flammarions do so punish those who see the new and
the undesired, or that astronomers do “discover” Saturn, and do not know
Mercury when they see him—and that Buckle overlooked something when he
wrote that only the science of history attracts inferior minds often not
fit even for clergymen.
Whatever we think of Flammarion, we admire his deftness. But we shall
have an English instance of the ways in which Astronomy maintains itself
and controls those who say that they see that which they “should” not
see, which does seem beefy. One turns the not very attractive-looking
pages of the _English Mechanic_, 1893, casually, perhaps, at any rate in
no expectations of sensations—glaring at one, a sketch of such a
botanico-pathologic monstrosity as a musk melon with rows of bunions on
it (_English Mechanic_, Oct. 20, 1893). The reader is told, by Andrew
Barclay, F. R. A. S., Kilmarnock, Scotland, that this enormity is the
planet Jupiter, according to the speculum of his Gregorian telescope.
In the next issue of the _English Mechanic_, Capt. Noble, F. R. A. S.,
writes, gently enough, that, if he had such a telescope, he would
dispose of the optical parts for whatever they would bring, and would
make a chimney cowl of the tube.
_English Mechanic_, 1893-2-309—the planet Mars, by Andrew Barclay—a dark
sphere, surrounded by a thick ring of lighter material; attached to it,
another sphere, of half its diameter—a sketch as gross and repellent to
a conventionalist as the museum-freak, in whose body the head of his
dangling twin is embedded, its dwarfed body lopping out from his side.
There is a description by Mr. Barclay, according to whom the main body
is red, and the protuberance blue.
Capt. Noble—“Preposterous ... last straw that breaks the camel’s back!”
Mr. Barclay comes back with some new observations upon Jupiter’s lumps,
and then, in the rest of the volume is not heard from again. One reads
on, interested in quieter matters, and gradually forgets the
controversy—
_English Mechanic_, August 23, 1897:
A gallery of monstrosities: Andrew Barclay, signing himself “F. R. A.
S.,” exhibiting:
The planet Jupiter, six times encircled with lumps; afflicted Mars, with
his partly embedded twin reduced in size, but still a distress to all
properly trained observers; the planet Saturn, shaped like a mushroom
with a ring around it.
Capt. Noble—“Mr. Barclay is not a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical
Society, and, were the game worth the candle, might be restrained by
injunction from so describing himself!” And upon page 362, of this
volume of the _English Mechanic_, Capt. Noble calls the whole matter “a
pseudo F. R. A. S.’s crazy hallucinations.”
Lists of the Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society, from June, 1875
to June, 1896:
“Barclay, Andrew, Kilmarnock, Scotland; elected Feb. 8, 1856.”
I can not find the list for 1897 in the libraries. List for 1898—Andrew
Barclay’s name omitted. Thou shalt not see lumps on Jupiter.
Every one of Barclay’s observations has something to support it. All
conventional representations of Jupiter show encirclements by strings of
rotundities that we are told are cloud-forms, but, in the _Jour. B. A.
A._, Dec. 1910, is published a paper by Dr. Downing, entitled “Is
Jupiter Humpy?” suggesting that various phenomena upon Jupiter agree
with the idea that there are protuberances upon the planet. A common
appearance, said to be an illusion, is Saturn as an oblong, if not
mushroom-shaped: see any good index for observations upon the
“square-shouldered aspect” of Saturn. In _L’Astronomie_, 1889-135, is a
sketch of Mars, according to Fontana, in the year 1636—a sphere enclosed
in a ring; in the center of the sphere a great protruding body, said, by
Fontana, to have looked like a vast, black cone.
But, whether this or that should amuse or enrage us, should be accepted
or rejected, is not to me the crux; but Andrew Barclay’s own opening
words are:
That, through a conventional telescope, conventional appearances are
seen, and that a telescope is tested by the conventionality of its
disclosures; but that there may be new optical principles, or
applications, that may be, to the eye and the present telescope, what
once the conventional telescope was to the eye—in times when scientists
refused to look at the preposterous, enraging, impossible moons of
Jupiter.
In the _English Mechanic_, 33-327, is a letter from the astronomer, A.
Stanley Williams. He had written previously upon double stars, their
colors and magnitudes. Another astronomer, Herbert Sadler, had pointed
out some errors. Mr. Williams acknowledges the errors, saying that some
were his own, and that some were from Smyth’s _Cycle of Celestial
Objects_. In the _English Mechanic_, 33-377, Sadler says that,
earnestly, he would advise Williams not to use the new edition of
Smyth’s _Cycle_, because, with the exception of vol. 40, _Memoirs of the
Royal Astronomical Society_, “a more disgracefully inaccurate” catalog
of double stars had never been published. “If,” says one astronomer to
the other astronomer, “you have a copy of this miserable production,
sell it for waste paper. It is crammed with the most stupid errors.”
A new character appears. He is George F. Chambers, F. R. A. S., author
of a long list of astronomical works, and a tract, entitled, _Where Are
You Going, Sunday_? He, too, is earnest. In this early correspondence,
nothing ulterior is apparent, and we suppose that it is in the cause of
Truth that he is so earnest. Says one astronomer that the other
astronomer is “evidently one of those self-sufficient young men, who are
nothing, if not abusive.” But can Mr. Sadler have so soon forgotten what
was done to him, on a former occasion, after he had slandered Admiral
Smyth? Chambers challenges Sadler to publish a list of, say fifty
“stupid errors” in the book. He quotes the opinion of the Astronomer
Royal: that the book was a work of “sterling merit.” “Airy vs. Sadler,”
he says: “which is it to be?”
We began not very promisingly. Few excitements seemed to lurk in such a
subject as double stars, their colors and magnitudes; but slander and
abuse are livelier, and now enters curiosity: we’d like to know what was
done to Herbert Sadler.
Late in the year 1876, Herbert Sadler was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Astronomical Society. In _Monthly Notices, R. A. S._, Jan., 1879,
appears his first paper that was read to the Society: _Notes on the late
Admiral Smyth’s Cycle of Celestial Objects, volume second, known as the
Bedford Catalogue_. With no especial vehemence, at least according to
our own standards of repression, Sadler expresses himself upon some
“extraordinary mistakes” in this work.
At the meeting of the Society, May 9, 1879, there was an attack upon
Sadler, and it was led by Chambers, or conducted by Chambers, who cried
out that Sadler had slandered a great astronomer, and demanded that
Sadler should resign. In the report of this meeting, published in the
_Observatory_, there is not a trace of anybody’s endeavors to find out
whether there were errors in this book or not: Chambers ignored
everything but his accusation of slander, and demanded again that Sadler
should resign. In _Monthly Notices_, 39-389, the Council of the Society
published regrets that it had permitted publication of Sadler’s paper,
“which was entirely unsupported by the citation of instances upon which
his judgment was founded.”
We find that it was Mr. Chambers who had revised and published the new
edition of Smyth’s _Cycle_.
In the _English Mechanic_, Chambers challenged Sadler to publish, say,
fifty “stupid errors.” See page 451, vol. 33, _English Mechanic_—Sadler
lists just fifty “stupid errors.” He says that he could have listed, not
50, but 250, not trivial, but of the “grossest kind.” He says that in
one set of 167 observations, 117 were wrong.
The _English Mechanic_ drops out of this comedy with the obvious title,
but developments go on. Evidently withdrawing its “regrets,” the Council
permitted publication of a criticism of Chambers’ edition of Smyth’s
_Cycle_, in _Monthly Notices_, 40-497, and the language in this
criticism, by S. W. Burnham, was no less interpretable as slanderous
than was Sadler’s: that Smyth’s data were “either roughly approximate or
grossly incorrect, and so constantly recurring that it was impossible to
explain that they were ordinary errors of observation.” Burnham lists 30
pages of errors.
Following is a paper by E. B. Knobel, who published 17 pages of
instances in which, in his opinion, Mr. Burnham had been too severe.
Knowing of no objection by Burnham to this reduction, we have left 13
pages of errors in one standard astronomical work, which may fairly be
considered as representative of astronomical work in general, inasmuch
as it was, in the opinion of the Astronomer Royal, a book of “sterling
merit.”
I think that now we have accomplished something. After this we should
all get along more familiarly and agreeably together. Thirteen pages of
errors in one standard astronomical work are reassuring; there is a
likeable fallibility here that should make for better relations. If the
astronomers were what they think they are, we might as well make squeaks
of disapproval against Alpine summits. As to astronomers who calculate
positions of planets—of whom he was one—Newcomb, in _Reminiscences of an
Astronomer_, says—“The men who have done it are therefore, in intellect,
the select few of the human race—an aristocracy above all others in the
scale of being.” We could never get along comfortably with such awful
selectness as that. We are grateful to Mr. Sadler, in the cause of more
comfortable relations.
CHAPTER SIX
_English Mechanic_, 56-184:
That, upon April 25, 1892, Archdeacon Nouri climbed Mt. Ararat. It was
his hope that he should find something of archæologic compensation for
his clamberings. He found Noah’s Ark.
About the same time, Dr. Holden, Director of the Lick Observatory, was
watching one of the polished and mysterious-looking instruments that, in
the new ikonology, have replaced the images of saints. Dr. Holden was
waiting for the appointed moment of the explosion of a large quantity of
dynamite in San Francisco Bay. The moment came. The polished little
“saint” revealed to the faithful scientist. He wrote an account of the
record, and sent copies to the San Francisco newspapers. Then he learned
that the dynamite had not been fired off. He sent a second messenger
after the first messenger, and, because messengers sometimes have
velocities proportional to urgencies—“the Observatory escaped ridicule
by a narrow margin.” See the _Observatory_, 20-467. This revelation came
from Prof. Colton, who, though probably faithful to all the “saints,”
did not like Dr. Holden.
The system that Archdeacon Nouri represented lost its power because its
claims exceeded all conceivableness, and because, in other respects, of
its inertness to the obvious. The system that Dr. Holden represented is
not different: there is the same seeing of whatever may be desirable,
and the same profound meditations upon the remote, with the same
inattention to fairly acceptable starting-points. The astronomers like
to tell audiences of just what gases are burning in an unimaginably
remote star, but have never reasonably made acceptable, for instance,
that this earth is round, to start with. Of course I do not mean to say
that this, or anything else, can be positively proved, but it is
depressing to hear it said, so authoritatively, that the round shadow of
this earth upon the moon proves that this earth is round, whereas
records of angular shadows are common, and whereas, if this earth were a
cube, its straight sides would cast a rounded shadow upon the convex
moon. That the first part of a receding vessel to disappear should be
the lower part may be only such an illusion of perspective as that by
which railroad tracks seem to dip toward each other in the distance.
Meteors sometimes appear over one part of the horizon and then seem to
curve down behind the opposite part of the horizon, whereas they
describe no such curve, because to a string of observers each observer
is at the center of the seeming curve.
Once upon a time—about the year 1870—occurred an unusual sporting event.
John Hampden, who was noted for his piety and his bad language, whose
avowed purpose was to support the principles of this earth’s earliest
geodesist, offered to bet five hundred pounds that he could prove the
flatness of this earth. Somewhere in England is the Bedford Canal, and
along a part of it is a straight, unimpeded view, six miles in length.
Orthodox doctrine—or the doctrine of the newer orthodoxy, because John
Hampden considered that he was orthodox—is that the earth’s curvature is
expressible in the formula of 8 inches for the first mile, and then the
square of the distance times 8 inches. For two miles, then, the square
of 2, or 4, times 8. An object six miles away should be depressed 288
inches, or, allowing for refraction, according to Proctor (_Old and New
Astronomy_) 216 inches. Hampden said that an object six miles away, upon
this part of the Bedford Canal, was not depressed as it “should” be. Dr.
Alfred Russell Wallace took up the bet. Mr. Walsh, Editor of the
_Field_, was the stakeholder. A procession went to the Bedford Canal.
Objects were looked at through telescopes, or looked for, and the
decision was that Hampden had lost. There was rejoicing in the fold of
the chosen, though Hampden, in one of his most furious bombardments of
verses from the Bible, charged conspiracy and malfeasance and
confiscation, and what else I don’t know, piously and intemperately
declaring that he had been defrauded.
In the _English Mechanic_, 80-40, some one writes to find out about the
“Bedford Canal Experiment.” We learn that the experiment had been made
again. The correspondent writes that, if there were basis to the rumors
that he had heard, there must be something wrong with established
doctrine. Upon page 138, Lady Blount answers—that, upon May 11, 1904,
she had gone to the Bedford Canal, accompanied by Mr. E. Clifton, a
well-known photographer, who was himself uninfluenced by her motives,
which were the familiar ones of attempting to restore the old gentleman
who first took up the study of geodesy. However she seethes with neither
piety nor profanity. She says that, with his telescopic camera, Mr.
Clifton had photographed a sheet, six miles away, though by conventional
theory the sheet should have been invisible. In a later number of the
_English Mechanic_, a reproduction of this photograph is published.
According to this evidence this earth is flat, or is a sphere enormously
greater than is generally supposed. But at the 1901 meeting of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science, Mr. H. Yule Oldham
read a paper upon his investigations at the Bedford Canal. He, too,
showed photographs. In his photographs, everything that should have been
invisible was invisible.
I accept that anybody who is convinced that still are there relics upon
Mt. Ararat, has only to climb Mt. Ararat, and he must find something
that can be said to be part of Noah’s Ark, petrified perhaps. If someone
else should be convinced that a mistake has been made, and that the
mountain is really Pike’s Peak, he has only to climb Pike’s Peak and
prove that the most virtuous of all lands was once the Holy Land. The
meaning that I read in the whole subject is that, in this Dark Age that
we’re living in, not even such rudimentary matters as the shape of this
earth have ever been investigated except now and then to support
somebody’s theory, because astronomers have instinctively preferred the
remote and the not so easily understandable and the safe from external
inquiry. In _Earth Features and Their Meaning_, Prof. Hobbs says that
this earth is top-shaped, quite as the sloping extremities of Africa and
South America suggest. According to Prof. Hobbs, observations upon the
pendulum suggest that this earth is shaped like a top. Some years ago,
Dr. Gregory read a paper at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society,
giving data to support the theory of a top-shaped earth. In the records
of the Society, one may read a report of the discussion that followed.
There was no ridiculing. The President of the Society closed the
discussion with virtual endorsement, recalling that it was Christopher
Columbus who first said that this earth is top-shaped. For other
expressions of this revolt against ancient dogmas, see _Bull. Soc.
Astro. de France_, 17-315; 18-143; _Pop. Sci. News_, 31-234; _Eng.
Mec._, 77-159; _Sci. Amer._, 100-441.
As to supposed motions of this earth, axial and orbital, circumstances
are the same, despite the popular supposition that the existence of
these motions has been established by syntheses of data and by
unanswerable logic. All scientists, philosophers, religionists, are
today looking back, wondering what could have been the matter with their
predecessors to permit them to believe what they did believe. Granted
that there will be posterity, we shall be predecessors. Then what is it
that is conventionally taught today that will in the future seem as
imbecilic as to all present orthodoxies seem the vaporings of preceding
systems?
Well, for instance, that it is this earth that moves, though the sun
seems to, by the same illusion by which to passengers on a boat, the
shore seems to move, though it is the boat that is moving.
Apply this reasoning to the moon. The moon seems to move around the
earth—but to passengers on a boat, the shore seems to move, whereas it
is the boat that is moving—therefore the moon does not move.
As to the motions of the planets and stars that co-ordinate with the
idea of a moving earth—they co-ordinate equally well with the idea of a
stationary earth.
In the system that was conceived by Copernicus I find nothing that can
be said to resemble foundation: nothing but the appeal of greater
simplicity. An earth that rotates and revolves is simpler to conceive of
than is a stationary earth with a rigid composition of stars, swinging
around it, stars kept apart by some unknown substance, or
inter-repulsion. But all those who think that simplification is a
standard to judge by are referred to Herbert Spencer’s compilations of
data indicating that advancing knowledge complicates, making, then,
complexity, and not simplicity, the standard by which to judge the more
advanced. My own acceptance is that there are fluxes one way and then
the other way: that the Ptolemaic system was complex and was simplified;
that, out of what was once a clarification, new complications have
arisen, and that again will come flux toward simplification or
clarification—that the simplification by Copernicus has now developed
into an incubus of unintelligibilities revolving around a farrago of
inconsistencies, to which the complexities of Ptolemy are clear
geometry: miracles, incredibilities, puerilities; tottering deductions
depending upon flimsy agreements; brutalized observations that are
slaves to infatuated principles—
And one clear call that is heard above the rumble of readjusting
collapses—the call for a Neo-astronomy—it may not be our Neo-astronomy.
Prof. Young, for instance, in his _Manual of Astronomy_, says that there
are no common, obvious proofs that the earth moves around the sun, but
that there are three abstrusities, all of modern determination. Then, if
Copernicus founded the present system, he founded upon nothing. He had
nothing to base upon. He either never heard of, or could not detect one
of these abstrusities. All his logic is represented in his reasoning
upon this earth’s rotundity: that this earth is round, because of a
general tendency to sphericity, manifesting, for instance, in fruits and
in drops of water—showing that he must have been unaware not only of
abstrusities, but of icicles and bananas and oysters. It is not that I
am snobbishly deriding the humble and more than questionable ancestry of
modern astronomy. I am pointing out that a doctrine came into existence
with nothing for a foundation: not a datum, not one observation to found
upon; no astronomical principles, no mechanical principles to justify
it. Our inquiry will be as to how, in the annals of false architecture,
it could ever be said that—except miraculously, of course—a foundation
was subsequently slipped under this baseless structure, dug under,
rammed under, or God knows how devised and fashioned.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The three abstrusities:
The aberration of light, the annual parallax of the stars, the regular,
annual shift of the lines of the stellar spectra.
By the aberration of light is meant a displacement of all stars, during
a year’s observation, by which stars near the pole of the ecliptic
describe circles, stars nearer the ecliptic describe ellipses, and the
stars of the ecliptic, only little straight lines. It is supposed that
light has velocity, and that these forms represent the ratio between the
velocity of light and the supposed velocity of this earth in its orbit.
In the year, 1725, Bradley conceived of the present orthodox explanation
of the aberration-forms of the stars: that they reflect or represent the
path that this earth traverses around the sun, as it would look from the
stars, appearing virtually circular from stars in the pole of the
ecliptic, for instance. In Bradley’s day there were no definite
delusions as to the traversing by this earth of another path in space,
as part of a whole moving system, so Bradley felt simple and satisfied.
About a century later by some of the most amusing reasoning that one
could be entertained with, astronomers decided that the whole supposed
solar system is moving, at a rate of about 13 miles a second from the
region of Sirius to a point near Vega, all this occurring in northern
skies, because southern astronomers had not very much to say at that
time. Now, then, if at one time in the year, and in one part of its
orbit, this earth is moving in the direction in which the whole solar
system is moving, there we have this earth traversing a distance that is
the sum of its own motion and the general motion; then when the earth
rounds about and retraces, there we have its own velocity minus the
general velocity. The first abstrusity, then, is knocked flat on its
technicalities, because the aberration-forms, then, do not reflect the
annual motion of this earth: if, in conventional terms, though the path
of this earth is circular or elliptic relatively to the sun, when
compounding with solar motion it is not so formed relatively to stars;
and there will have to be another explanation for the aberration-forms.
The second supposed proof that this earth moves around the sun is in the
parallax of the stars. In conventional terms, it is said that opposite
points in this earth’s orbit are 185,000,000 miles apart. It is said
that stars, so differently viewed, are minutely displaced against their
backgrounds. Again solar-motion—if, in conventional terms, this earth
has been traveling, as part of the solar system, from Sirius, toward
Vega, in 2,000 years this earth has traveled 819,936,000,000 miles. This
distance is 4,500 times the distance that is the base line for orbital
parallax. Then displacement of the stars by solar-motion parallax in
2,000 years, should be 4,500 times the displacement by orbital parallax,
in one year. Give to orbital parallax as minute a quantity as is
consistent with the claims made for it, and 4,500 times that would dent
the Great Dipper and nick the Sickle of Leo, and perhaps make the Dragon
look like a dragon. But not a star in the heavens has changed more than
doubtfully since the stars were catalogued by Hipparchus, 2,000 years
ago. If, then, there be minute displacements of stars that are
attributed to orbital parallax, they will have to be explained in some
other way, if evidently the sun does not move from Sirius toward Vega,
and if then, quite as reasonably, this earth may not move.
Prof. Young’s third “proof” is spectroscopic.
To what degree can spectroscopy in astronomy be relied upon?
Bryant, _A History of Astronomy_, p. 206:
That, according to Bélopolsky, Venus rotates in about 24 hours, as
determined by the spectroscope; that, according to Dr. Slipher, Venus
rotates in about 224 days, as determined by the spectroscope.
According to observations too numerous to make it necessary to cite any,
the seeming motions of stars, occulted by the moon, show that the moon
has atmosphere. According to the spectroscope, there is no atmosphere
upon the moon (_Pubs. Astro. Soc. Pacific_, vol. 6, no. 37).
The ring of light around Venus, during the transits of 1874 and 1882,
indicated that Venus has atmosphere. Most astronomers say that Venus has
an atmosphere of extreme density, obscuring the features of the planet.
According to spectrum analysis, by Sir William Huggins, Venus has no
atmosphere (_Eng. Mec._, 4-22).
In the _English Mechanic_, 89-439, are published results of
spectroscopic examinations of Mars, by Director Campbell, of the Lick
Observatory: that there is no oxygen, and that there is no water vapor
on Mars. In _Monthly Notices, R. A. S._, 27-178, are published results
of spectroscopic examinations of Mars by Huggins: abundance of oxygen;
same vapors as the vapors of this earth.
These are the amusements of our Pilgrim’s Progress, which has new San
Salvadors for its goals, or new Plymouth Rocks for its expectations—but
the experiences of pilgrims have variety—
In 1895, at the Allegheny Observatory, Prof. Keeler undertook to
determine the rotation-period of Saturn’s rings, by spectroscopy. It is
gravitational gospel that particles upon the outside of the rings move
at the rate of 10.69 miles a second; particles upon the inner edge,
13.01 miles a second. Prof. Keeler’s determinations were what Sir Robert
Ball calls “brilliant confirmation of the mathematical deduction.” Prof.
Keeler announced that according to the spectroscope, the outside
particles of the rings of Saturn move at the rate of 10.1 miles a
second, and that the inner particles move at the rate of 12.4 miles a
second—“as they ought to,” says Prof. Young, in his gospel, _Elements of
Astronomy_.
One reads of a miracle like this, the carrying out into decimals of
different speeds of different particles in parts of a point of light,
the parts of which can not be seen at all without a telescope, whereby
they seem to constitute a solid and motionless structure, and one
admires, or one worships, according to one’s inexperience—
Or there comes upon one a sense of imposture and imposition that is not
very bearable. Imposition or imposture or captivation—and it’s as if
we’ve been trapped and have been put into a revolving cage, some of the
bars revolving at unthinkable speed, and other bars of it going around
still faster, even though not conceivable. Disbelieve as we will, deride
and accuse, and think of all the other false demonstrations that we have
encountered, as we will—there’s the buzz of the bars that encircle us.
The concoction that has caged us is one of the most brilliant harlots in
modern prostitution: we’re imprisoned at the pleasure of a favorite in
the harem of the God of Gravitation. That’s some relief: language always
is—but how are we to “determine” that the rings of Saturn do not move as
they “ought” to, and thereby add more to the discrediting of
spectroscopy in astronomy?
A gleam on a planet that’s like shine on a sword to deliver us—
The White Spot of Saturn—
A bright and shining deliverer.
There’s a gleam that will shatter concoctions and stop velocities.
There’s a shining thing on the planet Saturn, and the blow that it
shines is lightning. Thus far has gone a revolution of 10.1 miles a
second, but it stops by magic against magic; no farther buzzes a
revolution of 12.4 miles a second—that the rings of Saturn may not move
as, to flatter one little god they “ought” to, because, by the handiwork
of Universality, they may be motionless.
Often has a white spot been seen upon the rings of Saturn: by Schmidt,
Bond, Secchi, Schroeter, Harding, Schwabe, De Vico—a host of other
astronomers.
It is stationary.
In the _English Mechanic_, 49-195, Thomas Gwyn Elger publishes a sketch
of it as he saw it upon the nights of April 18 and 20, 1889. It occupied
a position partly upon one ring and partly upon the other, showing no
distortion. Let Prof. Keeler straddle two concentric merry-go-rounds,
whirling at different velocities: there will be distortion. See vol. 49,
_English Mechanic_, for observation after observation by astronomers
upon this appearance, when seen for several months in the year 1889, the
observers agreeing that, no matter what are the demands of theory, this
fixed spot did indicate that the rings of Saturn do not move.
The White Spot on Saturn has blasted minor magic. He has little, black
retainers who now function in the cause of completeness—the little,
black spots of Saturn—
_Nature_, 53-109:
That, in July and August, 1895, Prof. Mascari, of the Catania
Observatory, had seen dark spots upon the crepe ring of Saturn. The
writer in _Nature_ says that such duration is not easy to explain, if
the rings of Saturn be formations of moving particles, because different
parts of the discolored areas would have different velocities, so that
soon would they distort and diffuse.
Certainly enough, relatively to my purpose, which is to find out for
myself, and to find out with anybody else who may be equally impressed
with a necessity, a brilliant, criminal thing has been slain by a gleam
of higher intensity. Certainly enough, then, with the execution of one
of its foremost exponents, the whole subject of spectroscopy in
astronomy has been cast into rout and disgrace, of course only to
ourselves, and not in the view of manufacturers of spectroscopes, for
instance; but a phantom thing dies a phantom death, and must be slain
over and over again.
I should say that just what is called the spectrum of a star is not
commonly understood. It is one of the greatest uncertainties in science.
The spectrum of a star is a ghost in the first place, but this ghost has
to be further attenuated by a secondary process, and the whole
appearance trembles so with the twinkling of a star that the stories
told by spectra are gasps of palsied phantoms. So it is that, in one of
the greatest indefinitenesses in science, an astronomer reads in a
bewilderment that can be made to correspond with any desideratum. So it
is our acceptance that when any faint, tremulous story told by a
spectrum becomes standardized, the conventional astronomer is told, by
the spectroscope, what he should be told, but that when anything new
appears, for which there is no convention, the bewilderment of the
astronomers is made apparent, and the worthlessness of spectroscopy in
astronomy is shown to all except those who do not want to be shown. Upon
the first of February, 1892, Dr. Thomas D. Anderson, of Edinburgh,
discovered a new star that became known as Nova Aurigae. Here was
something as to which there was no dogmatic “determination.” Each
astronomer had to see, not what he should, but what he could. We shall
see that the astronomers might as well have gone, for information, to
some of Mrs. Piper’s “controls” as to think of depending upon their own
ghosts.
In _Monthly Notices_, Feb., 1893, it is said that probably for seven
weeks, up to the time of calculation, one part of this new star had been
receding at a rate of 230 miles a second, and another part approaching
at a rate of 320 miles a second, giving to these components a distance
apart of 550 miles × 60 × 60 × 24 × 49, whatever that may be.
But there was another séance. This time Dr. Vogel was the medium. The
ghosts told Dr. Vogel that the new star had three parts, one approaching
this earth at the rate of about 420 miles a second, another approaching
at a rate of 22 miles a second, a third part receding at a rate of 300
miles a second. See _Jour. B. A. A._, 2-258.
After that, the “controls” became hysterical. They flickered that there
were six parts of this new star, according to Dr. Lowell’s _Evolution of
Worlds_, p. 9. The faithful will be sorry to read that Lowell revolted.
He says: “There is not room for so many on the stage of the cosmic
drama.” For other reasons for repudiating spectroscopy, or spiritualism,
in astronomy, read what else Lowell says upon this subject.
Nova Aurigae became fainter. Accordingly, Prof. Klinkerfues “found” that
two bodies had passed, and had inflamed, each other, and that the light
of their mutual disturbances would soon disappear (_Jour. B. A. A._,
2-365).
Nova Aurigae became brighter. Accordingly, Dr. Campbell “determined”
that it was approaching this earth at a rate of 128 miles a second
(_Jour. B. A. A._, 2-504).
Then Dr. Espin went into a trance. It was revealed to him that the
object was a nebula (_Eng. Mec._, 56-61). Communication from Dr. and
Mrs. Huggins, to the Royal Society—not a nebula, but a star (_Eng.
Mec._, 57-397). See _Nature_, 47-352, 425—that, according to M. Eugen
Gothard the spectrum of N. A. agreed “perfectly” with the spectrum of a
nebula: that, according to Dr. Huggins, no contrast could be more
striking than the difference between the spectrum of N. A., and the
spectrum of a nebula.
For an account of the revelations at Stonyhurst Observatory, see _Mems.
R. A. S._, 51-129—that there never had been a composition of bodies
moving at the rates that were so definitely announced, because N. A. was
a single star.
Though I have read some of the communications from “Rector” and “Dr.
Phinuit” to Mrs. Piper, I can not think that they ever mouthed sillier
babble than was flickered by the star-ghosts to the astronomers in the
year 1892. We noted Prof. Klinkerfues’ “finding” that two stars had
passed each other, and that the illumination from their mutual
perturbations would soon subside. There was no such disappearance. For
observations upon N. A., ten years later, see _Monthly Notices_, 62-65.
For Prof. Barnard’s observations twenty years later, see _Sci. Amer.
Sup._, 76-154.
The spectroscope is useful in a laboratory. Spoons are useful in a
kitchen. If any other pilgrim should come upon a group of engineers
trying to dig a canal with spoons, his experience and his temptation to
linger would be like ours as to the astronomers and their attempted
application of the spectroscope. I don’t know what of remotest
acceptability may survive in the third supposed proof that this earth
moves around the sun, though we have not found it necessary to go into
the technicalities of the supposed proof. I think we have killed the
phantom thing, but I hope we have not quite succeeded, because we are
moved more by the æsthetics of slaughter than by plain murderousness: we
shall find unity in disposing of the third “proof” by the means by which
the two others were disposed of—
Regular Annual Shift of Spectral Lines versus Solar Motion—
That, if this earth moves around the sun, the shift might be found by
scientific Mrs. Pipers so to indicate—
But that if part of the time this earth, as a part of one traveling
system, moves at a rate of 19 plus 13 miles a second and then part of
the time at a rate of 19 minus 13 miles a second, compounding with great
complexities at transverse times, that is the end of the regular annual
shift that is supposed to apply to orbital motion.
We need not have admitted in the first place that the three abstrusities
are resistances: however we have a liking for revelations ourselves.
Aberration and Parallax and Spectral Lines do not indicate only that
this earth moves relatively to the stars: quite as convincingly they
indicate that the stars in one composition gyrate relatively to a
central and stationary earth, all of them in one concavity around this
earth, some of them showing faintest of parallax, if this earth be not
quite central to the revolving whole.
Something that I did not mention before, though I referred to Lowell’s
statements, is that astronomers now admit, or state, that the shift of
spectral lines, which they say indicates that this earth moves around
the sun, also indicates any one of three other circumstances, or sets of
circumstances. Some persons will ask why I didn’t say so at first, and
quit the meaningless subject. May be it was a weakness of mine—something
of a sporting instinct, I fear me, I have at times. I lingered, perhaps
slightly intoxicated, with the deliciousness of Prof. Keeler and his
decimals—like someone at a race track, determining that a horse is
running at a rate of 2653 feet and 4 inches a minute, by a method that
means that no more than it means that the horse is brown, is making
clattering sounds, or has a refreshing odor. For a study of a state of
mind like that of many clergymen who try to believe in Moses, and in
Darwin, too, see the works of Prof. Young, for instance. This astronomer
teaches the conventional spectroscopic doctrine, and also mentions the
other circumstances that make the doctrine meaningless. Such
inconsistencies are phenomena of all transitions from the old to the
new.
Three giants have appeared against us. Their hearts are bubbles. Their
bones wilt. They are the limp Karyatides that uphold the phantom
structure of Palaeo-astronomy. By what miracle, we asked, could
foundation be built subsequently under a baseless thing. But three
ghosts can fit in anywhere.
Sometimes astronomers cite the Foucault pendulum-experiment as “proof”
of the motions of this earth. The circumstances of this demonstration
are not easily made clear: consequently one of normal suspiciousness is
likely to let it impose upon him. But my practical and commonplace
treatment is to disregard what the experiment and its complexities are,
and to enquire whether it works out or not. It does not. See _Amer.
Jour. Sci._, 2-12-402; _Eng. Mec._, 93-293, 306; _Astro. Reg._, 2-265.
Also we are told that experiments upon falling bodies have proved this
earth’s rotation. I get so tired of demonstrating that there never has
been any Evolution mentally, except as to ourselves, that, if I could,
I’d be glad to say that these experiments work out beautifully. Maybe
they do. See Proctor’s _Old and New Astronomy_, p. 229.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It is supposed that astronomic subjects and principles and methods can
not be understood by the layman. I think this, myself. We shall take up
some of the principles of astronomy, with the idea of expressing that of
course they can not be understood by the unhypnotized any more than can
the stories of Noah’s Ark and Jonah and the Whale be understood, but
that our understanding, if we have any, will have some material for its
exercises, just the same. The velocity of light is one of these
principles. A great deal in the astronomic system depends upon this
supposed velocity: determinations of distance, and amount of aberration
depend. It will be our expression that these are ratios of impositions
to mummeries, with such clownish products that formulas turn into
antics, and we shall have scruples against taking up the subject at all,
because we have much hard work to do, and we have qualms against
stopping so often to amuse ourselves. But, then, sometimes in a more
sentimental mood, I think that the pretty story of the velocity of
light, and its “determination,” will some day be of legitimate service;
be rhymed some day, and told to children, in future kindergartens,
replacing the story of little Bo-peep, with the tale of a planet that
lost its satellites and sometimes didn’t know where to find them, but
that good magicians came along and formulated the indeterminable.
It was found by Roemer, a seventeenth-century astronomer, that, at
times, the moons of Jupiter did not disappear behind him, and did not
emerge from behind him, when they “should.” He found that as distance
between this earth and Jupiter increased, the delays increased. He
concluded that these delays represented times consumed by the light of
the moons in traveling greater distances. He found, or supposed he
found, that when this earth is farthest from Jupiter, light from a
satellite is seen 22 minutes later than when nearest Jupiter. Given
measurement of the distance between opposite points in the earth’s
supposed orbit, and time consumed in traveling this distance—there you
have the velocity of light.
I still say that it is a pretty story and should be rhymed; but we shall
find that astronomers might as well try to formulate the gambols of the
sheep of little Bo-peep, as to try to formulate anything depending upon
the satellites of Jupiter.
In the _Annals of Philosophy_, 23-29, Col. Beaufoy writes that, upon
Dec. 7, 1823, he looked for the emergence of Jupiter’s third satellite,
at the time set down in the _National Almanac_: for two hours he looked,
and did not see the satellite emerge. In _Monthly Notices_, 44-8, an
astronomer writes that, upon the night of Oct. 15, 1883, one of the
satellites of Jupiter was forty-six minutes late. A paper was read at
the meeting of the British Astronomical Association, Feb. 8, 1907, upon
a satellite that was twenty minutes late. In _Telescopic Work_, p. 191,
W. F. Denning writes that, upon the night of Sept. 12, 1889, he and two
other astronomers could not see satellite IV at all. See the
_Observatory_, 9-237—satellite IV disappeared 15 minutes before
calculated time; about a minute later it re-appeared; disappeared again;
re-appeared nine minutes later. For Todd’s observations see the
_Observatory_, 2-227—six times, between June 9 and July 2, 1878, a
satellite was visible when, according to prediction, it should have been
invisible. For some more instances of extreme vagaries of these
satellites, see _Monthly Notices_, 43-427, and _Jour. B. A. A._, 14-27:
observations by Noble, Turner, White, Holmes, Freeman, Goodacre, Ellis,
and Molesworth. In periodical astronomical publications, there is no
more easily findable material for heresy than such observations. We
shall have other instances. They abound in the _English Mechanic_, for
instance. But, in spite of a host of such observations, Prof. Young
(_The Sun_, p. 35) says that the time occupied by light coming from
these satellites is doubtful by “only a fraction of a second.” It is of
course another instance of the astronomers who know very little of
astronomy.
It would have been undignified, if the astronomers had taken the sheep
of little Bo-peep for their determinations. They took the satellites of
Jupiter. They said that the velocity of light is about 190,000 miles a
second.
So did the physicists.
Our own notion is that there is no velocity of light: that one sees a
thing, or doesn’t; that if the satellites of Jupiter behave differently
according to proximity to this earth, that may be because this earth
affects them, so affecting them, because the planets may not, as we may
find, be at a thousandth part of the “demonstrated” distances. The
notion of velocity of light finds support, we are told in the text
books, in the velocity of sound. If it does, it doesn’t find support in
gravitational effects, because, according to the same text books,
gravitational effects have no velocity.
The physicists agreed with the astronomers. A beam of light is sent
through, and is reflected back through, a revolving shutter—but it’s
complex, and we’re simple: we shall find that there is no need to go
into the details of this mechanism. It is not that a machine is supposed
to register a velocity of 186,000 miles a second, or we’d have to be
technical: it is that the eye is supposed to perceive—
And there is not a physicist in the world who can perceive when a parlor
magician palms off playing-cards. Hearing, or feeling, or if one could
smell light, some kind of a claim might be made—but the well-known
limitations of seeing; common knowledge of little boys that a brand
waved about in the dark can not be followed by the eyes. The limit of
the perceptible is said to be ten changes a second.
I think of the astronomers as occupying a little vortex of their own in
the cosmic swoon in which wave all things, at least in this one supposed
solar system. Call it swoon, or call it hypnosis—but that it is never
absolute, and that all of us sometimes have awareness of our condition,
and moments of wondering what it’s all about and why we do and think the
things that sometimes we wake up and find ourselves doing and thinking.
Upon page 281, _Old and New Astronomy_, Richard Proctor awakens
momentarily, and says: “The agreement between these results seems close
enough, but those who know the actual difficulty of precise
time-observations of the phenomena of Jupiter’s satellites, to say
nothing of the present condition of the theory of their motions, can
place very little reliance on the velocity of light deduced from such
observations.” Upon pages 603-607, Proctor reviews some observations
other than those that I have listed—satellites that have disappeared,
come back, disappeared, returned again so bewilderingly that he wrote
what we have quoted—observations by Gorton, Wray, Gambart, Secchi, Main,
Grover, Smyth-Maclear-Pearson, Hodgson, Carlisle, Siminton. And that is
the last of his awareness: Proctor then swoons back into his hypnosis.
He then takes up the determination of the velocity of light by the
physicists, as if they could be relied upon, accepting every word,
writing his gospel, glorying in this miracle of science. I call it a
tainted agreement between the physicists and the astronomers. I prefer
mild language. If by a method by which nothing could be found out, the
astronomers determined that the velocity of light is about 190,000 miles
a second, and if the physicists by another method found about the same
result, what kind of harmony can that be other than the reekings of two
consistent stenches? Proctor wrote that very little reliance could be
placed upon anything depending upon Jupiter’s satellites. It never
occurred to him to wonder by what miracle the physicists agreed with
these unreliable calculations. It is the situation that repeats in the
annals of astronomy—a baseless thing that is supposed to have a
foundation slipped under it, wedged in, or God knows how introduced or
foisted. I prefer not to bother much with asking how the physicists
could determine anything of a higher number of changes than ten per
second. If it be accepted that the physicists are right, the question
is—by what miracle were the astronomers right, if they had “very little”
to rely upon?
Determinations of planetary distances and determinations of the velocity
of light have squirmed together: they represent either an agreeable
picture of co-operation, or a study in mutual support by writhing
infamies. With most emphasis I have taken the position that the vagaries
of the Jovian satellites are so great that extremely little reliance can
be placed upon them, but now it seems to me that the emphasis should be
upon the admission that, in addition to these factors of
indeterminateness, it was, up to Proctor’s day, not known with anything
like accuracy when the satellites should appear and disappear. In that
case one wonders as to the state of the theory in Roemer’s day. It was
in the mind of Roemer that the two “determinations” we are now
considering first most notably satisfied affinity: mutual support by
velocity of light and distances in this supposed solar system. Upon his
Third Law, which, as we shall see later, he constructed upon at least
three absences of anything to build upon, Kepler had, upon observations
upon Mars, deduced 13,000,000 miles as this earth’s distance from the
sun. By the same method, which is the now discredited method of
simultaneous observations, Roemer determined this distance to be
82,000,000 miles. I am not concerned with this great discrepancy so much
as with the astronomers’ reasons for starting off distances in millions
instead of hundreds or thousands of miles.
In Kepler’s day the strongest objection urged against the Copernican
system was that, if this earth moves around the sun, the stars should
show annual displacements—and it is only under modern “refinements” that
the stars do so minutely vary, perhaps. The answer to this objection was
that the stars are vastly farther away than was commonly supposed.
Entailed by this answer was the necessity of enlarging upon common
suppositions generally. Kepler determined or guessed, just as one
pleases, and then Roemer outdid him. Roemer was followed by Huygens,
with continued outdoing: 100,000,000 according to Huygens. Huygens took
for his basis his belief that this earth is intermediate in size to Mars
and Venus. Astronomers, to-day, say that this earth is not so
intermediate. We see that, in the secondary phase of development, the
early astronomers, with no means of knowing whether the sun is a
thousand or a million miles away, guessed or determined such distances
as 82,000,000 miles and 100,000,000 miles, to account for the
changelessness of the stars. If the mean of these extremes is about the
distance of present dogmas, we’d like to know by what miracle a true
distance so averages two products of wild methods. Our expression is
that these developments had their origin in conspiracy and prostitution,
if one has a fancy for such accusations; or, if everybody else has been
so agreeable, we think more amiably, ourselves, that it was all a matter
of comfortably adjusting and being obliging all around. Our expression
is that ever since the astronomers have seen and have calculated as they
should see and should calculate. For instance, when this earth’s
distance from the sun was supposed to be 95,000,000 miles, all
astronomers taking positions of Mars, calculated a distance of
95,000,000 miles; but then, when the distance was cut down to about
92,000,000 miles, all astronomers, taking positions of Mars, calculated
about a distance of 92,000,000 miles. It may sound like a cynicism of
mine, but in saying this I am quoting Richard Proctor, in one of his
lucid suspicions (_Old and New Astronomy_, p. 280).
With nothing but monotony, and with nothing that looks like relief for
us, the data of conspiracy, or of co-operation, continue. Upon worthless
observations upon the transits of Venus, 1761 and 1769, this earth’s
orbit was found by Encke to be about 190,000,000 miles across (distance
of the sun about 95,000,000 miles). Altogether progress had been more
toward the wild calculations of Huygens than toward the undomesticated
calculations of Roemer. So, to agree with this change, if not progress,
Delambre, taking worthless observations upon the satellites of Jupiter,
cut down Roemer’s worthless determinations, and announced that light
crosses the plane of this earth’s orbit in 16 minutes and 32 seconds—as
it ought to, Prof. Young would say. It was then that the agreeably
tainted physicists started spinning and squinting, calculating
“independently,” we are told, that Delambre was right. Everything
settled—everybody comfortable—see Chambers’ _Handbook of Astronomy_,
published at this time—that the sun’s distance had been ascertained,
“with great accuracy” to be 95,298,260 miles—
But then occurred something that is badly, but protectively, explained,
in most astronomical works. Foucault interfered with the deliciousness
of those 95,298,260 miles. One may read many books that mention this
subject, and one will always read that Foucault, the physicist, by an
“independent” method, or by an “absolutely independent” method,
disagreed somewhat. The “disagreement” is paraded so that one has an
impression of painstaking, independent scientists not utterly slavishly
supporting one another, but at the same time keeping well over the
90,000,000 mark, and so essentially agreeing, after all. But we find
that there was no independence in Foucault’s “experiments.” We come
across the same old disgusting connivance, or the same amiable
complaisance, perhaps. See Clerke’s _History of Astronomy_, p. 230. We
learn that astronomers, to explain oscillations of the sun, had decided
that the sun must be, not 95,298,260 miles away, but about 91,000,000.
To oblige them, perhaps, or innocently, never having heard of them,
perhaps, though for ten years they had been announcing that a new
determination was needed, Foucault “found” that the velocity of light is
less than had been necessary to suppose, when the sun was supposed to be
about 95,000,000 miles away, and he “found” the velocity to be exactly
what it should be, supposing the sun to be 91,000,000 miles away. Then
it was that the astronomers announced, not that they had cut down the
distance of the sun because of observations upon solar oscillations, but
because they had been very much impressed by the “independent”
observations upon the velocity of light, by Foucault, the physicist.
This squirm occurred at the meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society,
February, 1864. There would have to be more squirms. If, then, the
distance across this earth’s orbit was “found” to be less than Delambre
had supposed, somebody would have to find that light comes from the
satellites of Jupiter a little slower than Delambre had “proved.”
Whereupon, Glassenapp “found” that the time is 16 minutes and 40
seconds, which is what he should, or “ought to,” find. Whereupon, there
would have to be re-adjustment of Encke’s calculations of distance of
sun, upon worthless observations upon transits of Venus. And whereupon
again, Newcomb went over the very same observations by which Encke had
compelled agreement with the dogmas of his day, and Newcomb calculated,
as was required, that the distance agreed with Foucault’s reduction.
Whether, in the first place, Encke ever did calculate, as he said he
did, or not, his determination was mere agreement with Laplace’s in the
seventh book of the _Méchanique Céleste_. Of course he said that he had
calculated independently, because his method was by triangulation, and
Laplace’s was the gravitational.
That the word “worthless” does apply to observations upon transits of
Venus:
In _Old and New Astronomy_, Proctor says that the observations upon the
transits of 1761 and 1769 were “altogether unsatisfactory.” One supposes
that anything that is altogether unsatisfactory can’t be worth much. In
the next transit, of 1874, various nations co-operated. The observations
were so disappointing that the Russian, Italian, and Austrian
Governments refused to participate in the expeditions of 1882. In
_Reminiscences of an Astronomer_, p. 181, Newcomb says that the United
States Commission, of which he was Secretary, had, up to 1902 never
published in full its observations, and probably never would, because by
that time all other members were either dead or upon the retired list.
Method of Mars—more monotony—because of criticisms of the taking of
parallax by simultaneous observations, Dr. David Gill went to the Island
of Ascension, during the opposition of Mars of 1877, to determine alone,
by the diurnal method, the distance of this earth from the sun, from
positions of Mars. For particulars of Gill’s method, see, for instance,
Poor’s _Solar System_, p. 86. Here Prof. Poor says that, of course, the
orbital motion of Mars had to be allowed for, in Gill’s calculations. If
so, then of course this earth’s orbital motion had to be allowed for. If
Dr. Gill knew the space traversed by this earth in its orbit, and the
curvature of its path, he knew the size and shape of the orbit, and
consequently the distance from the sun. Then he took for the basis of
his allowance that this earth is about 93,000,000 miles from the sun,
and calculated that this earth is about 93,000,000 miles from the sun.
For this classic deduction from the known to the same known, he received
a gold medal.
In our earlier surveys, we were concerned with the false claim that
there can be application of celestial mechanics to celestial phenomena;
but, as to later subjects, the method is different. The method of all
these calculations is triangulation.
One simple question:
To what degree can triangulation be relied upon?
To great degree in measuring the height of a building, or in the little
distances of a surveyor’s problems. It is clear enough that astronomers
did not invent the telescope. They adopted the spectroscope from another
science. Their primary mathematical principle of triangulation they have
taken from the surveyors, to whom it is serviceable. The triangle is
another emblem of the sterility of the science of astronomy. Upon the
coat of arms of this great mule of the sciences, I would draw a prism
within a triangle.
CHAPTER NINE
According to Prof. Newcomb, for instance, the distance of the sun is
about 380 times the distance of the moon—as determined by triangulation.
But, upon page 22, _Popular Astronomy_, Newcomb tells of another
demonstration, with strikingly different results—as determined by
triangulation.
A split god.
The god Triangulation is not one undivided deity.
The other method with strikingly different results is the method of
Aristarchus. It cuts down the distance of the sun, from 380 to 20 times
the distance of the moon. When an observer upon this earth sees the moon
half-illumined, the angle at the moon, between observer and sun, is a
right angle; a third line between observer and sun completes a triangle.
According to Aristarchus, the tilt of the third line includes an angle
of 86 degrees, making the sun-earth line 20 times longer than the
moon-earth line.
“In principle,” says Newcomb, “the method is quite correct and very
ingenious, but it can not be applied in practice.” He says that
Aristarchus measured wrong; that the angle between the moon-earth line
and the earth-sun line is almost 90 degrees and not 86 degrees. Then he
says that the method can not be applied because no one can determine
this angle that he had said is of almost 90 degrees. He says something
that is so incongruous with the inflations of astronomers that they’d
sizzle if their hypnotized readers could read and think at the same
time. Newcomb says that the method of Aristarchus can not be applied
because no astronomer can determine when the moon is half-illumined.
We have had some experience.
Does anybody who has been through what we’ve been through suppose that
there is a Prof. Keeler in the world who would not declare that
trigonometrically and spectroscopically and micrometrically he had
determined the exact moment and exasperating, or delightful, decimal of
a moment of semi-illumination of the moon, were it not that, according
to at least as good a mathematician as he, determination based upon that
demonstration does show that the sun is only 20 times as far away as the
moon? But suppose we agree that this simple thing can not be done.
Then instantly we think of some of the extravagant claims with which
astronomers have stuffed supine credulities. Crawling in their unsightly
confusion that sickens for simplification, is this offense to harmony:
That astronomers can tell under which Crusade, or its decimalated moment
a shine left a star, but can not tell when a shine reaches a line on the
moon—
Glory and triumph and selectness and inflation—or that we shall have
renown as evangelists, spreading the homely and wholesome doctrine of
humility. Hollis, in _Chats on Astronomy_, tells us that the diameter of
this earth, at the equator, is 41,851,160 feet. But blessed be the meek,
we tell him. In the _Observatory_, 19-118, is published the
determination, by the astronomer Brenner, of the time of rotation of
Venus, as to which other astronomers differ by hundreds of days.
According to Brenner, the time is 23 hours, 57 minutes, and 7.5459
seconds. I do note that this especial refinement is a little too
ethereal for the Editor of the _Observatory_: he hopes Brenner will
pardon him, but is it necessary to carry out the finding to the fourth
decimal of a second? However, I do not mean to say that all astronomers
are as refined as Brenner, for instance. In the _Jour. B. A. A._, 1-382,
Edwin Holmes, perhaps coarsely, expresses some views. He says that such
“exactness” as Capt. Noble’s in writing that the diameter of Neptune is
38,133 miles and that of Uranus is 33,836 miles is bringing science into
contempt, because very little is known of these planets; that, according
to Nelson, these diameters are 27,000 miles and 28,500 miles.
MacPherson, in _A Century’s Progress in Science_, quotes Prof. Serviss:
that the average parallax of a star, which is an ordinary astronomic
quantity, is “about equal to the apparent distance between two pins,
placed one inch apart, and viewed from a distance of one hundred and
eighty miles.” Stick pins in a cushion, in New York—go to Saratoga and
look at them—be overwhelmed with the more than human powers of the
scientifically anointed—or ask them when shines half the moon.
The moon’s surface is irregular. I do not say that anybody with brains
enough to know when he has half a shoe polished should know when the sun
has half the moon shined. I do say that if this simple thing can not be
known, the crowings of astronomers as to enormously more difficult
determinations are mere barnyard disturbances.
Triangulation that, according to his little priests, straddles orbits
and on his apex wears a star—that he’s a false Colossus; shrinking, at
the touch of data, back from the stars, deflating below the sun and
moon; stubbing down below the clouds of this earth, so that the
different stories that he told to Aristarchus and to Newcomb are the
conflicting vainglories of an earth-tied squatter—
The blow that crumples a god:
That, by triangulation, there is not an astronomer in the world who can
tell the distance of a thing only five miles away.
Humboldt, _Cosmos_, 5-138:
Height of Mauna Loa: 18,410 feet, according to Cook; 16,611, according
to Marchand; 13,761, according to Wilkes—according to triangulation.
In the _Scientific American_, 119-31, a mountain climber calls the
Editor to account for having written that Mt. Everest is 29,002 feet
high. He says that, in his experience, there is always an error of at
least ten per cent. in calculating the height of a mountain, so that all
that can be said is that Mt. Everest is between 26,100 and 31,900 feet
high. In the _Scientific American_, 102-183, and 319, Miss Annie Peck
cites two measurements of a mountain in India: they differ by 4000 feet.
The most effective way of treating this subject is to find a list of
measurements of a mountain’s height before the mountain was climbed, and
compare with the barometric determination, when the mountain was
climbed. For a list of 8 measurements, by triangulation, of the height
of Mt. St. Elias, see the _Alpine Journal_, 22-150: they vary from
12,672 to 19,500 feet. D’Abruzzi climbed Mt. St. Elias, Aug. 1, 1897.
See a paper, in the _Alpine Journal_, 19-125. D’Abruzzi’s barometric
determination—18,092 feet.
Suppose that, in measuring, by triangulation, the distance of anything
five miles away, the error is, say ten per cent. But, as to anything ten
miles away, there is no knowing what the error would be. By
triangulation, the moon has been “found” to be 240,000 miles away. It
may be 240 or 240,000,000 miles away.
CHAPTER TEN
Pseudo heart of a phantom thing—it is Keplerism, pulsating with Sir
Isaac Newton’s regularizations.
If triangulation can not be depended upon accurately to measure distance
greater than a mile or two between objects and observers, the aspects of
Keplerism that depend upon triangulation should be of no more concern to
us than two pins in a cushion 180 miles away: nevertheless so affected
by something like seasickness are we by the wobbling deductions of the
conventionalists that we shall have direct treatment, or independent
expressions, whenever we can have, or seem to have, them. Kepler saw a
planetary system, and he felt that, if that system could be formulated
in terms of proportionality, by discovering one of the relations
quantitatively, all its measurements could be deduced. I take from
Newcomb, in _Popular Astronomy_, that, in Kepler’s view, there was
system in the arrangement and motions of the four little traitors that
sneak around Jupiter; that Kepler, with no suspicions of these little
betrayers, reasoned that this central body and its accompaniments were a
representation, upon a small scale, of the solar system, as a whole.
Kepler found that the cubes of mean distances of neighboring satellites
of Jupiter, divided by the squares of their times, gave the same
quotients. He reasoned that the same relations subsisted among planets,
if the solar system be only an enlargement of the Jovian system.
_Observatory_, December, 1920: “The discordances between theory and
observation (as to the motions of Jupiter’s satellites) are of such
magnitude that continued observations of their precise moments of
eclipses are very much to be desired.” In the Report of the Jupiter
Section of the British Astronomical Society (_Mems. B. A. A._, 8-83) is
a comparison between observed times and calculated times of these
satellites. 65 observations, in the year 1899, are listed. In one
instance prediction and observation agree. Many differences of 3 or 4
minutes are noted, and there are differences of 5 or 6 minutes.
Kepler formulated his law of proportionality between times and distances
of Jupiter’s satellites without knowing what the times are. It should be
noted that the observations in the year 1899 took into consideration
fluctuations that were discovered by Roemer, long after Kepler’s time.
Just for the sake of having something that looks like opposition, let us
try to think that Kepler was miraculously right anyway. Then, if
something that may resemble Kepler’s Third Law does subsist in the
Jovian satellites that were known to Kepler, by what resemblance to
logicality can that proportionality extend to the whole solar system, if
a solar system can be supposed?
In the year 1892, a fifth satellite of Jupiter was discovered. Maybe it
would conform to Kepler’s law, if anybody could find out accurately in
what time the faint speck does revolve. The sixth and the seventh
satellites of Jupiter revolve so eccentrically that, in line of sight,
their orbits intersect. Their distances are subject to very great
variations; but, inasmuch as it might be said that their mean distances
do conform to Kepler’s Third Law, or would, if anybody could find out
what their mean distances are, we go on to the others. The eight and the
ninth conform to nothing that can be asserted. If one of them goes
around in one orbit at one time, the next time around it goes in some
other orbit, and in some other plane. Inasmuch then as Kepler’s Third
Law, deduced from the system of Jupiter’s satellites, can not be thought
to extend even within that minor system, one’s thoughts stray into
wondering what two pins in a cushion in Louisville, Ky., look like from
somewhere up in the Bronx, rather than to dwell any more upon extension
of any such pseudo-proportionality to the supposed solar system, as a
whole.
It seems that in many of Kepler’s demonstrations was this failure to
have grounds for a starting-point, before extending his reasoning. He
taught the doctrine of the music of the spheres, and assigned bass
voices to Saturn and Jupiter, then tenor to Mars, contralto to the
female planet, and soprano, or falsetto, rather, to little Mercury. And
that is all very well and consistently worked out in detail, and it does
seem reasonable that, if ponderous, if not lumpy, Jupiter, does sing
bass, the other planets join in, according to sex and huskiness—however,
one does feel dissatisfied.
We have dealt with Newcomb’s account. But other conventionalists say
that Kepler worked out his Third Law by triangulation upon Venus and
Mercury, when at greatest elongation, “finding” that the relation
between Mercury and Venus is the same as the relation between Venus and
this earth. If, according to conventionalists, there was no “proof” that
this earth moves, in Kepler’s time, Kepler started by assuming that this
earth moves between Venus and Mars; he assumed that the distance of
Venus from the sun, at greatest elongation, represents mean distance; he
assumed that observations upon Mercury indicated Mercury’s orbit, an
orbit that to this day defies analysis. However, for the sake of seeming
to have opposition, we shall try to think that Kepler’s data did give
him material for the formulation of his law. His data were chiefly the
observations of Tycho Brahé. But, by the very same data, Tycho had
demonstrated that this earth does not move between Venus and Mars; that
this earth is stationary. That stoutest of conventionalists, but at the
same time seeming colleague of ours, Richard Proctor, says that Tycho
Brahé’s system was consistent with all data. I have never heard of an
astronomer who denies this. Then the heart of modern astronomy is not
Keplerism, but is one diversion of data that beat for such a monstrosity
as something like Siamese Twins, serving both Keplerism and the Tychonic
system. I fear that some of our attempts to find opposition are not very
successful.
So far, this mediæval doctrine, restricting to times and distances,
though for all I know the planets sing proportionately as well as move
proportionately, has data to interpret or to misinterpret. But, when it
comes to extending Kepler’s Third Law to the exterior planets, I have
never read of any means that Kepler had of determining their
proportional distances. He simply said that Mars and Jupiter and Saturn
were at distances that proportionalized with their times. He argued,
reasonably enough, perhaps, that the slower-moving planets are the
remoter, but that has nothing to do with proportional remoteness.
This is the pseudo heart of phantom astronomy.
To it Sir Isaac Newton gave a seeming of coherence.
I suspect that it was not by chance that the story of an apple should so
importantly appear in two mythologies. The story of Newton and the apple
was first told by Voltaire. One has suspicions of Voltaire’s meanings.
Suppose Newton did see an apple fall to the ground, and was so inspired,
or victimized, into conceiving in terms of universal attraction. But had
he tried to take a bone away from a dog, he would have had another
impression, and would have been quite as well justified in explaining in
terms of universal repulsion. If, as to all inter-acting things,
electric, biologic, psychologic, economic, sociologic, magnetic, chemic,
as well as canine, repulsion is as much of a determinant as is
attraction, the Law of Gravitation, which is an attempt to explain in
terms of attraction only, is as false as would be dogmas upon all other
subjects if couched in terms of attraction only. So it is that the law
of gravitation has been a rule of chagrin and fiasco. So, perhaps
accepting, or passionately believing in every symbol of it, a Dr. Adams
calculates that the Leonids will appear in November, 1899—but chagrin
and fiasco—the Leonids do not appear. The planet Neptune was not
discovered mathematically, because, though it was in the year 1846,
somewhere near the position of the formula, in the year 1836 or 1856, it
would have been nowhere near the orbit calculated by Leverrier and
Adams. Some time ago, against the clamor that a Trans-Uranian planet had
been discovered mathematically, it was our suggestion that, if this be
not a myth, let the astronomer now discover the Trans-Neptunian planet
mathematically. That there is no such mathematics, in the face of any
number of learned treatises, is far more strikingly betrayed by those
shining little misfortunes, the satellites of Jupiter. Satellite after
satellite of Jupiter was discovered, but by accident or by observation,
and not once by calculation: never were the perturbations of the earlier
known satellites made the material for deducing the positions of other
satellites. Astronomers have pointed to the sky, and there has been
nothing; one of them pointed in four directions at once, and four times
over, there was nothing; and many times when they have not pointed at
all, there has been something.
Apples fall to the ground, and dogs growl, if their bones are taken
away: also flowers bloom in the spring, and a trodden worm turns.
Nevertheless strong is the delusion that there is gravitational
astronomy, and the great power of the Law of Gravitation, in popular
respectfulness, is that it is mathematically expressed. According to my
view, one might as well say that it is fetishly expressed. Descartes was
as great a mathematician as Newton: veritably enough may it be said that
he invented, or discovered, analytic geometry; only patriotically do
Englishmen say that Newton invented, or discovered, the infinitesimal
calculus. Descartes, too, formulated a law of the planets and not by a
symbol was he less bewildering and convincing to the faithful, but his
law was not in terms of gravitation, but in terms of vorticose motion.
In the year 1732, the French Academy awarded a prize to John Bernouli,
for his magnificent mathematical demonstration, which was as
unintelligible as anybody’s. Bernouli, too, formulated, or said he
formulated, planetary inter-actions, as mathematically as any of his
hypnotized admirers could have desired: it, too, was not gravitational.
The fault that I find with a great deal of mathematics in astronomy is
the fault that I should find in architecture, if a temple, or a
skyscraper, were supposed to prove something. Pure mathematics is
architecture: it has no more place in astronomy than has the Parthenon.
It is the arbitrary: it will not spoil a line nor dent a surface for a
datum. There is a faint uniformity in every chaos: in discolorations on
an old wall, anybody can see recognizable appearances; in such a mixture
a mathematician will see squares and circles and triangles. If he would
merely elaborate triangles and not apply his diagrams to theories upon
the old wall itself, his constructions would be as harmless as poetry.
In our metaphysics, unity can not, of course, be the related. A
mathematical expression of unity can not, except approximately, apply to
a planet, which is not final, but is part of something.
Sir Isaac Newton lived long ago. Every thought in his mind was a
reflection of his era. To appraise his mind at all comprehensively,
consider his works in general. For some other instances of his love of
numbers, see, in his book upon the Prophecies of Daniel, his
determinations upon the eleventh horn of Daniel’s fourth animal. If that
demonstration be not very acceptable nowadays, some of his other works
may now be archaic. For all I know Jupiter may sing bass, either
smoothly or lumpily, and for all I know there may be some formulable
ratio between an eleventh horn of a fourth animal and some other
quantity: I complain against the dogmas that have solidified out of the
vaporings of such minds, but I suppose I am not very substantial,
myself. Upon general principles, I say that we take no ships of the time
of Newton for models for the ships of today, and build and transport in
ways that are magnificently, or perhaps disastrously, different, but
that, at any rate, are not the same; and that the principles of biology
and chemistry and all the other sciences, except astronomy, are not what
they were in Newton’s time, whether every one of them is a delusion or
not. My complaint is that the still mediæval science of astronomy holds
back alone in a general appearance of advancement, even though there
probably never has been real advancement.
There is something else to be said upon Keplerism and Newtonism. It is a
squirm. I fear me that our experiences have sophisticated us. We have
noted the division in Keplerism, by which, like everything else that we
have examined, it is as truly interpretable one way as it is another
way.
The squirm:
To lose all sense of decency and value of data, but to be agreeable; but
to be like everybody else, and intend to turn our agreeableness to
profit;
To agree with the astronomers that Kepler’s three laws are, not
absolutely true, of course, but are approximations, and that the planets
do move, as in Keplerian doctrine they are said to move—but then to
require only one demonstration that this earth is one of the planets;
To admire Newton’s _Principia_ from the beginning to the end of it,
having, like almost all other admirers, never even seen a copy of it; to
accept every theorem in it, without having the slightest notion what any
one of them means; to accept that moving bodies do obey the laws of
motion, and must move in one of the conic sections—but then to require
only one demonstration that this earth is a moving body.
Kepler’s three laws are popularly supposed to demonstrate that this
earth moves around the sun. This is a mistake. There is something wrong
with everything that is popular. As was said, by us, before, accept that
this earth is stationary, and Kepler’s doctrines apply equally well to a
sun around which proportionately inter-spaced planets move in ellipses,
the whole system moving around a central and stationary earth. All
observations upon the motions of heavenly bodies are in accord with this
interpretation of Kepler’s laws. Then as to nothing but a quandary,
which means that this earth is stationary, or which means that this
earth is not stationary, just as one pleases, Sir Isaac Newton selected,
or pleased himself and others. Without one datum, without one little
indication more convincing one way than the other, he preferred to think
that this earth is one of the moving planets. To this degree had he the
“profundity” that we read about. He wrote no books upon the first and
second horns of his dilemma: he simply disregarded the dilemma.
To anybody who may be controversially inclined, I offer simplification.
He may feel at a disadvantage against batteries of integrals and
bombardments of quaternions, transcendental functions, conics, and all
the other stores of an astronomer’s munitions—
Admire them. Accept that they do apply to the bodies that move around
the sun. Require one demonstration that this earth is one of those
bodies. For treatment of any such “demonstration,” see our disquisition,
or our ratiociations upon the Three Abstrusities, or our intolerably
painful attempts to write seriously upon the Three Abstrusities.
We began with three screams from an exhilarated mathematician. We have
had some doubtful adventures, trying hard to pretend that monsters, or
little difficulties, did really oppose us. We have reached, not the
heart of a system, but the crotch of quandary.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We have seen that some of the most brilliant inspirations of god-like
intellects, or some of the most pestilential emanations from infected
minds, have been attempts to account for the virtual changelessness of
the stars. Above all other data of astronomy, that virtual
changelessness of positions stands out as a crucial circumstance in my
own mind. To account for constellations that have not changed in 2,000
years, astronomers say that they conceive of inconceivable distances. We
shall have expressions of our own upon the virtually changeless
positions of the stars; but there will be difficulties for us if the
astronomers ever have found that some stars move around or with other
stars. I shall take up the story of Prof. Struve and the “Companion of
Procyon,” with more detail, for the sake of some more light upon
refinement, exactness, accuracy in astronomy, and for the sake of
belittling, or for the sake of sneering, or anything else that anybody
may choose to call it.
Prof. Struve’s announcement of his discovery of the “Companion of
Procyon” is published in _Monthly Notices_, 33-430—that, upon the 19th
of March, 1873, Struve had discovered the companion of Procyon, having
compared it micrometrically, having tested his observations with three
determinations of position-angle, three measures of distance, and three
additional determinations of position-angle, finding all in “excellent
agreement.” No optical illusion could be possible, it is said, because
another astronomer, Lindemann, had seen the object. Technically, Struve
publishes a table of his observations: sidereal time, distances,
position-angles; from March 19 to April 2, 1873, after which his
observations had to be discontinued until the following year. In
_Monthly Notices_, 34-355, are published the resumed observations.
Struve says that Auwers would not accept the discovery, unless, in the
year that had elapsed, the “companion” had shown increase in position,
consistent with theory. Struve writes—“This increase has really shown
itself in the most remarkable manner.” Therefore, he considers it
“decisively established” that the object of his observations was the
object of Auwers’ calculations. He says that Ceraski, of Moscow, had
seen the “companion,” “without being warned of the place where it was to
be looked for.”
However—see back some chapters.
It may be said that, nevertheless, other stars have companions that do
move as they should move. Later we shall consider this subject, thinking
that it may be that lights have been seen to change position near some
stars, but that never has a star revolved around another star, as to fit
palæo-astronomic theory it should. I take for a basis of analogy that
never has one sat in a park and watched a tree revolve around one, but
that given the affliction, or the endowment, of an astronomer, illusion
of such a revolution one may have. We sit in a park. We notice a tree.
Wherever we get the notion, we do have the notion that the tree has
moved. Then, farther along, we notice another tree, and, as an
indication of our vivid imagination or something else, we think it is
the same tree, farther along. After that we pick out tree after tree,
farther along, and, convinced that it is the same tree, of course
conclude that the thing is revolving around us. Exactness and refinement
develop: we compute the elements of its orbit. We close our eyes and
predict where the tree will be when next we look; and there, by the same
process of selection and identification, it is where it “should” be. And
if we have something of almost everybody’s mania for speed, we make that
dam thing spin around with such velocity that we, too, reel in a chaos
of very much unsettled botanic conventions. There is nothing far-fetched
in this analogy, except the factor of velocity. Goldschmidt did announce
that there were half a dozen faint points of light around Sirius, and it
was Dawes’ suspicion that Clark had arbitrarily picked out one of them.
It is our expression that all around Sirius, at various distances from
Sirius, faint points of light were seen, and that at first, even for the
first sixteen years, astronomers were not thoroughly hypnotized, and
would not pick out the especial point of light that they should have
picked out, so that there was nothing like agreement between the
calculated and the observed orbit. Besides the irreconcilable
observations noted by Flammarion, see the _Intel. Obs._, 1-482, for
others. Then came standardized seeing. So, in the _Observatory_, 20-73
is published a set of observations, in the year 1896, upon the
“Companion of Sirius,” placing it exactly where it should be.
Nevertheless, under this set of observations is published another set,
so different that the Editor asks—“Does this mean that there are two
companions?”
Dark Companions require a little more eliminative treatment. So the
variable nebulæ, then—and do dark nebulæ revolve around light nebulæ?
For instances of variable nebulæ, see _Mems. R. A. S._, 49-214; _Comptes
Rendus_, 59-637; _Monthly Notices_, 38-104. It may be said that they are
not of the Algol-type. Neither is Algol, we have shown.
According to the compulsions of data, our idea is that the stars that
seem to be fixed in position are fixed in position, so now “proper
motion” is as irreconcilable to us as relative motions.
As to “proper motion,” the situation is this:
The stars that were catalogued 2,000 years ago have virtually not
changed, or, if there be refinement in modern astronomy, have changed no
more than a little more nearly exact charting would account for; but, in
astronomic theory, the stars are said to be thought of as flying apart
at unthinkable velocity; so then evidence of changed positions of stars
is welcome to astronomers. As to well-known constellations, it can not
be said that there has been change; so, with several exceptions, “proper
motion” is attributed to stars that are not well-known.
The result is an amusing trap. Great proper motion is said to indicate
relative nearness to this earth. Of the twenty-five stars of supposed
greatest proper motion, all but two are faintest of stars; so these
twenty-three are said to be nearest this earth. But when astronomers
take the relative parallax of a star, by reference to a fainter star,
they agree that the fainter star, because fainter, is farther away. So
one time faintness associates with nearness, and then conveniences
change, and faintness associates with farness, and the whole subject so
associates with humorousness, that if we’re going to be serious at all
in these expressions of ours we had better pass on.
* * * * *
_Observatory_, March, 1914:
A group of three stars that disappeared.
If three stars disappeared at once, they were acted upon by something
that affected all in common. Try to think of some one force that would
not tear the seeable into visible rags, that could blot out three stars,
if they were trillions of miles apart. If they were close together that
ends the explanation that only because stars are trillions of miles
apart have they, for at least 2,000 years, seemed to hold the same
relative positions.
In Agnes Clerke’s _System of the Stars_, are cited many instances of
stars that seem to be so closely related that it seems impossible to
think that they are trillions, or billions, or millions of miles apart:
such formations as “seven aligned stars appearing to be strung on a
silvery filament.” There are loops of stars in a cluster in Auriga;
lines and arches in Ophiuchus; zig-zag figures in Sagittarius. As to
stars that not only seem close together but that are colored alike, Miss
Clerke expresses her feeling that they are close together—“If these
colors be inherent, it is difficult to believe that the stars
distinguished by them are simply thrown together by perspective.” As to
figures in Sagittarius, Fison (_Recent Advances in Astronomy_) cites an
instance of 30 small stars in the form of a forked twig, with dark rifts
parallel. According to Fison, probability is overwhelmingly against the
three uncommon stars in the belt of Orion falling into a straight line,
by chance distribution, considering also that below this line is another
of five faint stars parallel. There are dark lanes or rifts in the Milky
Way that are like branches from main lanes or rifts, and the rifts
sometimes have well-defined edges. In many regions where there are dark
rifts there are lines of stars that are roughly parallel—
That it is not distances apart that have held the stars from changing
relatively to one another, because there are hosts of indications that
some stars are close together, and are, or have been, affected, in
common, by local formative forces.
* * * * *
For a detailed comparison, by J. E. Gore, of stars of today with stars
catalogued by Al-Sufi, about 1,000 years ago, see the _Observatory_,
vol. 23. The stars have not changed in position, but it does seem that
there have been many changes in magnitude.
Other changes—_Pubs. Astro. Soc. Pacific_, No. 185 (1920)—discovery of
the seventeenth new star in one nebula (Andromeda). For lists of stars
that have disappeared, see _Monthly Notices_, 8-16; 10-18; 11-47;
_Sidereal Messenger_, 6-320; _Jour. B. A. A._, 14-255. Nebulæ that have
disappeared—see _Amer. Jour. Sci._, 2-33-436; Clerke’s _System of the
Stars_, p. 293; _Nature_, 30-20.
In the _Sidereal Messenger_, 5-269, Prof. Colbert writes that, upon
August 20, 1886, an astronomer, in Chicago, saw, for about half an hour,
a small comet-like projection from the star _Zeta_, in Cassiopeia.
So, then, changes have been seen at the distance of the stars.
When the new star in Perseus appeared, in February, 1901, it was a point
of light. Something went out from it, giving it in six months a diameter
equal to half the apparent diameter of the moon. The appearances looked
structural. To say loosely that they were light-effects, something like
a halo, perhaps, is to ignore their complexity and duration and
differences. According to Newcomb, who is occasionally quotable in our
favor, these radiations were not mere light-rays, because they did not
go out uniformly from the star, but moved out variously and knotted and
curved.
It was visible motion, at the distance of Nova Persei.
In _Monthly Notices_, 58-334, Dr. Espin writes that, upon the night of
Jan. 16, 1898, he saw something that looked like a cloud in Perseus. It
could have been nothing in the atmosphere of this earth, nor anything
far from the constellation, because he saw it again in Perseus, upon
Jan. 24. He writes that, upon Feb. 17, Mr. Heath and Dr. Halm saw it,
like a cloud, dimming and discoloring stars shining through it. At the
meeting of the British Astronomical Association, Feb. 23, 1898 (_Jour.
B. A. A._, 8-216) Dr. Espin described this appearance and answered
questions. “It was not a nebula, and was not like one.” “Whatever it was
it had the peculiar property of dimming and blotting out stars.”
This thing moved into Perseus and then moved away.
Clerke, _The System of the Stars_, p. 295—a nebula that changed position
abruptly, between the years 1833 and 1835, and then changed no more.
According to Sir John Herschel, a star was central in this nebula, when
observed in 1827, and in 1833, but, in August, 1835, the star was upon
the eastern side of the nebula.
That it is not distance from this earth that has kept changes of
position of the stars from being seen, for 2,000 years, because
occasional, abrupt changes of position have been seen at the distance of
the stars.
* * * * *
That, whether there be a shell-like, revolving composition, holding the
stars in position, and in which the stars are openings, admitting light
from an existence external to the shell, or not, all stars are at about
the same distance from this earth, as they would be, if this earth were
stationary and central to such a shell, revolving around it—
According to the aberration-forms of the stars.
All stars, at the pole of the ecliptic, describe circles annually; stars
lower down describe ellipses that reduce more and more the farther down
they are, until at the ecliptic they describe straight lines yearly.
Suppose all the stars to be openings, fixed in position relatively to
one another, in some inter-spacing substance. Conceive of a gyration to
the whole aggregation, and relatively to a central and stationary earth:
then, as seen from this earth, all would describe circles, near the
axis, ellipses lower down, and straight lines at the limit of
transformation. If all were at the same distance from this earth, or if
all were points in one gyrating concave formation, equi-distant at all
points from the central earth, all would have the same amplitude. All
aberration-forms of the stars, whether of brilliant or faint stars,
whether circles or ellipses or straight lines have the same amplitude:
about 41 seconds of arc.
* * * * *
If all stars are points of light admitted from externality, held fixed
and apart in one shell-like composition that is opaque in some parts and
translucent in some parts and perforated generally—
The Gegenschein—
That we have indication that there is such a shell around our existence.
The Gegenschein is a round patch of light in the sky. It seems to be
reflected sunlight, at night, because it keeps position about opposite
the sun’s.
The crux:
Reflected sunlight—but reflecting from what?
That the sky is a matrix, in which the stars are openings, and that,
upon the inner, concave surface of this celestial shell, the sun casts
its light, even if the earth is between, no more blotted out in the
middle by the intervening earth, than often to considerable degree is
its light blotted out upon the moon during an eclipse of the moon,
occupying no time in traveling the distance of the stars and back to
this earth, because the stars are near, or because there is no velocity
of light.
Suppose the Gegenschein could be a reflection of sunlight from anything
at a distance less than the distance of the stars. It would have
parallax against its background of stars.
_Observatory_, 17-47:
“The Gegenschein has no parallax.”
* * * * *
At the meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, Jan. 11, 1878, was
read a paper by W. F. Denning. It was, by its implications, one of the
most exciting documents in history. The subject was: “Suspected
repetitions in meteor-showers.” Mr. Denning listed twenty-two radiants
that lasted from three to four months each.
In the year 1799, Humboldt noticed that the paths of meteors, when parts
of one display, led back to one point of common origin, or one point
from which all the meteors had radiated. This is the radiant-point, or
the radiant. When a radiant occurs under a constellation, the meteors
are named relatively. In the extraordinary meteoric display of November
13-14, 1833, there was a circumstance that was as extraordinary as the
display itself: that, though this earth is supposed to rotate upon its
axis, giving to the stars the appearance of revolving nightly, and
supposed to revolve around the sun, so affecting the seeming motions of
the stars, these meteors of November, 1833, began under the
constellation Leo, and six hours later, though Leo had changed position
in the sky, had changed with, and seemed still coming from, Leo.
There was no parallax along the great base line from Canada to Florida.
Then these meteors did come from Leo, or parallax, or absence of
parallax, is meaningless.
The circumstance of precise position maintained under a moving
constellation upon the night of Nov. 13-14, 1833, becomes insignificant
relatively to Denning’s data of such synchronization with a duration of
months. When a radiant-point remains under Leo or Lyra, night after
night, month after month, it is either that something is shifting it,
without parallax, in exact coincidence with a doubly shifting
constellation, which is so unthinkable that Denning says, “I can not
explain,” or that the constellation is the radiant point, in which case
maintenance of precise position under it is unthinkable if it be far
away—
That the stars are near.
Think of a ship, slowly sailing past a seacoast town, firing with
smokeless powder, say. Shells from it burst before quite reaching the
town, and all explosion-points are in line between the city and the
ship, or are traceable to one such radiant. The bombardment continues.
The ship moves slowly. Still all points of exploding shells are
traceable to one point between the ship and the town. The bombardment
goes on and goes on and goes on, and the ship is far from its first
position. The point of exploding shells is still between the ship and
the town. Wise men in the town say that the shells are not coming from
the ship. They say this because formerly they had said that shells could
not come from a ship. They reason: therefore shells are not coming from
this ship. They are asked how, then, the point of explosion could so
shift exactly in line with the moving ship. If there be a W. F. Denning
among them, he will say, “I can not explain.” But the other wise men
will be like Prof. Moulton, for instance. In his books, Prof. Moulton
writes a great deal upon the subject of meteors, but he does not mention
the meteors that, for months at a time, appear between observers and a
shifting constellation.
There are other considerations. The shells are heard to explode. So then
they explode near the town. But there is something the matter with that
smokeless powder aboard ship: very feeble projectile-force, because also
must the shells be exploding near the ship, or the radiant point would
not have the same background, as seen from different parts of the town.
Then, in this town, inhabitants, provided they be not wise men, will
conclude that, if the explosion-point is near the town, and is also near
the ship, the ship is near the town—
Leo and Lyra and Andromeda—argosies that sail the sky and that bombard
this earth—and that they are not far away.
And some of us there may be who, instead of trying to speculate upon an
unthinkable remoteness, will suffer a sensitiveness to proximity
instead; enter a new revolt against a black encompassment that glitters
with a light beyond, and wonder what exists in a brilliant environment
not far away—and a new anguish for hyperæsthesia upon this earth: a
suffocating consciousness of the pressure of the stars.
The Sickle of Leo, from which come the Leonids, gleams like a great
question-mark in the sky.
The answer—
But God knows what the answer to anything is.
Perhaps it is that the stars are very close indeed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
We try to have independent expressions. Accept that it is not distance
that has held the stars in unchanging position, if occasional, abrupt
change of position has been seen at the distance of the stars, and it is
implied that the not enormously distant stars are all about equally far
away from this earth, or some would be greatly particularized, and that
this earth does not move in an orbit, or stars would be seasonally
particularized, but would not be, if the stars, in one composition
revolve; also if this earth be relatively close to all stars, if many
changes of magnitude and of appearance and disappearance have been seen
at the distance of the stars, and, if, in the revolutions of the stars,
they do not swirl in displacements as bewildering as a blizzard of
luminous snowflakes, and if no state of inter-repulsion can be thought
of, especially as many stars merge into others, this composition is a
substantial, concave formation, or shell-like enclosure in which stars
are points. So many of the expressions in the preceding chapter imply
others, or all others. However, we have tried to have independent
expressions. Of course we realize that the supposed difference between
inductive and deductive reasoning is a false demarcation; nevertheless
we feel that deductions piled upon other deductions are only
architecture, and a great deal in this book expresses the notion that
architecture should be kept in its own place. Our general expression is
not that there should be no architecture and no mathematics in
astronomy, or neo-astronomy; not that there should be no poetry in
biology; no chemistry in physiology—but that “pure” architecture or
“pure” mathematics, biology, chemistry has its own field, even though
each is inextricably bound up with all the other aspects of being. So of
course the very thing that we object to in its extreme manifestations is
essential to us in some degree, and the deductive is findable somewhere
in every one of our inductions, and we are not insensible to what we
think is the gracefulness of some of the converging lines of our own
constructions. We are not revolting against aspects, but against
emphases and intrusions.
This first part of our work is what we consider neo-astronomic; and now
to show that we have no rabidity against the mathematical except when
over-emphasized, or mis-applied, our language is that all expressions so
far developed are to us of about 50% acceptability. A far greater
attempted independence is coming, a second part of this work,
considering phenomena so different that, if we term the first part of
our explorations “neo-astronomic,” even some other term, by which to
designate the field of the second part, will have to be thought of, and
the word “extra-geographic” seems best for it. If in these two fields,
our at least temporary conclusions be the same, we shall be impressed,
in spite of all our cynicisms as to “agreements.”
Neo-astronomy:
This supposed solar-system—an egg-like organism that is shelled away
from external light and life—this central and stationary earth its
nucleus—around it a revolving shell, in which the stars are pores, or
functioning channels, through some of which spray irradiating fountains
said to be “meteoric,” but perhaps electric—in which the nebulæ are
translucent patches, and in which the many dark parts are areas of
opaque, structural substance—and that the stars are not trillions nor
even millions of miles away—with proportional reductions of all internal
distances, so that the planets are not millions, nor even hundreds of
thousands of miles away.
We conceive of the variability of the stars and the nebulæ in terms of
the incidence of external light upon a revolving shell, and fluctuating
passage through light-admitting points and parts. We conceive of all
things being rhythmic, so, if stars be pores in a substance, that matrix
must be subject to some changes, which may be of different periodicities
in different regions. There may be local vortices in the most rigid
substance, and so stars, or pores, might revolve around one another, but
our tendency is to think that if light companions there be to some
stars, they are reflections of light, passing through channels, upon
surrounding substance, flickering from one position to another in the
small undulations of this environment. So there may be other
displacements, differences of magnitude, new openings and closings in a
substance that is not absolutely rigid. So “proper motion” might be
accounted for, but my own preference is to think, as to such stars as
_1830 Groombridge_ and Barnard’s “runaway star” that they are
planets—also that some of the comets, especially the tailless comets,
some of which have been seen to obscure stars, so that evidently they
are not wisps of highly attenuated matter, are planets, all of them not
conventionally recognized as planets, because of eccentricity and
remoteness from the ecliptic, two departures, however, that many of the
minor planets make to great degree. If some of these bodies be planets,
the irregularities of some of them are consistent with the
irregularities of Jupiter’s satellites.
I suggest that a combination of the Ptolemaic and the Tychonic doctrines
is in good accord with all the phenomena that we have considered, and
with all planetary motions that we have had no occasion to pay much
attention to—that the sun, carrying Mercury and Venus with him, revolves
at a distance of a few thousand miles, or a few tens of thousands of
miles, in a rising and falling spiral around this virtually, but not
absolutely, stationary earth, which, according to modern investigations
is more top-shaped than spherical; moon, a few thousand miles away,
revolving around this nucleus; and the exterior planets not only
revolving around this whole central arrangement, but approaching and
receding, in loops, also, quite as they seem to the remotest of them
preposterously near, according to conventional “determinations.”
So all the phenomena of the skies may be explained. But all were
explained in another way by Copernicus, in another way by Ptolemy, and
in still another way by Tycho Brahé. One supposes that there are other
ways. If there be a distant object, and, if one school of wisemen can by
their reasoning processes excellently demonstrate that it is a tree,
another school positively determine that it is a house, and other
investigators of the highest authoritativeness variously find and prove
that it is a cloud or a buffalo or a geranium, why then, their reasoning
processes may be admired but not trusted. Right at the heart of our
opposition, and right at the heart of our own expressions, is the
fatality that there is no reasoning, no logic, no explanation resembling
the illusions in the vainglories of common suppositions. There is only
the process of correlating to, or organizing or systematizing around,
something that is arbitrarily taken for a base, or a dominant doctrine,
or a major premise—the process of assimilating with something else,
making agreement with something else, or interpreting in terms of
something else, which supposed base is never itself final, but was
originally an assimilation with still something else.
I typify the result of all examinations of all principles or laws or
dominant thoughts, scientific, philosophic, or theologic, in what we
find in examining the pronouncement that motion follows the least
resistance:
That motion follows least resistance.
How are we to identify least resistance?
If motion follows it.
Then motion goes where motion goes.
If nothing can be positively distinguished from anything else there can
be no positive logic, which is attempted positive distinguishment.
Consider the popular “base” that Capital is tyranny, and almost utmost
wickedness, and that Labor is pure and idealistic. But one’s labor is
one’s capital, and capital that is not working is in no sense implicated
in this conflict.
Nevertheless we now give up our early suspicion that our whole existence
is a leper of the skies, quaking and cringing through space, having the
isolation that astronomers suppose, because other celestial forms of
being fly from infection—
That, if shelled away from external light and life, it is so surrounded
and so protected in the same cause and functioning as that of similarly
encompassed forms subsidiary to it—that our existence is
super-embryonic.
Darkness of night and of lives and of thoughts—super-uterine entombment.
Blackness of the unborn, quasi-illumined periodically by the little sun,
which is not light, but less dark.
Then we think of an organism that needs no base, and needs nothing of
finality, nor of special guidance to any part local to it, because all
parts partake of the pre-determined development of the whole.
Consequently our spleens subside, and our frequently unmannerly
derisions are hushed by recognitions—that all organizations of thought
must be baseless in themselves, and of course be not final, or they
could not change, and must bear within themselves those elements that
will, in time, destroy them—that seeming solidities that pass away, in
phantom-successions, are functionaries relatively to their periods, and
express the passage from phase to phase of all things embryonic.
So it is that one who searches for fundamentals comes to bifurcations;
never to a base; only to a quandary. In our own field, let there be any
acceptable finding. It indicates that the earth moves around the sun.
Just as truly it indicates that the sun moves around the earth. What is
it that determines which will be accepted, hypnotically blinding the
faithful to the other aspect? Our own expression is upon Development as
serial reactions to successive Dominants. Let the dominant spirit of an
era required that this earth be remote and isolated; Keplerism will
support it: let the dominant change to a spirit of expansion, which
would be impossible under such remoteness and isolation; Keplerism will
support, or will not especially oppose, the new dominant. This is the
essential process of embryonic growth, by which the same protoplasmic
substance responds differently in different phases.
But I do not think that all data are so plastic. There are some that
will not assimilate with a prevailing doctrine. They can have no effect
upon an arbitrary system of thought, or a system sub-consciously
induced, in its time of dominance: they will simply be disregarded.
We have reached our catalog of the sights and the sounds to which all
that we have so far considered is merely introductory. For them there
are either no conventional explanations or poor insufficiencies
half-heartedly offered. Our data are glimpses of an epoch that is
approaching with far-away explosions. It is vibrating on its edges with
the tread of distant space-armies. Already it has pictured in the sky
visions that signify new excitements, even now lapping over into the
affairs of a self-disgusted, played-out hermitage.
We assemble the data. Unhappily, we shall be unable to resist the
temptation to reason and theorize. May Super-embryology have mercy upon
our own syllogisms. We consider that we are entitled to at least 13
pages of gross and stupid errors. After that we shall have to explain.
PART II
CHAPTER ONE
June, 1801—a mirage of an unknown city. It was seen, for more than an
hour, at Youghal, Co. Cork, Ireland—a representation of mansions,
surrounded by shrubbery and white palings—forests behind. In October,
1796, a mirage of a walled town had been seen distinctly for half an
hour at Youghal. Upon March 9, 1797, had been seen a mirage of a walled
town.
Feb. 7, 1802—an unknown body that was seen, by Fritsch, of Magdeburg, to
cross the sun (_Observatory_, 3-136).
Oct. 10, 1802—an unknown dark body was seen, by Fritsch, rapidly
crossing the sun (_Comptes Rendus_, 83-587).
Between 10 and 11 o’clock, morning of Oct. 8, 1803, a stone fell from
the sky, at the town of Apt, France. About eight hours later, “some
persons believed that they felt an earthquake” (_Rept. B. A._, 1854-53).
Upon August 11, 1805, an explosive sound was heard at East Haddam,
Connecticut. There are records of six prior sounds, as if of explosions,
that were heard at East Haddam, beginning with the year 1791, but,
unrecorded, the sounds had attracted attention for a century, and had
been called the “Moodus” sounds, by the Indians. For the best account of
the “Moodus” sounds, see the _Amer. Jour. Sci._, 39-339. Here a writer
tries to show the phenomena were subterranean, but says that there was
no satisfactory explanation.
Upon the 2nd of April, 1808, over the town of Pignerol, Piedmont, Italy,
a loud sound was heard: in many places in Piedmont an earthquake was
felt. In the _Rept. B. A._, 1854-68, it is said that aërial phenomena
did occur; that, before the explosion, luminous objects had been seen in
the sky over Pignerol, and that in several of the communes in the Alps
aërial sounds, as if of innumerable stones colliding, had been heard,
and that quakes had been felt. From April 2 to April 8, forty shocks
were recorded at Pignerol; sounds like cannonading were heard at Barga.
Upon the 18th of April, two detonations were heard at La Tour, and a
luminous object was seen in the sky. The supposition, or almost absolute
belief of most persons is that from the 2nd to the 18th of April, this
earth had moved far in its orbit, and was rotating so that, if one
should explain that probably meteors had exploded here, it could not
very well be thought that more meteors were continuing to pick out this
one point upon a doubly moving planet. But something was specially
related to this one local sky. Upon the 19th of April, a stone fell from
the sky, at Borgo San Donnino, about 40 miles east of Piedmont (_Rept.
B. A._, 1860). Sounds like cannonading were heard almost every day in
this small region. Upon the 13th of May, a red cloud such as marks the
place of a meteoric explosion was seen in the sky. Throughout the rest
of the year, phenomena that are now listed as “earthquakes” occurred in
Piedmont. The last occurrence of which I have record was upon Jan. 22,
1810.
Feb. 9, 1812—two explosive sounds at East Haddam (_Amer. Jour. Sci._,
39-339).
July 5, 1812—one explosive sound at East Haddam (_Amer. Jour. Sci._,
39-339).
Oct. 28, 1812—“phantom soldiers” at Havarah Park, near Ripley, England
(_Edinburgh Annual Register_, 1812-II-124). When such appearances are
explained by meteorologists, they are said to be displays of the aurora
borealis. Psychic research explains variously. The physicists say that
they are mirages of troops marching somewhere at a distance.
Night of July 31, 1813—flashes of light in the sky of Tottenham, near
London (_Year Book of Facts_, 1853-272). The sky was clear. The flashes
were attributed to a storm at Hastings, 65 miles away. We note not only
that the planet Mars was in opposition at this time (July 30), but in
one of the nearest of its oppositions in the 19th century.
Dec. 28, 1813—an explosive sound at East Haddam.
Feb. 2, 1816—a quake at Lisbon. There was something in the sky.
Extraordinary sounds were heard, but were attributed to “flocks of
birds.” But six hours later something was seen in the sky: it is said to
have been a meteor (_Rept. B. A._, 1854-106).
Since the year 1788, many earthquakes, or concussions that were listed
as earthquakes, had occurred at the town of Comrie, Perthshire,
Scotland. Seventeen instances were recorded in the year 1795. Almost all
records of the phenomena of Comrie start with the year 1788, but, in
Macara’s _Guide to Creiff_, it is said that the disturbances were
recorded as far back as the year 1597. They were slight shocks, and
until the occurrence upon August 13, 1816, conventional explanations,
excluding all thought of relations with anything in the sky, seemed
adequate enough. But, in an account in the London _Times_, Aug. 21,
1816, it is said that, at the time of the quake of Aug. 13, a luminous
object, or a “small meteor” had been seen at Dunkeld, near Comrie; and,
according to David Milne (_Edin. New Phil. Jour._, 31-110) a resident of
Comrie had reported “a large luminous body, bent like a crescent, which
stretched itself over the heavens.”
There was another quake in Scotland (Inverness) June 30, 1817. It is
said that hot water fell from the sky (_Rept. B. A._, 1854-112).
Jan. 6, 1818—an unknown body that crossed the sun, according to Loft, of
Ipswich; observed about three hours and a half (_Quar. Jour. Roy.
Inst._, 5-117).
Five unknown bodies that were seen, upon June 26, 1819, crossing the
sun, according to Gruithuisen (_An. Sci. Disc._, 1860-411). Also, upon
this day, Pastorff saw something that he thought was a comet, which was
then somewhere near the sun, but which, according to Olbers, could not
have been the comet (Webb, _Celestial Objects_, p. 40).
Upon Aug. 28, 1819, there was a violent quake at Irkutsk, Siberia. There
had been two shocks upon Aug. 22, 1813 _(Rept. B. A._, 1854-101). Upon
April 6, 1805, or March 25, according to the Russian calendar, two
stones had fallen from the sky at Irkutsk (_Rept. B. A._, 1860-12). One
of these stones is now in the South Kensington Museum, London. Another
violent shock at Irkutsk, April 7, 1820 (_Rept. B. A._, 1854-128).
Unknown bodies in the sky, in the year 1820, Feb. 12 and April 27
(_Comptes Rendus_, 83-314).
Things that marched in the sky—see Arago’s _Œuvres_, 11-576, or _Annales
de Chimie_, 30-417—objects that were seen by many persons, in the
streets of Embrun, during the eclipse of Sept. 7, 1820, moving in
straight lines, turning and retracing in the same straight lines, all of
them separated by uniform spaces.
Early in the year 1821—and a light shone out on the moon—a bright point
of light in the lunar crater Aristarchus, which was in the dark at the
time. It was seen, upon the 4th and the 7th of February, by Capt. Kater
(_An. Reg._, 1821-689); and upon the 5th by Dr. Olbers (_Mems. R. A.
S._, 1-159). It was a light like a star, and was seen again, May 4th and
6th, by the Rev. M. Ward and by Francis Bailey (_Mems. R. A. S._,
1-159). At Cape Town, nights of Nov. 28th and 29th, 1821, again a
star-like light was seen upon the moon (_Phil. Trans._, 112-237).
_Quar. Jour. Roy. Inst._, 20-417:
That, early in the morning of March 20, 1822, detonations were heard at
Melida, an island in the Adriatic. All day, at intervals, the sounds
were heard. They were like cannonading, and it was supposed that they
came from a vessel, or from Turkish artillery, practicing in some
frontier village. For thirty days the detonations continued, sometimes
thirty or forty, sometimes several hundred, a day.
Upon April 13, 1822, it seems, according to description, that clearly
enough was there an explosion in the sky of Comrie, and a concussion of
the ground—“two loud reports, one apparently over our heads, and the
other, which followed immediately, under our feet” (_Edin. New Phil.
Jour._, 31-119).
July 15, 1822—the fall of perhaps unknown seeds from perhaps an unknown
world—a great quantity of little round seeds that fell from the sky, at
Marienwerder, Germany. They were unknown to the inhabitants, who tried
to cook them, but found that boiling seemed to have no effect upon them.
Wherever they came from, they were brought down by a storm, and two days
later, more of them fell, in a storm, in Silesia. It is said that these
corpuscles were identified by some scientists as seeds of _Galium
spurium_, but that other scientists disagreed. Later more of them fell
at Posen, Mecklenburg. See _Bull. des Sci._ (_math._, _astro._, _etc._)
1-1-298.
Aug. 19, 1822—a tremendous detonation at Melida—others continuing
several days.
Oct. 23, 1822—two unknown dark bodies crossing the sun; observed by
Pastorff (_An. Sci. Disc._, 1860-411).
An unknown, shining thing—it was seen, by Webb, May 22, 1823, near the
planet Venus (_Nature_, 14-195).
More unknowns, in the year 1823—see _Comptes Rendus_, 49-811 and Webb’s
_Celestial Objects_, p. 43.
Feb., 1824—the sounds of Melida.
Upon Feb. 11, 1824, a slight shock was felt at Irkutsk, Siberia (_Rept.
B. A._, 1854-124). Upon Feb. 18, or, according to other accounts, upon
May 14, a stone that weighed five pounds, fell from the sky at Irkutsk
(_Rept. B. A._, 1860-70). Three severe shocks at Irkutsk, March 8, 1824
(_Rept. B. A._, 1854-124).
Sept., 1824—the sounds of Melida.
At five o’clock, morning of Oct. 20, 1824, a light was seen upon the
dark part of the moon, by Gruithuisen. It disappeared. Six minutes later
it appeared again, disappeared again, and then flashed intermittently,
until 5.30 A. M., when sunrise ended the observations (_Sci. Amer.
Sup._, 7-2712). And, upon Jan. 22, 1825, again shone out the star-like
light of Aristarchus, reported by the Rev. J. B. Emmett (_Annals of
Philosophy_, 28-338).
The last sounds of Melida of which I have record, were heard in March,
1825. If these detonations did come from the sky, there was something
that, for at least three years, was situated over, or was in some other
way specially related to, this one small part of this earth’s surface,
subversively to all supposed principles of astronomy and geodesy. It is
said that, to find out whether the sounds did come from the sky, or not,
the Prêteur of Melida went into underground caverns to listen. It is
said that there the sounds could not be heard.
CHAPTER TWO
And our own underground investigations—and whether there is something in
the sky or not. We are in a hole in time. Cavern of Conventional
Science—walls that are dogmas, from which drips ancient wisdom in a
patter of slimy opinions—but we have heard a storm of data outside—
Of beings that march in the sky, and of a beacon on the moon—another
dark body crosses the sun. Somewhere near Melida there is cannonading,
and another stone falls from the sky, at Irkutsk, Siberia; and unknown
grain falls from an unknown world, and there are flashes in the sky when
the planet Mars is near.
In a farrago of lights and sounds and forms, I feel the presence of
possible classifications that may thread a pattern of attempt to find
out something. My attention is attracted by a streak of events that is
beaded with little star-like points of light. First we shall find out
what we can, as to the moon.
In one of the numbers of the _Observatory_, an eminent authority, in
some fields of research, is quoted as to the probable distance of the
moon. According to his determinations, the moon is 37 miles away. He
explains most reasonably: he is Mr. G. B. Shaw. But by conventional
doctrine, the moon is 240,000 miles away. My own idea is that somewhere
between determinations by a Shaw and determinations by a Newcomb, we
could find many acceptances.
I prefer questionable determinations, myself, or at any rate
examinations that end up with questions or considerable latitude. It may
be that as to the volcanoes of the moon we can find material for at
least a seemingly intelligent question, if no statements are possible as
to the size and the distance of the moon. The larger volcanoes of this
earth are about three miles in diameter, though the craters of Haleakla,
Hawaii, and Aso San, Japan, are seven miles across. But the larger
volcanoes of the relatively little moon are said to be sixty miles
across, though several are said to be twice that size. And I start off
with just about the impression of disproportionality that I should have,
if someone should tell me of a pigmy with ears five feet long.
Is there any somewhat good reason for thinking that the volcanic craters
of the little moon are larger than, or particularly different in any
other way from, the craters of this earth?
If not, we have a direct unit of measurement, according to which the
moon is not 2160, but about 100, miles in diameter.
How far away does one suppose to be an object with something like that
diameter, and of the seeming size of the moon?
The astronomers explain. They argue that gravitation must be less
powerful upon the moon than upon this earth, and that therefore larger
volcanic formations could have been cast up on the moon. We explain. We
argue that volcanic force must be less powerful upon the moon than upon
this earth, and that therefore larger volcanic formations could not have
been cast up on the moon.
The disproportionality that has impressed me has offended more
conventional æsthetics than mine. Prof. See, for instance, has tried to
explain that the lunar formations are not craters but are effects of
bombardment by vast meteors, which spared this earth, for some reason
not made clear. Viscid moon—meteor pops in—up splash walls and a central
cone. If Prof. See will jump in swimming some day, and then go back some
weeks later to see how big a splash he made, he will have other ideas
upon such supposed persistences. The moon would have to have been
virtually liquid to fit his theory, because there are no partly
embedded, vast, round meteors protruding anywhere.
There have been lights like signals upon the moon. There are two
conventional explanations: reflected sunlight and volcanic action. Of
course, ultra-conventionalists do not admit that in our own times there
has been even volcanic action upon the moon. Our instances will be of
lights upon the dark part of the moon, and there are good reasons for
thinking that our data do not relate to volcanic action. In volcanic
eruptions upon this earth the glow is so accompanied by great volumes of
smoke that a clear, definite point of light would seem not to be the
appearance from a distance.
For Webb’s account of a brilliant display of minute dots and streaks of
light, in the Mare Crisium, July 4, 1832, see _Astro. Reg._, 20-165. I
have records of half a dozen similar illuminations here, in about 120
years, all of them when the Mare Crisium was in darkness. There can be
no commonplace explanation for such spectacles, or they would have
occurred oftener; nevertheless the Mare Crisium is a wide, open region,
and at times there may have been uncommon percolations of sunlight, and
I shall list no more of these interesting events that seem to me to have
been like carnivals upon the moon.
Dec. 22, 1835—the star-like light in Aristarchus—reported by Francis
Bailey—see Proctor’s _Myths and Marvels_, p. 329.
Feb. 13, 1836—in the western crater of Messier—according to Gruithuisen
(_Sci. Amer. Sup._, 7-2629)—two straight lines of light; between them a
dark band that was covered with luminous points.
Upon the nights of March 18 and 19, 1847, large luminous spots were seen
upon the dark part of the moon, and a general glow upon the upper limb,
by the Rev. T. Rankin and Prof. Chevalier (_Rept. B. A._, 1847-18). The
whole shaded part of the disc seemed to be a mixture of lights and
shades. Upon the night of the 19th, there was a similar appearance upon
this earth, an aurora, according to the London newspapers. It looks as
if both the moon and this earth were affected by the same illumination,
said to have been auroral. I offer this occurrence as indication that
the moon is nearby, if moon and earth could be so affected in common.
But by signalling, I mean something like the appearance that was seen,
by Hodgson, upon the dark part of the moon, night of Dec. 11, 1847—a
bright light that flashed intermittently. Upon the next night it was
seen again (_Monthly Notices R. A. S._, 8-55).
* * * * *
The oppositions of Mars occur once in about two years and two months. In
conventional terms, the eccentricity of the orbit of Mars is greater
than the eccentricity of the orbit of this earth, and the part of its
orbit that is traversed by this earth in August is nearest the orbit of
Mars. When this earth is between Mars and the sun, Mars is said to be in
opposition, and this is the position of nearest approach: when
opposition occurs in August, that is the most favorable opposition.
After that, every two years and about two months, the oppositions are
less favorable, until the least favorable of all, in February, after
which favorableness increases up to the climacteric opposition in August
again. This is a cycle of changing proximities within a period of about
fifteen years.
In October, 1862, Lockyer saw a spot like a long train of clouds on
Mars, and several days later Secchi saw a spot on Mars. And if that were
signalling, it is very meagre material upon which to suppose anything.
And May 8-22, 1873—white spots on Mars. But, upon June 17, 1873, two
months after nearest approach, but still in the period of opposition of
Mars, there was either an extraordinary occurrence, or the
extraordinariness is in our interpretation. See _Rept. B. A._, 1874-272.
A luminous object came to this earth, and was seen and heard upon the
night of June 17, 1873, to explode in the sky of Hungary, Austria, and
Bohemia. In the words of various witnesses, termed according to their
knowledge, the object was seen seemingly coming from Mars, or from “the
red star in the south,” where Mars was at the time. Our data were
collected by Dr. Galle. The towns of Rybnik and Ratibor, Upper Silesia,
are 15 miles apart. Without parallax, this luminous thing was seen from
these points “to emerge and separate itself from the disc of the planet
Mars.” It so happens that we have a definite observation from one of
these towns. At Rybnik, Dr. Sage was looking at Mars, at the time. He
saw the luminous object “apparently issue from the planet.” There is
another circumstance, and for its reception our credulity, or our
enlightenment, has been prepared. If this thing did come from Mars, it
came from the planet to the point where it exploded in about 5 seconds:
from the point of explosion, the sound travelled in several minutes. We
have a description from Dr. Sage that indicates that a bolt of some
kind, perhaps electric, did shoot from Mars, and that the planet quaked
with the shock—“Dr. Sage was looking attentively at the planet Mars,
when he thus saw the meteor apparently issue from it, and the planet
appear as if it was breaking up and dividing into two parts.”
Some of the greatest surprises in commonplace experience are discoveries
of the nearness of that which was supposed to be the inaccessibly
remote.
* * * * *
It seems that the moon is close to this earth, because of the phenomenon
of “earthshine.” The same appearance has been seen upon the planet
Venus. If upon the moon, it is light reflecting from this earth and back
to this earth, what is it upon Venus? It is “some unexplained optical
illusion” says Newcomb (_Popular Astronomy_, p. 296). For a list of more
than twenty observations upon this illumination of Venus, see _Rept. B.
A._, 1873-404. It is our expression that the phenomenon is “unexplained”
because it does indicate that Venus is millions of miles closer to this
earth than Venus “should” be.
Unknown objects have been seen near Venus. There were more than thirty
such observations in the eighteenth century, not relating to so many
different periods, however. Our own earliest datum is Webb’s
observation, of May 22, 1823. I know of only one astronomer who has
supposed that these observations could relate to a Venusian satellite,
pronouncedly visible sometimes, and then for many years being invisible:
something else will have to be thought of. If these observations and
others that we shall have, be accepted, they relate to unknown bulks
that have, from outer space, gone to Venus, and have been in temporary
suspension near the planet, even though the shade of Sir Isaac Newton
would curdle at the suggestion. If, acceptably, from outer space,
something could go to the planet Venus, one is not especially startled
with the idea that something could sail out from the planet Venus—visit
this earth, conceivably.
In the _Rept. B. A._, 1852-8, 35, it is said that, early in the morning
of Sept. 11, 1852, several persons at Fair Oaks, Staffordshire, had
seen, in the eastern sky, a luminous object. It was first seen at 4.15
A. M. It appeared and disappeared several times, until 4.45 A. M., when
it became finally invisible. Then, at almost the same place in the sky,
Venus was seen, having risen above the eastern horizon. These persons
sent the records of their observations to Lord Wrottesley, an astronomer
whose observatory was at Wolverhampton. There is published a letter from
Lord Wrottesley, who says that at first he had thought that the
supposititiously unknown object was Venus, with perhaps an extraordinary
halo, but that he had received from one of the observers a diagram
giving such a position relatively to the moon that he hesitated so to
identify. It was in the period of nearest approach to this earth by
Venus, and, since inferior conjunction (July 20, 1852) Venus had been a
“morning star.” If this thing in the sky were not Venus, the
circumstances are that an object came close to this earth, perhaps, and
for a while was stationary, as if waiting for the planet Venus to appear
above the eastern horizon, then disappearing, whether to sail to Venus
or not. We think that perhaps this thing did come close to this earth,
because it was, it seems, seen only in the local sky of Fair Oaks.
However, if, according to many of our data, professional astronomers
have missed extraordinary appearances at reasonable hours, we can’t
conclude much from what was not reported by them, after 4 o’clock in the
morning. I do not know whether this is the origin of the convention or
not, but this is the first note I have upon the now standardized
explanation that, when a luminous object is seen in the sky at the time
of nearest approach by Venus, it is Venus, attracting attention by her
great brilliance, exciting persons, unversed in astronomic matters, into
thinking that a strange object had visited this earth. When reports are
definite as to motions of a seemingly sailing or exploring, luminous
thing, astronomers say that it was a fire-balloon.
In the _Rept. B. A._, 1856-54, it is said that, according to “Mrs.
Ayling and friends,” in a letter to Lord Wrottesley, a bright object had
been seen in the sky of Petworth, Sussex, night of August 11, 1855.
According to description, it rose from behind hills, in the distance, at
half past eleven o’clock. It was a red body, or it was a red-appearing
construction, because from it were projections like spokes of a wheel;
or they were “stationary rays,” in the words of the description. “Like a
red moon, it rose slowly, and diminished slowly, remaining visible one
hour and a half.” Upon August 11, 1855, Venus was two weeks from primary
greatest brilliance, inferior conjunction occurring upon Sept. 30. The
thing could not have been Venus, ascending in the sky, at this time of
night. An astonishing thing, like a red moon, perhaps with spokes like a
wheel’s, might, if reported from nowhere else, be considered something
that came from outer space so close to this earth that it was visible
only in a local sky, except that it might have been visible in other
places, and even half past eleven at night may be an unheard-of hour for
astronomers, who specialize upon sunspots for a reason that is clearing
up to us. Of course an ordinary fire-balloon could be extraordinarily
described.
June 8, 1868—I have not the exact time, but one does suspect that it was
early in the evening—an object that was reported from Radcliffe
Observatory, Oxford. It looked like a comet, but inasmuch as it was
reported only from Radcliffe, it may have been in the local sky of
Oxford. It seemed to sail in the sky: it moved and changed its course.
At first it was stationary; then it moved westward, then southward, then
turning north, visible four minutes. See _Eng. Mec._, 7-351. According
to a correspondent to the Birmingham _Gazette_, May 28, 1868, there had
been an extraordinary illumination upon Venus, some nights before: a red
spot, visible for a few seconds, night of May 27. In the issue of the
_Gazette_, of June 1st, someone else writes that he saw this light,
appearing and disappearing upon Venus. Upon March 15, Browning had seen
something that looked like a little shaft of light from Venus (_Eng.
Mec._, 40-130); and upon April 6, Webb had seen a similar appearance
(_Celestial Objects_, p. 57). At the time of the appearance at Oxford,
Venus was in the period of nearest approach (inferior conjunction July
16, 1868).
I think, myself, that there was one approximately great, wise
astronomer. He was Tycho Brahé. For many years, he would not describe
what he saw in the sky, because he considered it beneath his dignity to
write a book. The undignified, or more or less literary, or sometimes
altogether too literary, astronomers, who do write books,
uncompromisingly say that when a luminous object is said to have moved
to greater degree than could be considered illusory, in a local sky of
this earth, it is a fire-balloon. It is not possible to find in the
writings of astronomers who so explain, mention of the object that was
seen by Coggia, night of August 1, 1871. It seems that this thing was
not far away, and did appear only in a local sky of this earth, and if
it did come from outer space, how it could have “boarded” this earth, if
this earth moves at a rate of 19 miles a second, or 1 mile a second, is
so hard to explain that why Proctor and Hind, with their passionate itch
for explaining, never took the matter up, I don’t know. Upon Aug. 1,
1871, an unknown luminous object was seen in the sky of Marseilles, by
Coggia (_Comptes Rendus_, 73-398). According to description, it was a
magnificent red object. It appeared at 10.43 P. M., and moved eastward,
slowly, until 10.52.30. It stopped—moved northward, and again, at
10.59.30, was stationary. It turned eastward again, and, at 11.3.20,
disappeared, or fell behind the horizon. Upon this night Venus was
within three weeks of primary greatest brilliance, inferior conjunction
occurring upon Sept. 25, 1871.
CHAPTER THREE
One repeating mystery—the mystery of the local sky.
How, if this earth be a moving earth, could anything sail to, fall to,
or in any other way reach this earth, without being smashed into fine
particles by the impact?
This earth is supposed to rip space at a rate of about 19 miles a
second.
Concepts smash when one tries to visualize such an accomplishment.
Now, three times over, we shall have other aspects of this one mystery
of the local sky. First we shall take up data upon seeming relation
between a region of this earth that is subject to earthquakes, or
so-called earthquakes, and appearances in the sky of this especial
region, and the repeating falls of objects and substances from this
local sky and nowhere else at the times.
We have had records of quakes that occurred at Irkutsk, Siberia, and of
stones that fell from the sky to Irkutsk. Upon March 8, 1829, a severe
quake, preceded by clattering sounds, was felt at Irkutsk. There was
something in the sky. Dr. Erman, the geologist, was in Irkutsk, at the
time. In the _Report of the British Association_, 1854-20, it is said
that, in Dr. Erman’s opinion, the sounds that preceded the quake were in
the sky.
The situation at Comrie, Perthshire, is similar. A stone fell, May 17,
1830, in the “earthquake region” around Comrie. It fell at Perth, 22
miles from Comrie. See Fletcher’s List, p. 100. Upon Feb. 15, 1837, a
black powder fell upon the Comrie region (_Edin. New Phil. Jour._,
31-293). Oct. 12, 1839—a quake at Comrie. According to the Rev. M.
Walker, of Comrie, the sky, at the time, was “peculiarly strange and
alarming, and appeared as if hung with sackcloth.” In Mallet’s Catalog
(_Rept. B. A._, 1854-290) it is said that, throughout the month of
October, shocks were felt at Comrie, sometimes slight and sometimes
severe—“like distant thunder or reports of artillery”—“the noise
sometimes seemed to be high in the air, and was often heard without any
sensible shock.” Upon the 23rd of October, occurred the most violent
quake in the whole series of phenomena at Comrie. See the _Edin. New
Phil. Jour._, vol. 32. All data in this publication were collected by
David Milne. According to the Rev. M. Maxton, of Foulis Manse, ten miles
from Comrie, rattling sounds were heard in the sky, preceding the shock
that was felt. In vol. 33, p. 373, of the _Journal_, someone who lived
seven miles from Comrie is quoted: “In every case, I am inclined to say
that the sound proceeded not from underground. The sound seemed high in
the air.” Someone who lived at Gowrie, forty miles from Comrie, is
quoted: “The most general opinion seems to be that the noise
accompanying the concussion proceeded from above.” See vol. 34, p. 87:
another impression of explosion overhead and concussion underneath: “The
noises heard first seemed to be in the air, and the rumbling sound in
the earth.” Milne’s own conclusion—“It is plain that there are,
connected with the earthquake shocks, sounds both in the earth and in
the air, which are distinct and separate.” If, upon the 23rd of October,
1839, there was a tremendous shock, not of subterranean origin, but from
a great explosion in the sky of Comrie, and if this be accepted, there
will be concussions somewhere else. The “faults” of dogmas will open;
there will be seismic phenomena in science. I have a feeling of a
conventional survey of this Scottish sky: vista of a fair, blue, vacant
expanse—our suspicions daub the impression with black alarms—but also do
we project detonating stimulations into the fair and blue, but
unoccupied and meaningless. One can not pass this single occurrence by,
considering it only in itself: it is one of a long series of quakes of
the earth at Comrie and phenomena in the sky at Comrie. We have stronger
evidence than the mere supposition of many persons, in and near Comrie,
that, upon Oct. 23, 1839, something had occurred in the sky, because
sounds seemed to come from the sky. Milne says that clothes, bleaching
on the grass, were entirely covered with black particles which
presumably had fallen from the sky. The shocks were felt in November: in
November, according to Milne, a powder like soot fell from the sky, upon
Comrie and surrounding regions. In his report to the British
Association, 1840, Milne, reviewing the phenomena from the year 1788,
says: “Occasionally there was a fall of fine, black powder.”
Jan. 8, 1840—sounds like cannonading, at Comrie, and a crackling sound
in the air, according to some of the residents. Whether they were sounds
of quakes or concussions that followed explosions, 247 occurrences,
between Oct. 3, 1839 and Feb. 14, 1841, are listed in the _Edin. New
Phil. Jour._, 32-107. It looks like bombardment, and like most
persistent bombardment—from somewhere—and the frequent fall from the sky
of the débris of explosions. Feb. 18, 1841—a shock and a fall of
discolored rain at Comrie (_Edin. New Phil. Jour._, 35-148). See Roper’s
_List of Earthquakes_—year after year, and the continuance of this
seeming bombardment in one small part of the sky of this earth, though I
can find records only of dates and no details. However, I think I have
found record of a fall from the sky of débris of an explosion, more
substantial than finely powdered soot, at Crieff, which is several miles
from Comrie. In the _Amer. Jour. Sci._, 2-28-275, Prof. Shepard tells a
circumstantial story of an object that looked like a lump of slag, or
cinders, reported to have fallen at Crieff. Scientists had refused to
accept the story, upon the grounds that the substance was not of “true
meteoric material.” Prof. Shepard went to Crieff and investigated. He
gives his opinion that possibly the object did fall from the sky. The
story that he tells is that, upon the night of April 23, 1855, a young
woman, in the home of Sir William Murray, Achterlyre House, Crieff, saw,
or thought she saw, a luminous object falling, and picked it up,
dropping it, because it was hot, or because she thought it was hot.
For a description, in a letter, presumably from Sir William Murray, or
some member of his family, see _Year Book of Facts_, 1856-273. It is
said that about 12 fragments of scorious matter, hot and emitting a
sulphurous odor, had fallen.
In Ponton’s _Earthquakes_, p. 118, it is said that, upon the 8th of
October, 1857, there had been, in Illinois, an earthquake, preceded by
“a luminous appearance, described by some as a meteor and by others as
vivid flashes of lightning.” Though felt in Illinois, the center of the
disturbance was at St. Louis, Mo. One notes the misleading and the
obscuring of such wording: in all contemporaneous accounts there is no
such indefiniteness as one description by “some” and another notion by
“others.” Something exploded terrifically in the sky, at St. Louis, and
shook the ground “severely” or “violently,” at 4.20 A. M., Oct. 8, 1857.
According to Timbs’ _Year Book of Facts_, 1858-271, “a blinding meteoric
ball from the heavens” was seen. “A large and brilliant meteor shot
across the heavens” (St. Louis _Intelligencer_, Oct. 8). Of course the
supposed earthquake was concussion from an explosion in the sky, but our
own interest is in a series that is similar to others that we have
recorded. According to the New York _Times_, Oct. 12, a slight shock was
said to have been felt four hours before the great concussion, and
another three days before. But see Milne’s _Catalog of Destructive
Earthquakes_—not a mention of anything that would lead one way from safe
and standardized suppositions. See _Bull. Seis. Soc. Amer._, 3-68—here
the “meteor” is mentioned, but there is no mention of the preceding
concussions. Time after time, in a period of about three days,
concussions were felt in and around St. Louis. One of these concussions,
with its “sound like thunder or the roar of artillery” (New York
_Times_, Oct. 8) was from an explosion in the sky. If the others were of
the same origin—how could detonating meteors so repeat in one small
local sky, and nowhere else, if this earth be a moving body? If it be
said that only by coincidence did a meteor explode over a region where
there had been other quakes, here is the question:
How many times can we accept that explanation as to similar series?
* * * * *
In the _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, 19-144, a
correspondent writes that, in Herefordshire, Sept. 24, 1854, upon a day
that was “perfectly still, sky cloudless,” he had heard sounds like the
discharges of heavy artillery, at intervals of about two minutes,
continuing several hours. Again the “mystery of the local sky”—if these
sounds did come from the sky. We have no data for thinking that they
did.
In the London _Times_, Nov. 9, 1858, a correspondent writes that, in
Cardiganshire, Wales, he had, in the autumn of 1855, often heard sounds
like the discharges of heavy artillery, two or three reports rapidly,
and then an interval of perhaps 20 minutes, also with long intervals,
sometimes of days and sometimes of weeks, continuing throughout the
winter of 1855-56. Upon the 3rd of November, 1858, he had heard the
sounds again, repeatedly, and louder than they had been three years
before. In the _Times_, Nov. 12, someone else says that, at Dolgelly,
he, too, had heard the “mysterious phenomenon,” on the 3rd of November.
Someone else—that, upon Oct. 13, he had heard the sounds at Swansea.
“The reports, as if of heavy artillery, came from the west, succeeding
each other at apparently regular intervals, during the greater part of
the afternoon of that day. My impression was that the sounds might have
proceeded from practicing at Milford, but I ascertained, the following
day, that there had been no firing of any kind there.” Correspondent to
the _Times_, Nov. 20—that, with little doubt, the sounds were from
artillery practice at Milford. He does not mention the investigation as
to the sounds of Oct. 13, but says that there had been cannon-firing,
upon Nov. 3rd, at Milford. _Times_, Dec. 1—that most of the sounds could
be accounted for as sounds of blasting in quarries. _Daily News_, Nov.
16—that similar sounds had been heard, in 1848, in New Zealand, and were
results of volcanic action. _Standard_, Nov. 16—that the “mysterious
noise” must have been from Devonport, where a sunken rock had been blown
up. So, with at least variety these sounds were explained. But we learn
that the series began before October 13. Upon the evening of Sept. 28,
in the Dartmoor District, at Crediton, a rumbling sound was heard. It
was not supposed to be an earthquake, because no vibration of the ground
was felt. It was thought that there had been an explosion of gunpowder.
But there had been no such terrestrial explosion. About an hour later
another explosive sound was heard. It was like all the other sounds, and
in one place was thought to be distant cannonading—terrestrial
cannonading. See _Quar. Jour. Geolog. Soc. of London_, vol. 15.
Somewhere near Barisal, Bengal, were occurring just such sounds as the
sounds of Cardiganshire, which were like the sounds of Melida. In the
_Proc. Asiatic Soc. of Bengal_, Nov. 1870, are published letters upon
the Barisal Guns. One writer says that the sounds were probably booming
of the surf. Someone else points out that the sounds, usually described
as “explosive,” were heard too far inland to be traced to such origin. A
clear, calm day, in December, 1871—in _Nature_, 53-197, Mr. G. B. Scott
writes that, in Bengal, he had heard “a dull, muffled boom, as if of
distant cannon”—single detonations, and then two or three in quicker
succession.
In the London _Times_, Jan. 20, 1860, several correspondents write as to
a sound “resembling the discharge of a gun high in the air” that was
heard near Reading, Berkshire, England, Jan. 17, 1860. See the _Times_,
Jan. 24th. To say that a meteor had exploded would, at present, well
enough account for this phenomenon.
Sounds like those that were heard in Herefordshire, Sept. 24, 1854, were
heard later. In the _English Mechanic_, 100-279, it is said that, upon
Nov. 9, 1862, the Rev. T. Webb, the astronomer, of Hardwicke, fifteen
miles west of Hereford, heard sounds that he attributed to gunfire at
Milford Haven, about 85 miles from Hardwicke. Upon Aug. 1, 1865, Mr.
Webb saw flashes upon the horizon, at Hardwicke, and attributed them to
gunfire at Tenby, upon occasion of a visit by Prince Arthur. Tenby, too,
is about 85 miles from Hardwicke. There were other phenomena in a region
centering around Hereford and Worcester. Upon Oct. 6, 1863, there was a
disturbance that is now listed as an earthquake; but in the London
newspapers so many reports upon this occurrence state that a great
explosion had been thought to occur, and that the quake was supposed to
be an earthquake of subterranean origin only after no terrestrial
explosion could be heard of, that the phenomenon is of questionable
origin. There was a similar concussion in about the same region, Oct.
30, 1868. Again the shock was widely attributed to a great explosion,
perhaps in London, and again was supposed to have been an earthquake
when no terrestrial explosion could be heard of.
* * * * *
_Arcana of Science_, 1829-196:
That, near Mhow, India, Feb. 27, 1828, fell a stone “perfectly similar”
to the stone that fell near Allahabad, in 1802, and a stone that fell
near Mooradabad, in 1808. These towns are in the Northwestern Provinces
of India.
I have looked at specimens of these stones, and in my view they are
similar. They are of brownish rock, streaked and spotted with a darker
brown. A stone that fell at Chandakopur, in the same general region,
June 6, 1838, is like them. All are as much alike as “erratics” that,
because they are alike, geologists ascribe to the same derivation,
stationary relatively to the places in which they are found.
It seems acceptable that, upon July 15 and 17, 1822, and then upon a
later date, unknown seeds fell from the sky to this earth. If these
seeds did come from some other world, there is another mystery as well
as that of repetition in a local sky of this earth. How could a volume
of seeds remain in one aggregation; how could the seeds be otherwise
than scattered from Norway to Patagonia, if they met in space this
earth, and if this earth be rushing through space at a rate of 19 miles
a second? It may be that the seeds of 1822 fell again. According to
Kaemtz (_Meteorology_, p. 465) yellowish brown corpuscles, some round, a
few cylindrical, were found upon the ground, June, 1830, near Griesau,
Silesia. Kaemtz says that they were tubercules from roots of a
well-known Silesian plant—stalk of the plant dries up; heavy rain raises
these tubercules to the ground—persons of a low order of mentality think
that the things had fallen from the sky. Upon the night of March 24-25,
1852, a great quantity of seeds did fall from the sky, in Prussia, in
Heinsberg, Erklenz, and Juliers, according to M. Schwann, of the
University of Liége, in a communication to the Belgian Academy of
Science (_La Belgique Horticole_, 2-319).
In _Comptes Rendus_, 5-549, is Dr. Wartmann’s account of water that fell
from the sky, at Geneva. At nine o’clock, morning of Aug. 9, 1837, there
were clouds upon the horizon, but the zenith was clear. It is not
remarkable that a little rain should fall now and then from a clear sky:
we shall see wherein this account is remarkable. Large drops of warm
water fell in such abundance that people were driven to shelter. The
fall continued several minutes and then stopped. But then, several times
during an hour, more of this warm water fell from the sky. _Year Book of
Facts_, 1839-262—that upon May 31, 1838, lukewarm water in large drops,
fell from the sky, at Geneva. _Comptes Rendus_, 15-290—no wind and not a
cloud in the sky—at 10 o’clock, morning of May 11, 1842, warm water fell
from the sky at Geneva, for about six minutes; five hours later, still
no wind and no clouds, again fell warm water, in large drops; falling
intermittently for several minutes.
In _Comptes Rendus_, 85-681, is noted a succession of falls of stones in
Russia: June 12, 1863, at Buschof, Courland; Aug. 8, 1863, at
Pillitsfer, Livonia; April 12, 1864, at Nerft, Courland. Also—see
Fletcher’s List—a stone that fell at Dolgovdi, Volhynia, Russia, June
26, 1864. I have looked at specimens of all four of these stones, and
have found them all very much alike, but not of uncommon meteoritic
material: all gray stones, but Pillitsfer is darker than the others, and
in a polished specimen of Nerft, brownish specks are visible.
In the Birmingham _Daily Post_, June 14, 1858, Dr. C. Mansfield Ingleby,
a meteorologist, writes: “During the storm on Saturday (12th) morning,
Birmingham was visited by a shower of aerolites. Many hundreds of
thousands must have fallen, some of the streets being strewn with them.”
Someone else writes that many pounds of the stones had been gathered
from awnings, and that they had damaged greenhouses, in the suburbs. In
the _Post_, of the 15th, someone else writes that, according to his
microscopic examinations, the supposed aerolites were only bits of the
Rowley ragstone, with which Birmingham was paved, which had been washed
loose by the rain. It is not often that sentiment is brought into
meteorology, but in the _Report of the British Association_, 1864-37,
Dr. Phipson explains the occurrence meteorologically, and with an
unconscious tenderness. He says that the stones did fall from the sky,
but that they had been carried in a whirlwind from Rowley, some miles
from Birmingham. So we are to sentimentalize over the stones in Rowley
that had been torn, by unfeeling paviers, from their companions of
geologic ages, and exiled to the pavements of Birmingham, and then some
of these little bereft companions, rising in a whirlwind and travelling,
unerringly, if not miraculously, to rejoin the exiles. More dark
companions. It is said that they were little black stones.
They fell again from the sky, two years later. In _La Science Pour
Tous_, June 19, 1860, it is said that, according to the Wolverhampton
_Advertiser_, a great number of little black stones had fallen, in a
violent storm, at Wolverhampton. According to all records findable by me
no such stones have ever fallen anywhere in Great Britain, except at
Birmingham and Wolverhampton, which is 13 miles from Birmingham.
Eight years after the second occurrence, they fell again. _English
Mechanic_, July 31, 1868—that stones “similar to, if not identical with
the well-known Rowley ragstones” had fallen in Birmingham, having
probably been carried from Rowley, in a whirlwind.
We were pleased with Dr. Phipson’s story, but to tell of more of the
little dark companions rising in a whirlwind and going unerringly from
Rowley to rejoin the exiles in Birmingham is overdoing. That’s not
sentiment: that’s mawkishness.
In the _Birmingham Daily Post_, May 30, 1868, is published a letter from
Thomas Plant, a writer and lecturer upon meteorological subjects. Mr.
Plant says, I think, that for one hour, morning of May 29, 1868, stones
fell, in Birmingham, from the sky. His words may be interpretable in
some other way, but it does not matter: the repeating falls are
indication enough of what we’re trying to find out—“From nine to ten,
meteoric stones fell in immense quantities in various parts of town.”
“They resembled, in shape, broken pieces of Rowley ragstone ... in every
respect they were like the stones that fell in 1858.” In the _Post_,
June 1, Mr. Plant says that the stones of 1858 did fall from the sky,
and were not fragments washed out of the pavement by rain, because many
pounds of them had been gathered from a platform that was 20 feet above
the ground.
It may be that for days before and after May 29, 1868, occasional stones
fell from some unknown region stationary above Birmingham. In the
_Post_, June 2, a correspondent writes that, upon the first of June, his
niece, while walking in a field, was struck by a stone that injured her
hand severely. He thinks that the stone had been thrown by some unknown
person. In the _Post_, June 4, someone else writes that his wife, while
walking down a lane, upon May 24th, had been cut on the head by a stone.
He attributes this injury to stone-throwing by boys, but does not say
that anyone had been seen to throw the stone.
_Symons’ Met. Mag._, 4-137:
That, according to the Birmingham _Gazette_, a great number of small,
black stones had been found in the streets of Wolverhampton, May 25,
1869, after a severe storm. It is said that the stones were precisely
like those that had fallen in Birmingham, the year before, and resembled
Rowley ragstone outwardly, but had a different appearance when broken.
CHAPTER FOUR
Upon page 287, _Popular Astronomy_, Newcomb says that it is beyond all
“moral probability” that unknown worlds should exist in such numbers as
have been reported, and should be seen crossing the solar disc only by
amateur observers and not by skilled astronomers.
Most of our instances are reports by some of the best-known astronomers.
Newcomb says that for fifty years, prior to his time of writing (edition
of 1878) the sun had been studied by such men as Schwabe, Carrington,
Secchi, and Spörer, and that they had never seen unknown bodies cross
the sun—
Aug. 30, 1863—an unknown body that was seen by Spörer to cross the sun
(Webb, _Celestial Objects_, p. 45).
Sept. 1, 1859—two star-like objects that were seen by Carrington to
cross the sun (_Monthly Notices_, 20-13, 15, 88).
Things that crossed the sun, July 31, 1826, and May 26, 1828—see
_Comptes Rendus_, 83-623, and Webb’s _Celestial Objects_, p. 40. From
Sept. 6, to Nov. 1, 1831, an unknown luminous object was seen every
cloudless night, at Geneva, by Dr. Wartmann and his assistants (_Comptes
Rendus_, 2-307). It was reported from nowhere else. What all the other
astronomers were doing, Sept.-Oct., 1831, is one of the mysteries that
we shall not solve. An unknown, luminous object that was seen, from May
11 to May 14, 1835, by Cacciatore, the Sicilian astronomer (_Amer. Jour.
Sci._, 31-158). Two unknowns that according to Pastorff, crossed the
sun, Nov. 1, 1836, and Feb. 16, 1837 (_An. Sci. Disc._, 1860-410)—De
Vico’s unknown, July 12, 1837 (_Observatory_, 2-424)—observation by De
Cuppis, Oct. 2, 1839 (_C. R._, 83-314)—by Scott and Wray, last of June,
1847; by Schmidt, Oct. 11, 1847 (_C. R._, 83-623)—two dark bodies that
were seen, Feb. 5, 1849, by Brown, of Deal (_Rec. Sci._, 1-138)—object
watched by Sidebotham, half an hour, March 12, 1849, crossing the sun
(_C. R._, 83-622)—Schmidt’s unknown, Oct. 14, 1849 (_Observatory_,
3-137)—and an object that was watched, four nights in October, 1850, by
James Ferguson, of the Washington Observatory. Mr. Hind believed this
object to be a Trans-Neptunian planet, and calculated for it a period of
1,600 years. Mr. Hind was a great astronomer, and he miscalculated
magnificently: this floating island of space was not seen again
(_Smithson. Miscell. Cols._, 20-20).
About May 30, 1853—a black point that was seen against the sun, by
Jaennicke (_Cosmos_, 20-64).
A procession—in the _Rept. B. A._, 1855-94, R. P. Greg says that, upon
May 22, 1854, a friend of his saw, near Mercury, an object equal in size
to the planet itself, and behind it an elongated object, and behind that
something else, smaller and round.
June 11, 1855—a dark body of such size that it was seen, without
telescopes, by Ritter and Schmidt, crossing the sun (_Observatory_,
3-137). Sept. 12, 1857—Ohrt’s unknown world; seemed to be about the size
of Mercury (_C. R._, 83-623)—Aug. 1, 1858—unknown world reported by
Wilson, of Manchester (_Astro. Reg._, 9-287).
I am not listing all the unknowns of a period; perhaps the object
reported by John H. Tice, of St. Louis, Mo., Sept. 15, 1859, should not
be included; Mr. Tice was said not to be trustworthy—but who has any way
of knowing? However, I am listing enough of these observations to make
me feel like a translated European of some centuries ago, relatively to
a wider existence—lands that may be the San Salvadors, Greenlands,
Madagascars, Cubas, Australias of extra-geography, all of them said to
have crossed the sun, whereas the sun may have moved behind some of
them—
Jan. 29, 1860—unknown object, of planetary size, reported from London,
by Russell and three other observers (_Nature_, 15-505). Summer of
1860—see _Sci. Amer._, 35-340, for an account, by Richard Covington, of
an object, that without a telescope, he saw crossing the sun. An unknown
world, reported by Loomis, of Manchester, March 20, 1862 (_Monthly
Notices_, 22-232)—a newspaper account of an object that was seen
crossing the sun, Feb. 12, 1864, by Samuel Beswick, of New York (_Astro.
Reg._, 2-161)—unknown that was seen, March 18, 1865, at Constantinople
(_L’Ann. Sci._, 1865-16)—unknown “cometic objects” that were seen, Nov.
4, 9, and 18, 1865 (_Monthly Notices_, 26-242).
Most of these unknowns were seen in the daytime. Several reflections
arise. How could there be stationary regions over Irkutsk, Comrie, and
Birmingham, and never obscure the stars—or never be seen to obscure the
stars? A heresy that seems too radical for me is that they may be beyond
the nearby stars. A more reasonable idea is that if nightwatchmen and
policemen and other persons who do stay awake nights, should be given
telescopes, something might be found out. Something else that one thinks
of is that, if so many unknowns have been seen crossing the sun, or
crossed by the sun, others not so revealed must exist in great numbers,
and that instead of being virtually blank, space must be archipelagoic.
Something that was seen at night; observer not an astronomer—
Nov. 6, 1866—an account, in the London _Times_, Jan. 2, 1867, by Senor
De Fonblanque, of the British Consulate, at Carthegena, U. S. Columbia,
of a luminous object that moved in the sky. “It was of the magnitude,
color, and brilliance of a ship’s red light, as seen at a distance of
200 yards.” The object was visible three minutes, and then disappeared
behind buildings. De Fonblanque went to an open space to look for it,
but did not see it again.
CHAPTER FIVE
If we could stop to sing, instead of everlastingly noting vol. this and
p. that, we could have the material of sagas—of the bathers in the sun,
which may be neither intolerably hot nor too uncomfortably cold; and of
the hermit who floats across the moon; of heroes and the hairy monsters
of the sky. I should stand in public places and sing our data—sagas of
parades and explorations and massacres in the sky—having a busy band of
accompanists, who set off fireworks, and send up balloons, and fire off
explosives at regular intervals—extra-geographic songs of boiling lakes
and floating islands—extra-sociologic metres that express the tramp of
space-armies upon inter-planetary paths covered with little black
pebbles—biologic epics of the clouds of mammoths and horses and
antelopes that once upon a time fell from the sky upon the northern
coast of Siberia—
Song that interprets the perpendicular white streaks in the repeating
mirages at Youghal—the rhythmic walruses of space that hang on by their
tusks to the edges of space-islands, sometimes making stars variable as
they swing in cosmic undulations—so a round space-island with its border
of gleaming tusks, and we frighten children with the song of an ogre’s
head, with a wide-open mouth all around it—fairy lands of the little
moon, and the tiny civilizations in rocky cups that are sometimes
drained to their slums by the wide-mouthed ogres. The Maelstrom of
Everlasting Catastrophe that overhangs Genoa, Italy—and twines its
currents around a living island. The ground underneath quakes with the
struggle—then the fall of blood—and the fall of blood—three days the
fall of blood from the broken red brooks of a living island whose
mutilations are scenery—
But after all, it may be better that we go back to _Rept. B. A._—see
vol. 1849, p. 46—a stream of black objects, crossing the sun, watched,
at Naples, May 11, 1845, by Capocci and other astronomers—things that
may have been seeds.
A great number of red points in the sky of Urrugne, July 9, 1853 (_An.
Soc. Met. de France_, 1853-227). Astro. Reg., 5-179—C. L. Prince, of
Uckfield, writes that, upon June 11, 1867, he saw objects crossing the
field of his telescope. They were seeds, in his opinion.
Birmingham _Daily Post_, May 31, 1867:
Mr. Bird, the astronomer, writes that, about 11 A. M., May 30, he saw
unknown forms in the sky. In his telescope, which was focussed upon them
and upon the planet Venus, they appeared to be twice the size of Venus.
They were far away, according to focus; also, it may be accepted that
they were far away because an occasional cloud passed between them and
this earth. They did not move like objects carried in the wind: all did
not move in the same direction, and they moved at different speeds.
“All of them seemed to have hairy appendages, and in many cases a
distinct tail followed the object and was highly luminous.”
Flashes that have been seen in the sky—and they’re from a living island
that wags his luminous peninsular. Hair-like substances that have fallen
to this earth—a meadow has been shorn from a monster’s mane. My
animation is the notion that it is better to think in tentative hysteria
of pairs of vast things, travelling like a North and South America
through the sky, perhaps one biting the other with its Gulf of Mexico,
than to go on thinking that all things that so move in the sky are
seeds, whereas all things that swim in the sea are not sardines.
In the _Post_, June 3, 1867, Mr. W. H. Wood writes that the objects were
probably seeds. _Post_, June 5—Mr. Bird says that the objects were not
seeds. “My intention was simply to describe what was seen, and the
appearance was certainly that of meteors.” He saves himself, in the
annals of extra-geography—“whether they were meteors of the ordinary
acceptation, is another matter.”
And the planet Venus, and her veil that is dotted with blue-fringed
cupids—in the _Astronomical Register_, 7-138, a correspondent writes,
from Northampton, that, upon May 2, 1869, he was looking at Venus, and
saw a host of shining objects, not uniform in size. He thinks that it is
unlikely that so early in the spring could these objects be seeds. He
watched them about an hour and twenty minutes—“many of the larger ones
were fringed on one side, the fringe appearing somewhat bluish.” Or that
it is better even to sentimentalize than to go on stupidly thinking that
all such things in the sky are seeds, whereas all things in the sea are
not the economically adjusting little forms without which critics of
underground traffic in New York probably could not express
themselves—the planet Venus—she approaches this lordly earth—the
blue-fringed ecstasies that suffuse her skies.
With the phenomena of Aug. 7, 1869, I suspect that the “phantom
soldiers” that have been seen in the sky, may have been reflections
from, or mirages of, things or beings that march, in military
formations, in space. In _Popular Astronomy_, 3-159, Prof. Swift writes
that, at Mattoon, Ill., during the eclipse of the sun, of Aug. 7, 1869,
he had seen, crossing the moon, objects that he thought were seeds. If
they were seeds, also there happened to be seeds in the sky of Ottumwa,
Iowa: here, crossing the visible part of the sun, twenty minutes before
totality of the eclipse, Prof. Himes and Prof. Zentmayer saw objects
that marched, or that moved, in straight, parallel lines (_Les Mondes_,
21-241). In the _Jour. Frank. Inst._, 3-58-214, it is said that some of
these objects moved in one direction across the moon, and that others
moved in another direction across another part of the moon, each
division moving in parallel lines. If these things were seeds, also
there happened to be seeds in the sky, at Shelleyville, Kentucky. Here
were seen, by Prof. Winlock, Alvan Clark, Jr., and George W. Dean,
things that moved across the moon, during the eclipse, in parallel,
straight lines (_Pop. Astro._, 2-332).
Whatever these things may have been, I offer another datum indicating
that the moon is nearby: that these objects probably were not, by
coincidence, things in three widely separated skies, parallelness giving
them identity in two of the observations; and, if seen, without
parallax, from places so far apart, against the moon, were close to the
moon; that observation of such detail would be unlikely if they were
near a satellite 240,000 miles away—unless, of course, they were
mountain-sized.
It may be that out from two floating islands of space, two processions
had marched across the moon. _Observatory_, 3-137—that, at St. Paul’s
Junction, Iowa, four persons had seen, without telescopes, a shining
object close to the sun and moon, apparently; that, with a telescope,
another person had seen another large object, crescentically illumined,
farther from the sun and moon in eclipse. See _Nature_, 18-663, and
_Astro. Reg._, 7-227.
I have many data upon the fall of organic matter from the sky. Because
of my familiarity with many records, it seems no more incredible that up
in the seemingly unoccupied sky there should be hosts of living things
than that the seeming blank of the ocean should swarm with life. I have
many notes upon a phosphorescence, or electric condition of things that
fall from the sky, for instance the highly luminous stones of
Dhurmsulla, which were intensely cold—
_Amer. Jour. Sci._, 2-28-270:
It is said that, according to investigations by Prof. Shepard, a
luminous substance was seen falling slowly, by Sparkman R. Scriven, a
young man of seventeen, at his home, in Charleston, S. C., Nov. 16,
1857. It is said that the young man saw a fiery, red ball, the size and
shape of an orange, strike a fence, breaking, and disappearing. Where
this object had struck the fence, was found “a small bristling mass of
black fibres.” According to Prof. Shepard, it was “a confused aggregate
of short clippings of the finest black hair, varying in length from one
tenth to one third of an inch.” Prof. Shepard says that this substance
was not organic. It seems to me that he said this only because of the
coercions of his era. My reason for so thinking is that he wrote that
when he analyzed these hairs they burned away, leaving grayish
skeletons, and that they were “composed in part of carbon,” and burned
with an odor “most nearly bituminous.”
For full details of the following circumstances, see _Comptes Rendus_,
13-215 and _Rept. B. A._, 1854-302:
Feb. 17, 1841—the fall, at Genoa, Italy, of a red substance from the
sky—another fall upon the 18th—a slight quake, at 5 P. M., Feb.
18th—another quake, six hours later—fall of more of the red substance,
upon the 19th. Some of this substance was collected and analyzed by M.
Canobbia, of Genoa. He says it was oily and red.
CHAPTER SIX
In a pamphlet entitled _Wonderful Phenomena_, by Curtis Eli, is the
report of an occurrence, or of an alleged occurrence, that was
investigated by Mr. Addison A. Sawin, a spiritualist. He interpreted in
the only way that I know of, and that is the psyco-chemic process of
combining new data with preconceptions with which they seem to have
affinity. It is said that, at Warwick, C. W., Oct. 3, 1843, somebody
named Charles Cooper heard a rumbling sound in the sky, and saw a cloud,
under which were three human forms, “perfectly white,” sailing through
the air above him, not higher than the tree-tops. It is said that the
beings were angels. They were male angels. That is orthodox. The angels
wafted through the air, but without motions of their own, and an
interesting observation is that they seemed to have belts around their
bodies—as if they had been let down from a vessel above, though this
poor notion is not suggested in the pamphlet. They “moaned.” Cooper
called to some men who were laboring in another field, and they saw the
cloud, but did not see the forms of living beings under it. It is said
that a boy had seen the beings in the air, “side by side, making a loud
and mournful noise.” Another person, who lived six miles away is quoted:
“he saw the clouds and the persons and heard the sounds.” Mr. Sawin
quotes others, who had seen “a remarkable cloud,” and had heard the
sounds, but had not seen the angels. He ends up: “Yours is the glorious
hope of the resurrection of the soul.” The gloriousness of it is an
inverse function of the dolefulness of it: Sunday Schools will not take
kindly to the doctrine—be good and you will moan forever. One supposes
that the glorious hope colored the whole investigation.
Some day I shall publish data that lead me to suspect that many
appearances upon this earth that were once upon a time interpreted by
theologians and demonologists, but are now supposed to be the
subject-matter of psychic research, were beings and objects that visited
this earth, not from a spiritual existence, but from outer space. That
extra-geographic conditions may be spiritual, or of highly attenuated
matter, is not my present notion, though that, too, may be some day
accepted. Of course all these data suffer, in one way, about as much
distortion as they would in other ways, if they had been reported by
astronomers or meteorologists. As to all the material in this chapter, I
take the position that perhaps there were appearances in the sky, and
perhaps they were revelations of, or mirages from, unknown regions and
conditions of outer space, and spectacles of relatively nearby inhabited
lands, and of space-travellers, but that all reports upon them were
products of the assimilating of the unknown with figures and figments of
the nearest familiar similarities. Another position of mine that will be
found well-taken is that, no matter what my own interpretations or
acceptances may be, they will compare favorably, so far as rationality
is concerned, with orthodox explanations. There have been many
assertions that “phantom soldiers” have been seen in the sky. For the
orthodox explanation of the physicists, see Brewster’s _Natural Magic_,
p. 125: a review of the phenomenon of June 23, 1744; that, according to
27 witnesses, some of whom gave sworn testimony before a magistrate,
whether that should be mentioned or not, troops of aërial soldiers had
been seen, in Scotland, on and over a mountain, remaining visible two
hours and then disappearing because of darkness. In Clarke’s _Survey of
the Lakes_ (fol. 1789) is an account in the words of one of the
witnesses. See _Notes and Queries_, 1-7-304. Brewster says that the
scene must have been a mirage of British troops, who, in anticipation of
the rebellion of 1745, were secretly manœuvring upon the other side of
the mountain. With a talent for clear-seeing, for which we are notable,
except when it comes to some of our own explanations, we almost
instantly recognize that, to keep a secret from persons living upon one
side of a mountain, it is a very sensible idea to go and manœuvre upon
the other side of the mountain; but then how to keep the secret, in a
thickly populated country like Scotland, from persons living upon that
other side of the mountain—however there never has been an explanation
that did not itself have to be explained.
Or the “phantom soldiers” that were seen at Ujest, Silesia, in 1785—see
Parish’s _Hallucinations and Illusions_, p. 309. Parish finds that at
the time of this spectacle, there were soldiers, of this earth, marching
near Ujest; so he explains that the “phantom soldiers” were mirages of
them. They were marching in the funeral procession of General von Cosel.
But some time later they were seen again, at Ujest—and the General had
been dead and buried several days, and his funeral procession
disbanded—and if a refraction can survive independently of its primary,
so may a shadow, and anybody may take a walk where he went a week
before, and see some of his shadows still wandering around without him.
The great neglect of these explainers is in not accounting for an
astonishing preference for, or specialization in, marching soldiers, by
mirages. But if often there be, in the sky, things or beings that move
in parallel lines, and, if their betrayals be not mirages, but their
shadows cast down upon the haze of this earth, or Brocken spectres, such
frequency, or seeming specialization, might be accounted for.
Sept. 27, 1846—a city in the sky of Liverpool (_Rept. B. A._, 1847-39).
The apparition is said to have been a mirage of the city of Edinburgh.
This “identification” seems to have been the product of suggestion: at
the time a panorama of Edinburgh was upon exhibition in Liverpool.
Summer of 1847—see Flammarion’s _The Atmosphere_, p. 160—story told by
M. Grellois: that he was travelling between Ghelma and Bône, when he
saw, to the east of Bône, upon a gently sloping hill, “a vast and
beautiful city, adorned with monuments, domes, and steeples.” There was
no resemblance to any city known to M. Grellois.
In the _Bull. Soc. Astro. de France_, 21-180, is an account of a
spectacle that, according to 20 witnesses, was seen for two hours in the
sky of Vienne dans le Dauphiné, May 3, 1848. A city—and an army, in the
sky. One supposes that a Brewster would say that nearby was a
terrestrial city, with troops manœuvring near it. But also vast lions
were seen in the sky—and that is enough to discourage any Brewster. Four
months later, according to the London _Times_, Sept. 13, 1848, a still
more discouraging—or perhaps stimulating—spectacle was, or was not, seen
in Scotland. Afternoon of Sept. 9, 1848—Quigley’s Point, Lough Foyle,
Scotland—the sky turned dark. It seemed to open. The opening looked
reddish, and in the reddish area, appeared a regiment of soldiers. Then
came appearances that looked like war vessels under full sail, then “a
man and a woman and a swan and a peahen.” The “opening” closed, and that
was the last of this shocking or ridiculous mixture that nobody but
myself would record as being worth thinking about.
“Phantom soldiers” that were seen in the sky, near the Banmouth, Dec.
30, 1850 (_Rept. B. A._, 1852-30).
“Phantom soldiers” that were seen at Buderich, Jan. 22, 1854 (_Notes and
Queries_, 1-9-267).
“Phantom soldiers” that were seen by Lord Roberts (_Forty-One Years in
India_, p. 219) at Mohan, Feb. 25, 1858. It is either that Lord Roberts
saw indistinctly, and described in terms of the familiar to him, or that
we are set back in our own notions. According to him, the figures wore
Hindoo costumes.
Extra-geography—its vistas and openings and fields—and the Thoreaus that
are upon this earth, but undeveloped, because they can not find their
ponds. A lonely thing and its pond, afloat in space—they crossed the
moon. In _Cosmos_, n. s., 11-200, it is said that, night of July 7,
1857, two persons of Chambon had seen forms crossing the moon—something
like a human being followed by a pond.
“Phantom soldiers” that were seen, about the year 1860, at Paderborn,
Westphalia (Crowe, _Night-side of Nature_, p. 416).
CHAPTER SEVEN
We attempt to co-ordinate various streaks of data, all of which signify
to us that, external to this earth, and in relation with, or relatable
to, this earth are lands and lives and a generality of conditions that
make of the whole, supposed solar system one globule of circumstances
like terrestrial circumstances. Our expressions are in physical terms,
though in outer space there may be phenomena known as psychic phenomena,
because of the solid substances and objects that have fallen from the
sky to this earth, similar to, but sometimes not identified with, known
objects and substances upon this earth. Opposing us is the more or less
well-established conventional doctrine that has spun like a cocoon
around mind upon this earth, shutting off research, and stifling even
speculation, shelling away all data of relations and relatability with
external existences, a doctrine that, in its various explanations and
disregards and denials, is unified in one expression of Exclusionism.
An unknown vegetable substance falls from the sky. The datum is buried:
it may sprout some day.
The earth quakes. A luminous object is seen in the sky. Substance falls
from the unknown. But the event is cataloged with subterranean
earthquakes.
All conventional explanations and all conventional disregards and
denials have Exclusionism in common. The unity is so marked, all
writings in the past are so definitely in agreement, that I now think of
a general era that is, by Exclusionism, as distinctly characterized as
ever was the Carboniferous Era.
A pregnant woman stands near Niagara Falls. There are sounds, and they
are vast circumstances; but the cells of an unborn being respond, or
vibrate, only as they do to disturbances in their own little
environment. Horizons pour into a gulf, and thunder rolls upward:
embryonic consciousness is no more than to slight perturbations of
maternal indigestion. It is Exclusionism.
Stones fall from the sky. To the same part of this earth, they fall
again. They fall again. They fall from some region that, relatively to
this part of the earth’s surface, is stationary. But to say this leads
to the suspicion that it is this earth that is stationary. To think that
is to beat against the walls of uterine dogmas—into a partly hairy and
somewhat reptilian mass of social undevelopment comes exclusionist
explanation suitable for such immaturity.
It does not matter which of our subjects we take up, our experience is
unvarying: the standardized explanation will be Exclusionism. As to many
appearances in the sky, the way of excluding foreign forces is to say
that they are auroras, which are supposed to be mundane phenomena.
School children are taught that auroras are electric manifestations
encircling the poles of this earth. Respectful urchins are shown an ikon
by which an electrified sphere does have the polar encirclements that it
should have. But I have taken a disrespectful, or advanced, course
through the _Monthly Weather Review_, and have read hundreds of times of
auroras that were not such polar crownings: of auroras in Venezuela,
Sandwich Islands, Cuba, India; of an aurora in Pennsylvania, for
instance, and not a sign of it north of Pennsylvania. There are lights
in the sky for which “auroral” is as good a name as any that can be
thought of, but there are others for which some other names will have to
be thought of. There have been lights like luminous surfs beating upon
the coasts of this earth’s atmosphere, and lights like vast reflections
from distant fires; steady pencils of light and pulsating clouds and
quick flashes and seeming objects with definite outlines, all in one
poverty of nomenclature, for which science is, in some respects, not
notable, called “auroral.” Nobody knows what an aurora is. It does not
matter. An unknown light in the sky is said to be auroral. This is
standardization, and the essence of this standardization is
Exclusionism.
I see one resolute, unified, unscrupulous exclusion from science of the
indications of nearby lands in the sky. It may not be unscrupulousness:
it may be hypnosis. I see that all seeming hypnotics, or somnambulics of
the past, who have most plausibly so explained, or so denied, have
prospered and have had renown. According to my impressions, if a
Brewster, or a Swift, or a Newcomb ever had written that there may be
nearby lands and living beings in the sky, he would not have prospered,
and his renown would be still subject to delayal. If an organism
flourishes, it is said to be in harmony with environment, or with higher
forces. I now conceive of successful and flourishing Exclusionism as an
organization that has been in harmony with higher forces. Suppose we
accept that all general delusions function sociologically. Then, if
Exclusionism be general delusion; if we shall accept that conceivably
the isolation of this earth has been a necessary factor in the
development of the whole geo-system, we see that exclusionistic science
has faithfully, though falsely, functioned. It would be world-wide crime
to spread world-wide too soon the idea that there are other existences
nearby and that they have been seen and that sounds from them have been
heard: the peoples of this earth must organize themselves before
conceiving of, and trying to establish, foreign relations. A premature
science of such subjects would be like a United States taking part in a
Franco-Prussian War, when such foreign relations should be still far in
the future of a nation that has still to concentrate upon its own
internal development.
So in the development of all things—or that a stickleback may build a
nest, and so may vaguely and not usefully and not explicably at all, in
terms of Darwinian evolution, foreshadow a character of coming forms of
life; but that a fish that should try to climb a tree and sing to its
mate before even the pterodactyl had flapped around with wings daubed
with clay would be an unnoticed little clown in cosmic drama. But I do
conceive that when the Carboniferous Era is dominant, and when not a
discordant thing will be permitted to flourish, though it may adumbrate,
restrictions will not last forever, and that the rich and bountiful
curse upon rooted things will some day be lifted.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Patched by a blue inundation that had never been seen before—this earth,
early in the 60’s of the 19th century. Then faintly, from far away, this
new appearance is seen to be enveloped with volumes of gray. Flashes
like lightning, and faintest of rumbling sounds—then cloud-like
envelopments roll away, and a blue formation shines in the sun.
Meteorologists upon the moon take notes.
But year after year there are appearances, as seen from the moon, that
are so characterized that they may not be meteorologic phenomena upon
this earth: changing compositions wrought with elements of blue and of
gray; it is like conflict between Synthesis and Dissolution: straight
lines that fade into scrawls, but that re-form into seeming moving
symbols: circles and squares and triangles abound.
Having had no mean experience with interpretations as products of
desires, given that upon the moon communication with this earth should
be desired, it seems likely to me that the struggles of hosts of
Americans, early in the 60’s of the 19th century, were thought by some
lunarians to be manœuvres directed to them, or attempts to attract their
attention. However, having had many impressions upon the resistance that
new delusions encounter, so that, at least upon this earth, some
benightments have had to wait centuries before finally imposing
themselves generally, I’d think of considerable time elapsing before the
coming of a general conviction upon the moon that, by means of living
symbols, and the firing of explosives, terrestrians were trying to
communicate.
Beacon-like lights that have been seen upon the moon. The lights have
been desultory. The latest of which I have record was back in the year
1847. But now, if beginning in the early 60’s, though not coinciding
with the beginning of unusual and tremendous manifestations upon this
earth, we have data as if of greatly stimulated attempts to communicate
from the moon—why one assimilates one’s impressions of such great
increase with this or with that, all according to what one’s dominant
thoughts may be, and calls the product a logical conclusion. Upon the
night of May 15, 1864, Herbert Ingall, of Camberwell, saw a little to
the west of the lunar crater Picard, in the Mare Crisium, a remarkably
bright spot (_Astro. Reg._, 2-264).
Oct. 24, 1864—period of nearest approach by Mars—red lights upon
opposite parts of Mars (_C. R._, 85-538). Upon Oct. 16, Ingall had again
seen the light west of Picard. Jan. 1, 1865—a small speck of light, in
darkness, under the east foot of the lunar Alps, shining like a small
star, watched half an hour by Charles Grover (_Astro. Reg._, 3-255).
Jan. 3, 1865—again the red lights of Mars (_C. R._, 85-538). A thread of
data appears, as an offshoot from a main streak, but it can not sustain
itself. Lights on the moon and lights on Mars, but I have nothing more
that seems to signify both signals and responses between these two
worlds.
April 10, 1865—west of Picard, according to Ingall—“a most minute point
of light, glittering like a star” (_Astro. Reg._, 3-189).
Sept. 5, 1865—a conspicuous bright spot west of Picard (_Astro. Reg._,
3-252). It was seen again by Ingall. He saw it again upon the 7th, but
upon the 8th it had gone, and there was a cloud-like effect where the
light had been.
Nov. 24, 1865—a speck of light that was seen by the Rev. W. O. Williams,
shining like a small star in the lunar crater Carlini (_Intel. Obs._,
11-58).
June 10, 1866—the star-like light in Aristarchus; reported by Tempel
(Denning, _Telescopic Work_, p. 121).
Astronomically and seleno-meteorologically, nothing that I know of has
ever been done with these data. I think well of taking up the subject
theologically. We are approaching accounts of a different kind of
changes upon the moon. There will be data seeming so to indicate not
only persistence but devotedness upon the moon that I incline to think
not only of devotedness but of devotions. Upon the 16th of October,
1866, the astronomer Schmidt, of the land of Socrates, announced that
the isolated object, in the eastern part of the Mare Serenitatis, known
as Linné, had changed. Linné stands out in a blank area like the Pyramid
of Cheops in its desert. If changes did occur upon Linné, the
conspicuous position seems to indicate selection. Before October, 1866,
Linné was well-known as a dark object. Something was whitening an object
that had been black.
A hitherto unpublished episode in the history of theologies:
The new prophet who had appeared upon the moon—
Faint perceptions of moving formations, often almost rigorously
geometric, upon one part of this earth, and perhaps faintest of
signal-like sounds that reached the moon—the new prophet—and that he
preached the old lunar doctrine that there is no god but the Earth-god,
but exhorted his hearers to forsake their altars upon which had burned
unheeded lights, and to build a temple upon which might be recited a
litany of lights and shades.
We are only now realizing how the Earth-god looks to the beings of the
moon—who know that this earth is dominant; who see it frilled with the
loops of the major planets; its Elizabethan ruff wrought by the
complications of the asteroids; the busy little sun that brushes off the
dark.
God of the moon, when mists make it expressionless—a vast, bland,
silvery Buddha.
God of the moon, when seeing is clear—when the disguise is off—when, at
night, from pointed white peaks drip the fluctuating red lights of a
volcano, this earth is the appalling god of carnivorousness.
Sometimes the great roundish earth, with the heavens behind it broken by
refraction, looks like something thrust into a shell from external
existence—clouds of tornadoes as if in its grasp—and it looks like the
fist of God, clutching rags of ultimate fire and confusion.
That a new prophet had appeared upon the moon, and had excited new hope
of evoking response from the bland and shining Stupidity that has so
often been mistaken for God, or from the Appalling that is so identified
with Divinity—from the clutched and menacing fist that has so often been
worshipped.
There is no intelligence except era-intelligence. Suppose the whole
geo-system be a super-embryonic thing. Then, by the law of the embryo,
its parts can not organize until comes scheduled time. So there are
local congeries of development of a chick in an egg, but these local
centers can not more than faintly sketch out relations with one another,
until comes the time when they may definitely integrate. Suppose that
far back in the 19th century there were attempts to communicate from the
moon; but suppose that they were premature: then we suppose the fate of
the protoplasmic threads that feel out too soon from one part of an egg
to another. In October, 1866, Schmidt, of Athens, saw and reported in
terms of the concepts of his era, and described in conventional
selenographic language. See _Rept. B. A._, 1867.
Upon Dec. 14, 16, 25, 27, 1866, Linné was seen as a white spot. But
there was something that had the seeming more of a design, or of a
pattern, an elaboration upon the mere turning to white of something that
had been black—a fine, black spot upon Linné; by Schmidt and Buckingham,
in December, 1866 (_The Student_, 1-261). The most important
consideration of all is reviewed by Schmidt in the _Rept. B. A._,
1867-22—that sunlight and changes of sunlight had nothing to do with the
changing appearances of Linné. Jan. 14, 1867—the white covering, or, at
least, seeming of covering, of Linné, had seemingly disappeared—Knott’s
impression of Linné as a dark spot, but “definition” was poor. Jan.
16—Knott’s very strong impression, which, however, he says may have been
an illusion, of a small central dark spot upon Linné. Dawes’
observation, of March 15, 1867—“an excessively minute black dot in the
middle of Linné.”
A geometric figure that was white-bordered and centered with black,
formed and dissolved and formed again.
I have an impression of spectacles that were common in the United
States, during the War: hosts of persons arranging themselves in living
patterns: flags, crosses, and in one instance, in which thousands were
engaged, in the representation of an enormous Liberty Bell. Astronomers
have thought of trying to communicate with Mars or the moon by means of
great geometric constructions placed conspicuously, but there is nothing
so attractive to attention as change, and a formation that could appear
and disappear would enchance the geometric with the dynamic. That the
units of the changing compositions that covered Linné were the lunarians
themselves—that Linné was terraced—hosts of the inhabitants of the moon
standing upon the ridges of their Cheops of the Serene Sea, some of them
dressed in white and standing in a border, and some of them dressed in
black, centering upon the apex, or the dark material of the apex left
clear for the contrast, all of them unified in a hope of conveying an
impression of the geometric, as the product of design, and
distinguishable from the topographic, to the shining god that makes the
stars of their heavens marginal.
It is a period of great activity—or of conflicting ideas and
purposes—upon the moon: new and experimental demonstrations, but also,
of course, the persistence of the old. In the _Astronomical Register_,
5-114, Thomas G. Elger writes that upon the 9th of April, 1867, he was
surprised to see, upon the dark part of the moon, a light like a star of
the 7th magnitude, at 7.30 P. M. It became fainter, and looked almost
extinguished at 9 o’clock. Mr. Elger had seen lights upon the moon
before, but never before a light so clear—“too bright to be overlooked
by the most careless observer.” May 7, 1867—the beacon-like light of
Aristarchus—observed by Tempel, of Marseilles, when Aristarchus was upon
the dark part of the moon (_Astro. Reg._, 5-220). Upon the night of June
10, 1867, Dawes saw three distinct, roundish, black spots near Sulpicius
Gallus, which is near Linné; when looked for upon the 13th, they had
disappeared (_The Student_, 1-261).
August 6, 1867—
And this earth in the sky of the moon—smooth and bland and featureless
earth—or one of the scenes that make it divine and appalling—jaws of
this earth, as seem to be rims of more or less parallel mountain ranges,
still shining in sunlight, but surrounded by darkness—
And, upon the moon, the assembling of the Chiaroscuroans, or the lunar
communicationists who seek to be intelligible to this earth by means of
lights and shades, patterned upon Linné by their own forms and costumes.
The Great Pyramid of Linné, at night upon the moon—it stands out as a
bold black triangularity pointing to this earth. It slowly suffuses
white—the upward drift of white-clad forms, upon the slopes of the
Pyramid. The jaws of this earth seem to munch, in variable light. There
is no other response. Devotions are the food of the gods.
Upon August 6, 1867, Buckingham saw upon Linné, which was in darkness,
“a rising oval spot” (_Rept. B. A._, 1867-7). In October, 1867, Linné
was seen as a convex white spot (_Rept. B. A._, 1867-8).
* * * * *
Also it may be that the moon is not inhabited, and is not habitable.
There are many astronomers who say that the moon has virtually no
atmosphere, because when a star is passed over by the moon, the star is
not refracted, according to them. See Clerke’s _History of Astronomy_,
p. 264—that, basing his calculations upon the fact that a star is never
refracted out of place when occulted by the moon, Prof. Comstock, of
Washburn Observatory, had determined that this earth’s atmosphere is
5,000 times as dense as the moon’s.
I did think that in this secondary survey of ours we had pretty well
shaken off our old opposition, the astronomers: however, with something
of the kindliness that one feels for renewed meeting with the familiar,
here we are at home with the same old kind of demonstrations: the basing
of laborious calculations upon something that is not so—
See index of _Monthly Notices, R. A. S._—many instances of stars that
have been refracted out of place when occulted by the moon. See the
_Observatory_, 24-210, 313, 315, 345, 414; _English Mechanic_, 23-197,
279; 26-229; 52-index, “atmosphere”; 81-60; 84-161; 85-108.
In the year 1821, Gruithuisen announced that he had discovered a city of
the moon. He described its main thoroughfare and branching streets. In
1826, he announced that there had been considerable building, and that
he had seen new streets. This formation, which is north of the crater
Schroeter, has often been examined by disagreeing astronomers: for a
sketch of it, in which a central line and radiating lines are shown, see
the _English Mechanic_, 18-638. There is one especial object upon the
moon that has been described and photographed and sketched so often that
I shall not go into the subject. For many records of observations, see
the _English Mechanic_ and _L’Astronomie_. It is an object shaped like a
sword, near the crater Birt. Anyone with an impression of the transept
of a cathedral, may see the architectural here. Or it may be a mound
similar to the mounds of North America that have so logically been
attributed to the Mound Builders. In a letter, published in the
_Astronomical Register_, 20-167, Mr. Birmingham calls attention to a
formation that suggests the architectural upon the moon—“a group of
three hills in a slightly acute-angled triangle, and connected by three
lower embankments.” There is a geometric object, or marking, shaped like
an “X,” in the crater Eratosthenes (_Sci. Amer. Sup._, 59-24, 469);
striking symbolic-looking thing or sign, or attempt by means of
something obviously not topographic, to attract attention upon this
earth, in the crater Plinius (_Eng. Mec._, 35-34); reticulations, like
those of a city’s squares, in Plato (_Eng. Mec._, 64-253); and there is
a structural-looking composition of angular lines in Gassendi (_Eng.
Mec._, 101-466). Upon the floor of Littrow are six or seven spots
arranged in the form of the Greek letter _Gamma_ (_Eng. Mec._, 101-47).
This arrangement may be of recent origin, having been discovered Jan.
31, 1915. The Greek letter makes difficulty only for those who do not
want to think easily upon this subject. For a representation of
something that looked like a curved wall upon the moon, see
_L’Astronomie_, 1888-110. As to appearances like viaducts, see
_L’Astronomie_, 1885-213. The lunar craters are not in all instances the
simple cirques that they are commonly supposed to be. I have many
different impressions of some of them: I remember one sketch that looked
like an owl with a napkin tucked under his beak. However, it may be that
the general style of architecture upon the moon is Byzantine, very
likely, or not so likely, domed with glass, giving the dome-effect that
has so often been commented upon.
So then the little nearby moon—and it is populated by Lilliputians.
However our experience with agreeing ideas having been what it has been,
we suspect that the lunarians are giants. Having reasonably determined
that the moon is one hundred miles in diameter, we suppose it is
considerably more or less.
* * * * *
A group of astronomers had been observing extraordinary lights in the
lunar crater Plato. The lights had definite arrangement. They were so
individualized that Birt and Elger, and the other selenographers, who
had combined to study them, had charted and numbered them. They were
fixed in position, but rose and fell in intensity.
It does seem to me that we have data of one school of communicationists
after another coming into control of efforts upon the moon. At first our
data related to single lights. They were extraordinary, and they seem to
me to have been signals, but there seemed to be nothing of the
organization that now does seem to be creeping into the fragmentary
material that is the best that we can find. The grouped lights in Plato
were so distinctive, so clear and even brilliant, that if such lights
had ever shone before, it seems that they must have been seen by the
Schroeters, Gruithuisens, Beers and Mädlers, who had studied and charted
the features of the moon. For several of Gledhill’s observations, from
which I derive my impressions of these lights, see _Rept. B. A._,
1871-80—“I can only liken them to the small discs of stars, seen in the
transit-instrument”; “just like small stars in the transit instrument,
upon a windy night!”
In August and September, 1869, occurred a notable illumination of the
spots in Group I. It was accompanied by a single light upon a distant
spot. February and March, 1870—illumination of another group.
April 17, 1870—another illumination in Plato, but back to the first
group.
As to his observations of May 10-12, 1870, Birt gives his opinion that
the lights of Plato were not effects of sunlight.
Upon the 13th of May, 1870, there was an “extraordinary display,”
according to Birt: 27 lights were seen by Pratt, and 28 by Elger, but
only 4 by Gledhill, in Brighton. Atmospheric conditions may have made
this difference, or the lights may have run up or down a scale from 4 to
28. As to independence of sunlight, Pratt says (_Rept. B. A._, 1871-88)
as to this display, that only the fixed, charted points so shone, and
that other parts of the crater were not illuminated, as they would have
been to an incidence common throughout. In Pratt’s opinion, and, I
think, in the opinion of the other observers, these lights were
volcanic. It seems to me that this opinion arose from a feeling that
there should be something of an opinion: the idea that the lights might
have been signals was not expressed by any of these astronomers that I
know of. I note that, though many observers were, at this time,
concentrating upon this one crater, there are no records findable by me
of such disturbance of detail as might be supposed to accompany volcanic
action. The clear little lights seem to me to have been anything but
volcanic.
The play of these lights of Plato—their modulations and their
combinations—like luminous music—or a composition of signals in a code
that even in this late day may be deciphered. It was like
orchestration—and that something like a baton gave direction to Light
22, upon August 12, 1870, to shine a leading part—“remarkable increase
of brightness.” No. 22 subsided, and the leading part shone out in No.
14. It, too, subsided, and No. 16 brightened.
Perhaps there were definite messages in a Morse-like code. There is a
chance for the electricity in somebody’s imagination to start crackling.
Up to April, 1871, the selenographers had recorded 1,600 observations
upon the fluctuations of the lights of Plato, and had drawn 37 graphs of
individual lights. All graphs and other records were deposited by W. R.
Birt in the Library of the Royal Astronomical Society, where presumably
they are to this day. A Champollion may some day decipher hieroglyphics
that may have been flashed from one world to another.
CHAPTER NINE
Our data indicate that the planets are circulating adjacencies. Almost
do we now conceive of a difficulty of the future as being not how to
reach the planets, but how to dodge them. Especially do we warn aviators
away from that rhinoceros of the skies, Mercury. I have a note somewhere
upon one of the wickedest-looking horns in existence, sticking out far
from Mercury. I think it was Mr. Whitmell who made this observation. I’d
like to hear Andrew Barclay’s opinion upon that. I’d like to hear Capt.
Noble’s.
If sometimes does the planet Mars almost graze this earth, as is not
told by the great telescopes, which are only millionaires’ memorials,
or, at least, which reveal but little more than did the little spy
glasses used by Burnham and Williams and Beer and Mädler—but if
periodically the planet Mars comes very close to this earth, and, if
Mars, an island with perhaps no more surface-area than has England, but
likely enough inhabited, like England—
June 19, 1875—opposition of Mars.
Flashes that were seen in the sky upon the 25th of June, 1875, by
Charles Gape, of Scole, Norfolk (_Eng. Mec._, 21-488). The Editor of
_Symons’ Met. Mag._ (see vol. 10-116) was interested, and sent Mr. Gape
some questions, receiving answers that nothing had appeared in the local
newspapers upon the subject, and that nothing could be learned of a
display of fireworks, at the time. To Mr. Gape the appearances seemed to
be meteoric.
The year 1877—climacteric opposition of Mars.
There were some discoveries.
We have at times wondered how astronomers spend their nights. Of course,
according to many of his writings upon the subject, Richard Proctor had
an excellent knowledge of whist. But in the year 1877, two astronomers
looked up at the sky, and one of them discovered the moons of Mars, and
the other called attention to lines on Mars—and, if for centuries, the
moons of Mars could so remain unknown to all inhabitants of this earth
except, as it were, Dean Swift—why it is no wonder that we so
respectfully heed some of the Dean’s other intuitions, and think that
there may be Lilliputians, or Brobdingnagians, and other forms not
conventionally supposed to be. As to our own fields of data, I have a
striking number of notes upon signal-like appearances upon the moon, in
the year 1877, but have notes upon only one occurrence that, in our
interests, may relate to Mars. The occurrence is like that of July 31,
1813 and June 19, 1875.
Sept. 5, 1877—opposition of Mars.
Sept. 7, 1877—lights appeared in the sky of Bloomington, Indiana. They
were supposed to be meteoric. They appeared and disappeared, at
intervals of three or four seconds; darkness for several minutes; then a
final flash of light. See _Sci. Amer._, 37-193.
* * * * *
That all luminous objects that are seen in the sky when the planet Venus
is nearest may not be Venus; may not be fire-balloons:
In the _Dundee Advertiser_, Dec. 22, 1882, it is said that, between 10
and 11 A. M., Dec. 21, at Broughty Ferry, Scotland, a correspondent had
seen an unknown luminous body near and a little above the sun. In the
_Advertiser_, Dec. 25, is published a letter from someone who says that
this object had been seen at Dundee, also; that quite certainly it was
the planet Venus and “no other.” In _Knowledge_, 2-489, this story is
told by a writer who says that undoubtedly the object was Venus. But, in
_Knowledge_, 3-13, the astronomer J. E. Gore writes that the object
could not have been Venus, which upon this date was 1 h. 33 m., R. A.,
west of the sun. The observation is reviewed in _L’Astronomie_,
1883-109. Here it is said that the position of Mercury accorded better.
Reasonably this object could not have been Mercury: several objections
are comprehended in the statement that superior conjunction of Mercury
had occurred upon Dec. 16.
Upon Feb. 3, 1884, M. Staevert, of the Brussels Observatory, saw, upon
the disc of Venus, an extremely brilliant point (_Ciel et Terre_,
5-127). Nine days later, Niesten saw just such a point of light as this,
but at a distance from the planet. If no one had ever heard that such
things can not be, one might think that these two observations were upon
something that had been seen leaving Venus and had then been seen
farther along. Upon the 3rd of July, 1884, a luminous object was seen
moving slowly in the sky of Norwood, N. Y. It had features that suggest
the structural: a globe the size of the moon, surrounded by a ring; two
dark lines crossing the nucleus (_Science Monthly_, 2-136). Upon the
26th of July, a luminous globe, size of the moon, was seen at Cologne;
it seemed to be moving upward from this earth, then was stationary “some
minutes,” and then continued upward until it disappeared (_Nature_,
30-360). And in the _English Mechanic_, 40-130, it is not said that a
luminous vessel that had sailed out from Venus, in February, visiting
this earth, where it was seen in several places, was seen upon its
return to the planet, but it is said that an observer in Rochester, N.
Y., had, upon August 17, seen a brilliant point upon Venus.
CHAPTER TEN
Explosions over the towns of Barisal, Bengal, if they were aërial
explosions, were continuing. As to some of these detonations that were
heard in May, 1874, a writer in _Nature_, 53-197, says that they did
seem to come from overhead. For a report upon the Barisal Guns, heard
between April 28, 1888, and March 1, 1889, see _Proc. Asiatic Soc. of
Bengal_, 1889-199.
Phenomena at Comrie were continuing. The latest date in Roper’s _List of
Earthquakes_ is April 8, 1886, but this list goes on only a few years
later. See _Knowledge_, n. s., 6-145—shock and a rumbling sound at
Comrie, July 12, 1894—a repetition upon the corresponding date, the next
year. In the _English Mechanic_, 74-155, David Packer says that, upon
Sept. 17, 1901, ribbon-like flashes of lightning, which were not
ordinary lightning, were seen in the sky (I think of Birmingham) one
hour before a shock in Scotland. According to other accounts, this shock
was in Comrie and surrounding regions (London _Times_, Sept. 19, 1901).
_Smithson. Miscell. Cols._, 37-Appendix, p. 71:
According to L. Tennyson, Quartermaster’s Clerk, at Fort Klamath,
Oregon, at daylight, Jan. 8, 1867, the garrison was startled from sleep
by what he supposed to be an earthquake and a sound like thunder. Then
came darkness, and the sky was covered with black smoke or clouds. Then
ashes, of a brownish color, fell—“as fast as I ever saw it snow.” Half
an hour later there was another shock, described as “frightful.” No one
was injured, but the sutler’s store was thrown a distance of ninety
feet, and the vibrations lasted several minutes. Mr. Tennyson thought
that somewhere near Fort Klamath, a volcano had broken loose, because,
in the direction of the Klamath Marsh, a dark column of smoke was seen.
I can find record of no such volcanic eruption. In a list of quakes, in
Oregon, from 1846, to 1916, published in the _Bull. Seis. Soc. Amer._,
Sept., 1919, not one is attributed to volcanic eruptions. Mr. W. D.
Smith, compiler of the list, says, as to the occurrence at Fort
Klamath—“If there was an eruption, where was it?” He asks whether
possibly it could have been in Lassen Peak. But Lassen Peak is in
California, and the explosion upon Jan. 8, 1867 was so close to Fort
Klamath that almost immediately ashes fell from the sky.
The following is of the type of phenomena that might be considered
evidence of signalling from some unknown world nearby:
_La Nature_, 17-126—that, upon June 17, 1881, sounds like cannonading
were heard at Gabes, Tunis, and that quaking of the earth was felt, at
intervals of 32 seconds, lasting about 6 minutes.
July 30, 1883—a somewhat startling experience—steamship _Resolute_ alone
in the Arctic Ocean—six reports like gunfire—_Nature_, 53-295.
In _Nature_, 30-19, a correspondent writes that, upon the 3rd of
January, 1869, a policeman in Harlton, Cambridgeshire, heard six or
seven reports, as if of heavy guns far away. There is no findable record
of an earthquake in England upon this date. In the London _Times_, Jan.
12, 15, 16, 1869, several correspondents write that upon the 9th of
January a loud report had been heard and a shock felt at places near
Colchester, Essex, about 30 miles from Harlton. One of the
correspondents writes that he had heard the sound but had felt no shock.
In the London _Standard_, Jan. 12, the Rev. J. F. Bateman, of South
Lopham, Norfolk, writes as to the occurrence upon the 9th—“An
extraordinary vibration, described variously by my parishioners as being
‘like a gunpowder explosion,’ ‘a big thunder clap,’ and ‘a little
earthquake’ was noticed here this morning about 11.20.” In the _Morning
Post_, Jan. 14, it is said that at places about twenty miles from
Colchester it was thought that an explosion had occurred, upon the 9th,
but, inasmuch as no explosion had been heard of, the disturbance was
attributed to an earthquake. Night of Jan. 13—an explosion in the sky,
at Brighton (_Rept. B. A._, 1869-307). In the _Standard_, Jan. 22, a
correspondent writes from Swaffham, Norfolk, that, about 8 P. M., Jan.
15, something of an unknown nature had frightened flocks of sheep, which
had burst from their bounds in various places. All these occurrences
were in adjoining counties in southeastern England. Something was seen
in the sky upon the 13th, and, according to the _Chudleigh Weekly
Express_, Jan. 13, 1869, something was seen in the sky, night of the
10th, at Weston-super-Mare, near Bristol, in southwestern England. It
was seen between 9 and 10 o’clock, and is said to have been an
extraordinary meteor. Five hours later were felt three shocks said to
have been earthquakes.
Upon the night of March 17, 1871, there was a series of events in
France, and a series in England. A “meteor” was seen at Tours, at 8 P.
M.—at 10.45, a “meteor” that left a luminous cloud over Saintes
(Charante-Inferieure)—another at Paris, 11.15, leaving a mark in the
sky, of fifteen minutes’ duration—another at Tours, at 11.45 P. M. See
_Les Mondes_, 24-190, and _Comptes Rendus_, 72-789. There were
“earthquakes” this night affecting virtually all England north of the
Mersey and the Trent, and also southern parts of Scotland. As has often
been the case, the phenomena were thought to have been explosions and
were then said to have been earthquakes when no terrestrial explosions
could be heard of (_Symons’ Met. Mag._, 6-39). There were six shocks
near Manchester, between 6 and 7 P. M., and others about 11 P. M.; and
in Lancashire about 11 P. M., and continuing in places as far apart as
Liverpool and Newcastle, until 11.30 o’clock. The shocks felt about 11
o’clock correspond, in time, with the luminous phenomena in the sky of
France, but our way of expressing that these so-called earthquakes in
England may have been concussions from repeating explosions in the sky,
is to record that, according to correspondence in the London _Times_,
there were, upon the 20th, aërial phenomena in the region of Lancashire
that had been affected upon the 17th—“sounds that seemed to come from a
number of guns at a distance” and “pale flashes of lightning in the
sky.”
Whether these series of phenomena be relatable to Mars or Martians or
not, we note that in 1871 opposition of Mars was upon March 19; and, in
1869, upon Feb. 13; and in 1867 two days after the explosions at Fort
Klamath. In our records in this book, similar coincidences can be found
up to the year 1879. I have other such records not here published, and
others that will be here investigated.
There is a triangular region in England, three points of which appear so
often in our data that the region should be specially known to us, and I
know it myself as the London Triangle. It is pointed in the north by
Worcester and Hereford, in the south by Reading, Berkshire, and in the
east by Colchester, Essex. The line between Colchester and Reading runs
through London.
Upon Feb. 18, 1884, at West Mersea, near Colchester, a loud report was
heard (_Nature_, 53-4). Upon the 22nd of April, 1884, centering around
Colchester, occurred the severest earthquake in England in the 19th
century. For several columns of description, see the London _Times_,
April 23. There is a long list of towns in which there was great damage:
in 24 parishes near Colchester, 1250 buildings were damaged. One of the
places that suffered most was West Mersea (_Daily Chronicle_, April 28).
There was something in the sky. According to G. P. Yeats (_Observations
upon the Earthquake of Dec. 17, 1896_, p. 6) there was a red appearance
in the sky over Colchester, at the time of the shock of April 22, 1884.
The next day, according to a writer in _Knowledge_, 5-336, a stone fell
from the sky, breaking glass in his greenhouse, in Essex. It was a
quartz stone, and unlike anything usually known as meteoritic.
The indications, according to my reading of the data, and my impressions
of such repeating occurrences as those at Fort Klamath, are that perhaps
an explosion occurred in the sky, near Colchester, upon Feb. 18, 1884;
that a great explosion did occur over Colchester, upon the 22nd of
April, and that a great volume of débris spread over England, in a
northwesterly direction, passing over Worcestershire and Shropshire, and
continuing on toward Liverpool, nucleating moisture and falling in
blackest of rain. From the Stonyhurst Observatory, near Liverpool, was
reported, occurring at 11 A. M., April 26, “the most extraordinary
darkness remembered”; forty minutes later fell rain “as black as ink,”
and then black snow and black hail (_Nature_, 30-6). Black hail fell at
Chaigley, several miles from Liverpool (_Stonyhurst Magazine_, 1-267).
Five hours later, black substance fell at Crowle, near Worcester
(_Nature_, 30-32). Upon the 28th, at Church Stretton and Much Wenlock,
Shropshire, fell torrents of liquid like ink and water in equal
proportions (_The Field_, May 3, 1884). In the _Jour. Roy. Met. Soc._,
11-7, it is said that, upon the 28th, half a mile from Lilleshall,
Shropshire, an unknown pink substance was brought down by a storm. Upon
the 3rd of May, black substance fell again at Crowle (_Nature_, 30-32).
In _Nature_, 30-216, a correspondent writes that, upon June 22, 1884, at
Fletching, Sussex, southwest of Colchester, there was intense darkness,
and that rain then brought down flakes of soot in such abundance that it
seemed to be “snowing black.” This was several months after the shock at
Colchester, but my datum for thinking that another explosion, or
disturbance of some kind, had occurred in the same local sky, is that,
as reported by the inmates of one house, a slight shock was felt, upon
the 24th of June, at Colchester, showing that the phenomena were
continuing. See Roper’s _List of Earthquakes_.
Was not the loud report heard upon Feb. 18 probably an explosion in the
sky, inasmuch as the sound was great and the quake little? Were not
succeeding phenomena sounds and concussions and the fall of débris from
explosions in the sky, acceptably upon April 22, and perhaps continuing
until the 24th of June? Then what are the circumstances by which one
small part of this earth’s surface could continue in relation with
something somewhere else in space?
Comrie, Irkutsk, and Birmingham.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Upon the night of the 13th of July, 1875, at midnight, two officers of
H. M. S. _Coronation_, in the Gulf of Siam, saw a luminous projection
from the moon’s upper limb (_Nature_, 12-495). Upon the 14th it was
gone, but a smaller projection was seen from another part of the moon’s
limb. This was in the period of the opposition of Mars.
Upon the night of Feb. 20, 1877, M. Trouvelot, of the Observatory of
Meudon, saw, in the lunar crater Eudoxus, which, like almost all other
centers of seeming signalling, is in the north-western quadrant of the
moon, a fine line of light (_L’Astronomie_, 1885-212). It was like a
luminous cable drawn across the crater.
March 21, 1877—a brilliant illumination, and not by the light of the
sun, according to C. Barrett, in the lunar crater Proclus (_Eng. Mec._,
25-89).
May 15 and 29, 1877—the bright spot west of Picard (_Eng. Mec._,
25-335).
The changes upon Linné were first seen by Schmidt, in 1866, near the
time of opposition of Mars. In May, 1877, Dr. Klein announced that a new
object had appeared upon the moon. It was close to the center of the
visible disc of the moon, and was in a region that had been most
carefully studied by the selenographers. In the _Observatory_, 2-238, is
Neison’s report from his own memoranda. In the years 1874 and 1875, he
had studied this part of the moon, but had not seen this newly reported
object in the crater Hyginus, or the object, Hyginus N, according to the
selenographers’ terminology. In the _Astronomical Register_, 17-204,
Neison lists, with details, 20 minute examinations of this region, from
July, 1870, to August, 1875, in which this conspicuous object was not
recorded.
June 14, 1877—a light on the dark part of the moon, resembling a
reflection from a moving mirror; reported by Prof. Henry Harrison
(_Sidereal Messenger_, 3-150). June 15—the bright spot west of Picard,
according to Birt (Jour _B. A. A._, 19-376). Upon the 16th, Prof.
Harrison thought that again he saw the moving light of the 14th, but
shining faintly. In the _English Mechanic_, 25-432, Frank Dennett
writes, as to an observation of June 17, 1877—“I fancied I could detect
a minute point of light shining out of the darkness that filled Bessel.”
These are data of extraordinary activity upon the moon preceding the
climacteric opposition of Mars, early in September, 1877.
Now we have an account of an occurrence during an eclipse of the moon:
On the night of the eclipse (Aug. 27, 1877) a ball of fire, of the
apparent size of the moon, was seen, at ten minutes to eleven, dropping
apparently from cloud to cloud, and the light flashing across the road
(_Astro. Reg._, 1878-75).
_Astro. Reg._, 17-251:
Nov. 13, 1877—Hyginus N standing out with such prominence as to be seen
at the first glance;
Nov. 14, 1877—not a trace of Hyginus N, though seeing was excellent:
Oct. 3, 1878—the most conspicuous of all appearances of Hyginus N;
Oct. 4, 1878—not a trace of Hyginus N.
Upon the night of Nov. 1, 1879, again in the period of opposition of
Mars (opposition Nov. 12) again the bright spot west of Picard (_Jour.
B. A. A._, 19-376). But I have several records of observations upon this
appearance not in times of opposition of Mars. Whether there be any
relation with anything else or not, at five o’clock, morning of Nov. 1,
1879, a “vivid flash” was seen and a shock was felt at West Cumberland
(_Nature_, 21-19).
In the autumn of the year 1883, began extraordinary atmospheric effects
in the sky of this earth. For Prof. John Haywood’s description of
similar appearances upon the moon, Nov. 4, 1883 and March 29, 1884, see
the _Sidereal Messenger_, 3-121. They were misty light-effects upon the
dark part of the moon, not like “earthshine.” Our expression is that so
close is the moon to this earth that it, too, may be affected by
phenomena in the atmosphere of this earth.
Something like another luminous cable, or like a shining wall, that was
seen in Aristarchus, by Trouvelot, Jan. 23, 1880 (_L’Astro._, 1885-215);
a speck of light in Marius, Jan. 13, 1881, by A. S. Williams (_Eng.
Mec._, 32-494); unexplained light in Eudoxus, by Trouvelot, May 4, 1881
(_L’Astro._, 1885-213); an illumination in Kepler, by Morales, Feb. 5,
1884 (_L’Astro._, 9-149).
In _Knowledge_, 7-224, William Gray writes that, upon Feb. 19, 1885, he
saw, in Hercules, a dull, deep, reddish appearance. In _L’Astronomie_,
1885-227, Lorenzo Kropp, an astronomer of Paysandu, Uruguay, writes
that, upon Feb. 21, 1885, he had seen, in Cassini, a formation not far
from Hercules, both of them in the northwestern quadrant of the moon, a
reddish smoke or mist. He had heard that several other persons had seen,
not a misty appearance, but a star-like light here, and upon the 22nd he
had seen a definite light, himself, shining like the planet Saturn.
May 11, 1885—two lights upon the moon (_L’Astro._, 9-73).
May 11, 1886—two lights upon the moon (_L’Astro._, 6-312).
CHAPTER TWELVE
That through lenses rimmed with horizons inhabitants of this earth have
seen revelations of other worlds—that atmospheric strata of different
densities are lenses—but that the faults of the wide glasses in the
observatories are so intensified in atmospheric revelations that all our
data are distortions. Our acceptance is that every mirage has a primary;
that in human mind all poetry is based upon observation, and that
imagery in the sky is similarly uncreative. If a mirage can not be
traced to the known upon this earth, one supposes that it is either a
derivation from the unknown upon this earth, or from the unknown
somewhere else. We shall have data of a series of mirages in Sweden, or
upon the shores of the Baltic, from Oct., 1881, to Dec., 1888. I take
most of the data from _Nature_, _Knowledge_, _Cosmos_, and
_L’Astronomie_, published in this period. I have no data of such
appearances in this region either before or after this period: the
suggestion in my own mind is that they were not mirages from terrestrial
primaries, or they would not be so confined to one period, but were
shadows or mirages from something that was in temporary suspension over
the Baltic and Sweden, all details distorted and reported in terms of
familiar terrestrial appearances.
Oct. 10, 1881—that at Rugenwalde, Pomerania, the mirage of a village had
been seen: snow-covered roofs from which hung icicles; human forms
distinctly visible. It was believed that the mirage was a representation
of the town of Nexo, on the island of Bornholm. Rugenwalde is on the
Baltic, and Nexo is about 100 miles northwest, in the Baltic.
The first definite account of the mirages of Sweden, findable by me, is
published in _Nature_, June 29, 1882, where it is said that preceding
instances had attracted attention—that, in May, 1882, over Lake Orsa,
Sweden, representations of steamships had been seen, and then “islands
covered with vegetation.” Night of May 19, 1883—beams of light at Lake
Ludyika, Sweden—they looked like a representation of a lake in
moonshine, with shores covered with trees, showing faint outlines of
farms (_Monthly Weather Review_, May, 1883). May 28, 1883—at Finsbo,
Sweden—changing scenes, at short intervals: mountains, lakes, and farms.
Oct. 16, 1884—Lindsberg—a large town, with four-storied houses, a castle
and a lake. May 22, 1885—Gothland—a town surrounded by high mountains, a
large vessel in front of the town. June 15, 1885—near Oxelosund—two
wooded islands, a construction upon one of them, and two warships. It is
said that at the time two Swedish warships were at sea, but were at
considerable distance north of Oxelosund. Sept. 12, 1885—Valla—a
representation that is said to have been a “remarkable mirage” but that
is described as if the appearances were cloud-forms—several monitors,
one changing into a spouting whale, and the other into a crocodile—then
forests—dancers—a wooded island with buildings and a park. Sept. 29,
1885—again at Valla—between 8 and 9 o’clock, P. M.; a lurid glare upon
the northwestern horizon; a cloud bank—animals, groups of dancers, a
forest, and then a park with paths. July 15, 1888—Hudikwall—a
tempestuous sea, and a vessel upon it; a small boat leaving the vessel.
Upon Oct. 8, 1888, at Merexull, on the Baltic, but in Russia, was seen a
mirage of a city that lasted an hour. It is said that some buildings
were recognized, and that the representation was identified with St.
Petersburgh, which is about 200 miles from the Baltic.
* * * * *
That a large, substantial mass, presumably of land, can be in at least
temporary suspension over a point upon this earth’s surface, and not
fall, and be, in ordinary circumstances, invisible—
In _L’Astronomie_, 1887-426, MM. Codde and Payan, both of them
astronomers, well-known for their conventional observations and
writings, publish accounts of an unknown body that appeared upon the
sun’s limb, for twenty or thirty seconds, after the eclipse of August
19, 1887. They saw a round body, apparent diameter about one tenth of
the apparent diameter of the sun, according to the sketch that is
published. In _L’Astronomie_, these two observers write separately, and,
in the city of Marseilles, their observations were made at a distance
apart. But the unknown body was seen by both upon the same part of the
sun’s limb. So it is supposed that it could not have been a balloon, nor
a circular cloud, nor anything else very near this earth. But many
astronomers in other parts of Europe were watching this eclipse, and it
seems acceptable that others, besides two in Marseilles, continued to
look, immediately after the eclipse; but from nowhere else came a report
upon this object, so that all indications are that it was far from the
sun and near Marseilles, but farther than clouds or balloons in this
local sky. I can draw no diagram that can satisfy all these
circumstances, except by supposing the sun to be only a few thousand
miles away.
* * * * *
If little black stones fall four times, in eleven years, to one part of
this earth’s surface, and fall nowhere else, we are, in conceiving of a
fixed origin somewhere above a stationary earth, at least conceiving in
terms of data, and, whether we are fanatics or not, we are not of the
type of other upholders of stationariness of this earth, who care more
for Moses than they do for data. I’d not like to have it thought that we
are not great admirers of Moses, sometimes.
The rock that hung in the sky of Servia—
Upon October 13, 1872, a stone fell from the sky, to this earth, near
the town of Soko-Banja, Servia. If it were not a peculiar stone, there
is no force to this datum. It is said that it was unknown stone. A name
was invented for it. The stone was called _banjite_, after the town near
which it fell.
Seventeen years later (Dec. 1, 1889) another rock of banjite fell in
Servia, near Jelica.
For Meunier’s account of these stones, see _L’Astronomie_, 1890-272, and
_Comptes Rendus_, 92-331. Also, see _La Nature_, 1881-1-192. According
to Meunier these stones did fall from the sky; indigenous to this earth
there are no such stones; nowhere else have such stones fallen from the
sky; they are identical in material; they fell seventeen years apart.
* * * * *
At times when we think favorably of this work of ours, we see in it a
pointing-out of an evil of modern specialization. A seismologist studies
earthquakes, and an astronomer studies meteors; neither studies both
earthquakes and meteors, and consequently each, ignorant of the data
collected by the other, sees no relation between the two phenomena. The
treatment of the event in Servia, Dec. 1, 1889, is an instance of
conventional scientific attempts to understand something by separately,
or specially, focussing upon different aspects, and not combining into
an inclusive concept. Meunier writes only upon the stones that fell from
the sky, and does not mention an earthquake at the time. Milne, in his
_Catalogue of Destructive Earthquakes_, lists the occurrence as an
earthquake, and does not mention stones that fell from the sky. All
combinations greatly affect the character of components: in our
combination of the two aspects, we see that the phenomenon was not an
earthquake, as earthquakes are commonly understood, though it may have
been meteoric; but was not meteoric, in ordinary terms of meteors,
because of the unlikelihood that meteors, identical in material, should,
seventeen years apart, fall upon the same part of this earth’s surface,
and nowhere else.
This occurrence was of course an explosion in the sky, and its
vibrations were communicated to the earth below, with all the effects of
any other kind of earthquakes. Back in our earliest confusion of the
data of a century’s first quarter, we had awareness of this combination
and its conventional misinterpretation: that many concussions that have
been communicated from explosions in the sky have been cataloged in
lists of subterranean earthquakes. We are farther along now, in our data
of the 19th century, and now we come across awareness, in other minds,
of this distinguishment. At 8:20 A. M., Nov. 20, 1887, was heard and
felt something that was reported from many places in the region that is
known to us as the London Triangle, as an earthquake, though in some
towns it was thought that a great explosion, perhaps in London, had
occurred. It was reported from Reading, and from four towns near
Reading, and Reading is said to be one of the places where the
concussion was greatest. There were several accounts of slight alarm
among sheep, which are sensitive to meteors and earthquakes. But, in
_Symons’ Met. Mag._, Mr. H. G. Fordham wrote that the occurrence was not
an earthquake; that a meteor had exploded. He had very little to base
this opinion upon: out of scores of descriptions, he had record of only
two assertions that something had been seen in the sky. Nevertheless,
because the sound was so much greater than the concussion, Mr. Fordham
came to his conclusion.
In _Symons’ Met. Mag._, 23-154, Dr. R. H. Wake writes that, upon the
evening of Nov. 3, 1888, in a region about four miles wide and ten or
fifteen miles long, in the Thames Valley (near Reading) flocks of sheep
had rushed from their folds in a common alarm. About a year later, in
the Chiltern Hills, which extend in a northeasterly direction from the
Thames Valley, near Reading, there was another such occurrence. In the
London _Standard_, Nov. 7, 1889, the Rev. J. Ross Barker, of Chesham, a
town about 25 miles northeast of Reading, writes that, upon Oct. 25,
1889, many flocks of sheep, in a region of 30 square miles, had, by
common impulse, broken from their folds. Mr. Barker asks whether anyone
knew of a meteor or of an earthquake at the time. In vol. 24, _Symons’
Met. Mag._, Mr. Symons accepts that all three of these occurrences were
effects of meteoric explosions in the sky. The phenomena are
insignificant relatively to some that we have considered: the
significance is in this definite recognition in orthodoxy, itself, that
some supposed earthquakes, or effects of supposed earthquakes, are
reactions to explosions in the sky.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Exploding monasteries that shoot out clouds of monks into cyclonic
formations with stormy nuns similarly dispossessed—or collapsing
monasteries—sometimes slowly crumbling confines of the cloistered—by
which we typify all things: that all developments pass through a process
of walling-away within shells that will break. Once upon a time there
was a shell around the United States. The shell broke. Some other things
were smashed.
The doctrines of great distances among heavenly bodies, and of a moving
earth are the strongest elements of Exclusionism: the mere idea of
separations by millions of miles discourages thoughts of communication
with other worlds; and only to think that this earth shoots through
space at a velocity of 19 miles a second puts an end to speculation upon
how to leave it and how to return. But, if these two conventions be
features of a walling-away like that of a chick within its shell, or
that of the United States within its boundaries, and if some day all
such confinements of the embryonic break, our own prophecy, in the vague
terms of all successful prophecies, is that a matured view of astronomic
phenomena will be from a litter of broken demonstrations.
Our expression now is upon the function of Isolation in Development.
Specially it is not ours, because I think we learned it from the
biologists, but we are applying it generally. If the general expression
be accepted, we conceive that functionally have the astronomers taught
that planets are millions of miles away, and that this earth moves at
such terrific velocity that it is encysted with speed. Whether
isolations function or not, that exclusions that break down are typical
of all developments is signified by data upon all growing things,
beginning with the aristocratic seeds, which, however, liberalize to
intercourse with mean materials or die. All animal-organisms are at
first walled away. In human circumstances conditions are the same. The
development of every science has been a series of temporary exclusions,
and the story of every industry tells of inventions that were resisted,
but that were finally admitted. At the beginning of the nineteenth
century, Hegel published his demonstration that there could be only
seven planets: too late to recall the work, he learned that Ceres had
been discovered. It is our expression that the mental state of Hegel
partook of a general spirit of his time, and that it was necessary, or
that it functioned, because early astronomers could scarcely have
systematized their doctrine had they been bewildered by seven or eight
hundred planetary bodies; and that, besides the functions of the
astronomers, according to our expressions, there was also their
usefulness in breaking down the walls of the older, and outlived,
orthodoxy. We conceive that it is well that a great deal of experience
should be withheld from children, and that, any way, in their early
years, they are sexually isolated, for instance, and our idea is that
our data have been held back by no outspoken conspiracy, but by an
inhibition similar to that by which a great deal of biology, for
instance, is not taught to children. But, if we think of something of
this kind, equally acceptable is it that even in the face of orthodox
principles, these data have been preserved in orthodox publications, and
that, in the face of supposed principles of Darwinism, as applied
generally they have survived, though not in harmony with their
environment.
Tons of paper have been consumed by calculations upon the remoteness of
stars and planets. But I can find nothing that has been calculated, or
said, that is sounder than Mr. Shaw’s determination that the moon is 37
miles away. It is that the Vogels and the Struves and the Newcombs have
been functionally hypnotized and have usefully spread the embryonic
delusion that there is a vast, untraversible expanse of space around
this earth, or that they have had some basis that it has been my
misfortune to be unable to find, or that there is no pleasant and
unaccusatory way of explaining them.
April 10, 1874—a luminous object that exploded in the sky of Kuttenberg,
Bohemia. It is said that the glare was like sunlight, and that the
“terrifying flash” was followed by a detonation that rumbled about a
minute. April 9, 1876—an explosion that is said to have been violent,
over the town of Rosenau, Hungary. See _Rept. B. A._, 1877-147.
These two objects which appeared in virtually the same local sky of this
earth—points of explosion 250 miles apart—came from virtually the same
point in the sky: constellation of Cassiopeia; different by two degrees
in right ascension, and with no difference in declination. About the
same time in the evening: one at 8.9 P. M., and the other at 8.20 P. M.
Same night in the year, according to extra-terrestrial calendars: the
year 1876 was a leap year.
If they had been ordinary meteors, by coincidence two ordinary meteors
of the same stream might, exactly two years apart, come from almost the
same point in the heavens and strike almost the same point over this
earth. But they were two of the most extraordinary occurrences in the
records of explosions in the sky. Coincidences multiply, or these
objects did come from the not far-distant constellation Cassiopeia, and
their striking so closely together indicates that this earth is
stationary; and something of the purposeful may be thought of. Serially
related to these events, or representing some more coincidence, there
had been, upon June 9, 1866, a tremendous explosion in the sky of
Knysahinya, Hungary, and about a thousand stones had fallen from the sky
(_Rept. B. A._, 1867-430). Rosenau and Knysahinya are about 75 miles
apart. Of course one can very much extend our own circumscribed little
notions, and think of the firing of projectiles from beyond the stars,
just as one can think of our unknown lands as being not in the immediate
sky of Servia or Birmingham or Comrie, but as being beyond the nearby
stars, reducing everything more than we have reduced—but the firing of
stones to this earth seems crude to me. Of course, objects, or fragments
of objects made of steel, like the manufactured steel of this earth,
have fallen to this earth, and are now in collections of “meteorites.”
There is a story in a book that is not very accessible to us, because it
can’t be found along with _C. R._, or _Eng. Mec._, or _L’Astro._, of
tablets of stone that were once upon a time fired to this earth. It may
be that inhabitants of this earth have been receiving instructions ever
since, engravings arriving very badly damaged, however.
I have data upon repeating appearances, said to have been “auroral,” in
a local sky. If they were auroral, repetitions at regular intervals and
so localized are challengers to the most resolute of explainers. If they
were of extra-mundane origin, they indicate that this earth is
stationary. The regularity is suggestive of signalling. For instance—a
light in the sky of Lyons, N. Y., Dec. 9, 1891, Jan. 5, Feb. 2, Feb. 29,
March 27, April 23, 1892. In the _Scientific American_, May 7, 1892, Dr.
M. A. Veeder writes that, from Dec. 9, 1891, to April 23, 1892, there
had been a bright light that he calls “auroral,” in the sky of Lyons,
every 27th night. He associates the lights with the sun’s synodic
period, and says that upon each of the days preceding a nocturnal
display, there had been a disturbance in the sun. How a disturbance in
the sun could, at night, sun somewhere near the antipodes of Lyons, N.
Y., so localize its effects, one can’t clear up. In _Nature_, 46-29, Dr.
Veeder associates the phenomena with the synodic period of the sun, but
he says that this period is of 27 days, 6 hours, and 47 minutes, noting
that this period is inconsistent with the phenomena at Lyons, making
more than a day’s difference in the time of his records. This precise
determination is more of the “exact science” that is driving some of us
away from refinements into hoping for caves. Different parts of the sun
move at different rates: I have read of sun spots that moved diagonally
across the sun.
In _Nature_, 15-451, a correspondent writes that, at 8.55 P. M., he saw
a large red star in Serpens, where he had never seen such an appearance
before—Gunnersbury, March 17, 1877. Ten minutes later, the object
increased and decreased several times, flashing like the revolving light
of a lighthouse, then disappearing. This correspondent writes that,
about 10 P. M., he saw a great meteor. He suggests no relation between
the two appearances, but there may have been relation, and there may be
indication of something that was stationary at least one hour over
Gunnersbury, because the object said to have been a “meteor” was first
seen at Gunnersbury. In the _Observatory_, 1-20, Capt. Tupman writes
that, at 9.57 o’clock, a great meteor was seen first at Frome, Tetbury,
and Gunnersbury. The red object might not have been in the local sky of
Gunnersbury; might have been in the constellation Serpens, unseen in all
the rest of the world.
There is a great field of records of “meteors” that, with no parallax,
or with little parallax, or with little parallax that may be accounted
for by supposing that observations were not quite simultaneous, have
been seen to come as if from a star or from a planet, and that may have
come from such points, indicating that they are not far away. For
instance, _Rept. B. A._, 1879-77—the great meteor of Sept. 5, 1868. It
was seen, at Zurich, Switzerland, to come from a point near Jupiter; at
Tremont, France, origin was so close to Jupiter that this object and the
planet were seen in the same telescopic field; at Bergamo, Italy, it was
seen five or six degrees from Jupiter. Zurich is about 140 miles from
Bergamo, and Tremont is farther from Zurich and Bergamo than that.
So there are data that indicate that objects have come to this earth
from planets or from stars, enforcing our idea that the remotest planet
is not so far from this earth as the moon is said, conventionally, to
be; and that the stars, all equi-distant from this earth might be
reached by travelling from this earth. One notices that I always
conclude that, if phenomena repeatedly occur in one local sky of this
earth, their origin is traceable to a fixed place over a stationary
earth. The fixed place over this earth is indicated, but that fixed
place—island of space, foreign coast, whatever it may be—may be
conceived of as accompanying this earth in its rotations and revolutions
around the sun. Accepting that nothing much is known of gravitation;
that gravitational astronomy is a myth; that attraction may extend but a
few miles around this earth, if I can think of something hanging
unsupported in space, I always think of an island, say, over Birmingham,
or Irkutsk, or Comrie, as soon flying off by the centrifugal force of a
rotating earth, or as being soon left behind in a rush around the sun.
Nevertheless there is good room for discussion here. But when it comes
to other orders of data, I find one convergence toward the explanation
that this earth is stationary. But the subject is supposed to be sacred.
One must not think that this earth is stationary. One must not
investigate. To think upon this subject, except as one is told to think,
is, or seems to be considered, impious.
But how can one account for an earth that moves?
By thinking that something started it and that nothing ever stopped it.
Earth that doesn’t move?
That nothing ever started it.
Some more sacrilege.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
If a grasshopper could hop on a cannon ball, passing overhead, I could
conceive, perhaps, how something, from outer space, could flit to a
moving earth, explore a while, and then hop off.
But suppose we have to accept that there have been instances of just
such enterprise and agility, relatively to the planet Venus.
Irrespective of our notion that it may be that sometimes a vessel sails
to this earth from Venus and returns, there are striking data indicating
that, whether conceivable or not, luminous objects have appeared from
somewhere, or presumably from outer space, and have been seen
temporarily suspended over the planet Venus. This is in accord with our
indications that there are regions in the sky suspended over and near
this earth. It looks bad for our inference that this earth is
stationary, but it is the supposed rotary motion of this earth more than
the supposed orbital motion that seems to us would dislodge such
neighboring bodies; and all astronomers, except those who say that Venus
rotates in about 24 hours, say that Venus rotates in about 224 days, a
velocity that would generate little centrifugal force.
I have a note upon a determined luminosity that was bent upon Saturn, as
its objective. In the _English Mechanic_, 63-496, a correspondent writes
that, upon July 13, 1896, he saw, through his telescope, from 10 until
after 11.15, P. M., after which the planet was too near the horizon for
good seeing, a luminous object moving near Saturn. He saw it pass
several small stars. “It was certainly going toward Saturn at a good
rate.” There may be swifts of the sky that can board planets. If they
can swoop on and off an earth moving at a rate of 19 miles a second,
disregarding rotation, because entrance at a pole may be thought of,
why, then, for all I know smaller things do ride on cannon balls. Of
course if our data that indicate that the supposed solar system, or the
geo-system, is to an enormous degree smaller than is conventionally
taught be accepted, the orbital velocity of Venus is far cut down.
About the last of August, 1873—Brussels; eight o’clock in the
evening—rising above the horizon, into a clear sky, was seen a star-like
object. It mounted higher and higher, until, about ten minutes later, it
disappeared (_La Nature_, 1873-239). It seems that this conspicuous
object did appear in a local sky, and was therefore not far from this
earth. If it were not a fire-balloon, one supposes that it did come from
outer space, and then returned.
Perhaps a similar thing that visited the moon, and was then seen sailing
away—in the _Astronomical Register_, 23-205, Prof. Schafarik, of Prague,
writes that upon April 24, 1874, he saw “an object of so peculiar a
nature that I do not know what to make of it.” He saw a dazzling white
object slowly traversing the disc of the moon. He had not seen it
approaching the moon. He watched it after it left the moon. Sept. 27,
1881—South Africa—an object that was seen near the moon, by Col.
Markwick—like a comet but moving rapidly (_Jour. Liverpool Astro. Soc._,
7-117).
Our chief interest is in objects, like ships, that have “boarded” this
moving earth with the agility of a Columbus who could dodge a San
Salvador and throw out an anchor to an American coast screeching past
him at a rate of 19 miles a second, or in objects that have come as
close as atmospheric conditions, or unknown conditions, would permit to
the bottom of a kind of stationary sea. We now graduate Capt. Noble to
the extra-geographic fold. In _Knowledge_, 4-173, Capt. Noble writes
that, at 10.35 o’clock, night of August 28, 1883, he saw in the sky
something “like a new and most glorious comet.” First he saw something
like the tail of a comet, or it was like a search light, according to
Capt. Noble’s sketch of it in _Knowledge_. Then Capt. Noble saw the
nucleus from which this light came. It was a brilliant object. Upon page
207, W. K. Bradgate writes that, at 12.40 A. M., August 29, at
Liverpool, he saw an object like the planet Jupiter, a ray of light
emanating from it. Upon the nights of Sept. 11 and 13, Prof. Swift saw,
at Rochester, N. Y., an unknown object like a comet, perhaps in the
local sky of Rochester, inasmuch as it was reported from nowhere else
(_Observatory_, 6-345). In _Knowledge_, 4-219, Mrs. Harbin writes that,
upon the night of Sept. 21, at Yeovil, she saw the same brilliant
searchlight-like light that had been seen by Capt. Noble, but that it
had disappeared before she could turn her telescope upon it. And several
months later (Nov., 1883) a similar object was seen obviously not far
away, but in the local sky of Porto Rico and then of Ohio (_Amer. Met.
Jour._, 1-110, and _Sci. Amer._, 50-40, 97). It may be better not to say
at this time that we have data for thinking that a vessel carrying
something like a searchlight, visited this earth, and explored for
several months over regions as far apart as England and Porto Rico. Just
at present it is enough to record that something that was presumably not
a fire-balloon appeared in the sky of England, close to this earth, if
seen nowhere else, and in two hours traversed the distance of about 200
miles between Sussex and Liverpool.
Aug. 22, 1885—Saigon, Cochin-China—according to Lieut. Réveillère, of
the vessel _Guiberteau_—object like a magnificent red star, but larger
than the planet Venus—it moved no faster than a cloud in a moderate
wind; observed 7 or 8 minutes, then disappearing behind clouds (_C. R._,
101-680).
In this book it is my frustrated desire to subordinate the theme of this
earth’s stationariness. My subject is New Lands—things, objects, beings
that are, or may be, the data of coming expansions—
But the stationariness of this earth can not be subordinated. It is
crucial.
Again—there is no use discussing possible explorations beyond this
earth, if this earth moves at a rate of 19 miles a second, or 19 miles a
minute.
As to voyagers who may come to or near this earth from other planets—how
could they leave and return to swiftly moving planets? According to our
principles of Extra-geography, the planets move part of the time with
the revolving stars, the remotest planets remaining in, under, or near
one constellation years at a time. Anything that could reach, and then
travel from, a swiftly revolving constellation in the ecliptic could
arrive at a stellar polar region, where, relatively to a central,
stationary body, there is no motion.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It may be that we now add to our sins the horse that swam in the sky.
For all I know, we contribute to a wider biology. In the New York
_Times_, July 8, 1878, is published a dispatch from Parkersburg, West
Virginia: that, about July 1, 1878, three or four farmers had seen, in a
cloudless sky, apparently half a mile high, “an opaque substance.” It
looked like a white horse, “swimming in the clear atmosphere.” It is
said to have been a mirage of a horse in some distant field. If so, it
is interesting not only because it was opaque, but because of a
selection or preference: the field itself was not miraged.
Black bodies and the dark rabbles of the sky—and that rioting thing,
from floating anarchies, have often spotted the sun. Then, by all that
is compensatory, in the balances of existence, there are disciplined
forces in space. In the _Scientific American_, 44-291, it is said that,
according to newspapers of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, figures had
been seen in the sky in the latter part of September, and the first week
in October, 1881, reports that “exhibited a mediæval condition of
intelligence scarcely less than marvellous.” The writer suggests that,
though probably something had been seen in the sky, it was only an
aurora. Our own intelligence and that of astronomers and meteorologists
and everybody else with whom we have had experience had better not be
discussed, but the accusation of mediævalism is something that we’re
sensitive about, and we hasten to the _Monthly Weather Review_, and if
that doesn’t give us a modern touch, I mistake the sound of it. _Monthly
Weather Review_, Sept, and Oct., 1881—an auroral display in Maryland and
New York, upon the 23rd of September; all other auroras in September far
north of the three states in which it was said phenomena were seen.
October—no auroras until the 18th; that one in the north. There was a
mirage upon Sept. 23, but at Indianola; two instances in October, but
late in the month, and in northern states.
It is said, in the _Scientific American_, that, according to the
Warrentown (Va.) _Solid South_, a number of persons had seen white-robed
figures in the sky, at night. The story in the _Richmond Dispatch_ is
that many persons had seen, or had thought they had seen, an alarming
sight in the sky, at night: a vast number of armed, uniformed soldiers
drilling. Then a dispatch from Wilmington, Delaware—platoons of angels
marching and counter-marching in the sky, their white robes and helmets
gleaming. Similar accounts came from Laurel and Talbot. Several persons
said that they had seen, in the sky, the figure of President Garfield,
who had died not long before. Our general acceptance is that all reports
upon such phenomena are colored in terms of appearances and subjects
uppermost in minds.
_L’Astronomie_, 1888-392:
That, about the first of August, 1888, near Warasdin, Hungary, several
divisions of infantry, led by a chief, who waved a flaming sword, had
been seen in the sky, three consecutive days, marching several hours a
day. The writer in _L’Astronomie_ says that in vain does one try to
explain that this appearance was a mirage of terrestrial soldiers
marching at a distance from Warasdin, because widespread publicity and
investigation had disclosed no such soldiers. Even if there had been
terrestrial soldiers near Warasdin repeating mirages localized would
call for explanation.
But that there may be space-armies, from which reflections or shadows or
Brocken spectres are sometimes cast—a procession that crossed the sun:
forms that moved, or that marched, sometimes four abreast; observation
by M. Bruguière, at Marseilles, April 15 and 16, 1883 (_L’Astro._,
5-70). An army that was watched, forty minutes, by M. Jacquot, Aug. 30,
1886 (_L’Astro._, 1886-71)—things or beings that seemed to march and to
counter-march: all that moved in the same direction, moved in parallel
lines. In _L’Année Scientifique_, 29-8, there is an account of
observations by M. Trouvelot, Aug. 29, 1871. He saw objects, some round,
some triangular, and some of complex forms. Then occurred something that
at least suggests that these things were not moving in the wind, nor
sustained in space by the orbital forces of meteors; that each was
depending upon its own powers of flight, and that an accident occurred
to one of them. All of them, though most of the time moving with great
rapidity, occasionally stopped, but then one of them fell toward the
earth, and the indications are that it was a heavy body, and had not
been sustained by the wind, which would scarcely suddenly desert one of
its flotsam and continue to sustain all the others. The thing fell,
oscillating from side to side like a disc falling through water.
New York _Sun_, March 16, 1890—that, at 4 o’clock, in the afternoon of
March 12th, in the sky of Ashland, Ohio, was seen a representation of a
large, unknown city. By some persons it was supposed to be a mirage of
the town of Mansfield, thirty miles away; other observers thought that
they recognized Sandusky, sixty miles away. “The more superstitious
declared that it was a vision of the New Jerusalem.”
May have been a revelation of heaven, and for all I know heaven may
resemble Sandusky, and those of us who have no desire to go to Sandusky
may ponder that point, but our own expression is that things have been
pictured in the sky, and have not been traced to terrestrial origins,
but have been interpreted always in local terms. Probably a living thing
in the sky—seen by farmers—a horse. Other things, or far-refracted
images, or shadows—and they were supposed to be vast lions or soldiers
or angels, all according to preconceived ideas. Representations that
have been seen in India—Hindoo costumes described upon them. Suppose
that, in the afternoon of January 17, 1892, there was a battle in the
sky of Montana—we know just about in what terms the description would be
published. Brooklyn _Eagle_, Jan. 18, 1892—a mirage in the sky of
Lewiston, Montana—Indians and hunters alternately charging and
retreating. The Indians were in superior numbers and captured the
hunters. Then details—hunters tied to stakes; the piling of faggots;
etc. “So far as could be ascertained last night, the Indians on the
reservations are peaceable.” I think that we’re peaceable enough, but,
unless the astronomers can put us on reservations, where we’ll work out
expressions in beads and wampum instead of data, we’ll have to carry on
a conflict with the vacant minds to which appear mirages of their own
emptiness in the sometimes swarming skies.
Altogether there are many data indicating that vessels and living things
of space do come close to this earth, but there is absence of data of
beings that have ever landed upon this earth, unless someone will take
up the idea that Kaspar Hauser, for instance, came to this earth from
some other physical world. Whether spacarians have ever dredged down
here or not, or “sniped” down here, pouncing, assailing, either
wantonly, or in the interests of their sciences, there are data of
seeming seizures and attacks from somewhere, and I have strong
objections against lugging in the fourth dimension, because then I am no
better off, wondering what the fifth and sixth are like.
In _La Nature_, 1888-2-66, M. Adrian Arcelin writes that, while
excavating near de Solutré, in August, 1878, upon a day, described as
_superbe_, sky clear to a degree said to have been _parfaitement_,
several dozen sheets of wrapping paper upon the ground suddenly rose.
Nearby were a dozen men, and not one of them had felt a trace of wind. A
strong force had seized upon these conspicuous objects, touching nothing
else. According to M. Arcelin, the dust on the ground under and around
was not disturbed. The sheets of paper continued upward, and disappeared
in the sky.
A powerful force that swooped upon a fishing vessel, raising it so far
that when it fell back it sank—see London _Times_, Sept. 24, 1875. A
quarter of a mile away were other vessels, from which set out rescuers
to the sailors who had been thrown into the sea. There was no wind: the
rescuers could not use sails, but had to row their boats.
Upon Oct. 2, 1875, a man was trundling a cart from Schaffhausen, near
Beringen, Germany. His right arm was perforated from front to back, as
if by a musket ball (_Pop. Sci._, 15-566). This man had two companions.
He had heard a whirring sound, but his companions had heard nothing. At
one side of the road there were laborers in a field, but they were not
within gunshot distance. Whatever the missile may have been, it was
unfindable.
_La Nature_, 1879-1-166, quotes the _Courrier des Ardennes_ as to an
occurrence in the Commune Signy-le-Pettit, Easter Sunday, 1879—a
conspicuous, isolated house—suddenly its slate roof shot into the air,
and then fell to the ground. There had not been a trace of wind. The
writer of the account says that the force, which he calls a _trouble
inoui_ had so singled out this house that nothing in its surroundings
beyond a distance of thirty feet had been disturbed.
_Scientific American_, July 10, 1880—that, according to the
_Plaindealer_, of East Kent, Ontario, two citizens of East Kent were in
a field, and heard a loud report. They saw stones shooting upward from a
field. They examined the spot, which was about 16 feet in diameter,
finding nothing to suggest an explanation of the occurrence. It is said
that there had been neither a whirlwind nor anything else by which to
explain.
It may be that witnesses have seen human beings dragged from our own
existence either into the objectionable fourth dimension, perhaps then
sifting into the fifth, or up to the sky by some exploring thing. I have
data, but they are from the records of psychic research. For instance, a
man has been seen walking along a road—sudden disappearance.
Explanation—that he was not a living human being, but an apparition that
had disappeared. I have not been able to develop such data, finding, for
instance, that someone in the neighborhood had been reported missing;
but it may be that we can find material in our own field.
Upon December 10, 1881, Walter Powell and two companions ascended from
Bath in the Government balloon _Saladin_ (Valentine and Tomlinson,
_Travels in Space_, p. 227). The balloon descended at Bridport, coast of
the English Channel. Two of the aëronauts got out, but the balloon, with
Powell in it, shot upward. There was a report that the balloon had been
seen to fall in the English Channel, near Bridport, but according to
Capt. Temple, one of Powell’s companions, probably something thrown from
the balloon had been seen to fall.
A balloon is lost near or over the sea. If it should fall into the sea
it would probably float and for considerable time be a conspicuous
object; nevertheless the disappearance of a balloon last seen over the
English Channel, can not, without other circumstances, be considered
very mysterious. Now one expects to learn of reports from many places of
supposed balloons that had been seen. But the extraordinary circumstance
is that reports came in upon a luminous object that was seen in the sky
at the time that this balloon disappeared. In the London _Times_, it is
said that a luminous object had been seen, evening of the 13th, moving
in various directions in the sky near Cherbourg. It is said that upon
the night of the 16th three customhouse guards, at Laredo, Spain, had
seen something like a balloon in the sky, and had climbed a mountain in
order to see it better, but that it had shot out sparks and had
disappeared—and had been reported from Bilbao, Spain, the next day. In
the _Morning Post_, it is said that this luminous display was the chief
feature; that it was this sparkling that had made the object visible. In
the _Standard_, Dec. 16, is an account of something that was seen in the
sky, five o’clock, morning of Dec. 15, by Capt. Mc. Bain, of the
steamship _Countess of Aberdeen_, off the coast of Scotland, 25 miles
from Montrose. Through glasses, the object seemed to be a light attached
to something thought to be the car of a balloon, increasing and
decreasing in size—a large light—“as large as the light at Girdleness.”
It moved in a direction opposite to that of the wind, though possibly
with wind of an upper stratum. It was visible half an hour, and when it
finally disappeared, was moving toward Bervie, a town on the Scottish
coast about 12 miles north of Montrose. In the _Morning Post_ it is said
that the explanation is simple: that someone in Monfreith, 8 miles from
Dundee, had, late in the evening of the 15th, sent up a fire-balloon,
“which had been carried along the coast by a gentle breeze, and, after
burning all night, extinguished and collapsed off Montrose, early on
Thursday morning (16th).” This story of a balloon that wafted to
Montrose, and that was evidently traced until it collapsed near Montrose
does not so simply explain an object that was seen 25 miles from
Montrose. In the _Standard_, Dec. 19, it is said that two bright lights
were seen over Dartmouth Harbor, upon the 11th.
Walter Powell was Member of Parliament for Malmesbury, and had many
friends, some of whom started immediately to search. His relatives
offered a reward. A steamboat searched the Channel, and did not give up
until the 13th; fishing vessels kept on searching. A “sweeping
expedition” was organized, and the coast guard was doubled, searching
the shore for wreckage, but not a fragment of the balloon, nor from the
balloon, except a thermometer in a bag, was found.
In _L’Astronomie_, 1886-312, Prof. Paroisse, of the College
Bar-sur-Aube, quotes two witnesses of a _curieux phénomène_ that
occurred in a garden of the College, May, 22, 1886—cloudless sky; wind
_très faible_. Within a small circle in the garden were some baskets and
ashes and a window frame that weighed sixty kilogrammes. These things
suddenly rose from the ground. At a height of about forty feet, they
remained suspended several minutes, then falling back to the place from
which they had risen. Not a thing outside this small circle had been
touched by the seizure. The witnesses said that they had felt no
disturbance in the air.
_Scientific American_, 56-65—that in June, 1886, according to the London
_Times_, “a well-known official” was entering Pall Mall, when he felt a
violent blow on the shoulder and heard a hissing sound. There was no one
in sight except a distant policeman. At home, he found that the nap of
his coat looked as if a hot wire had been pressed against the cloth, in
a long, straight line. No missile was found, but it was thought that
something of a meteoritic nature had struck him.
Charleston _News and Courier_, Nov. 25, 1886—that, at Edina, Mo., Nov.
23, a man and his three sons were pulling corn on a farm. Nothing is
said of meteorologic conditions, and, for all I know, they may have been
pulling corn in a violent thunder storm. Something that is said to have
been lightning flashed from the sky. The man was slightly injured, one
son killed, the other seriously injured—the third had disappeared. “What
has become of him is not known, but it is supposed that he was blinded
or crazed by the shock, and wandered away.”
_Brooklyn Eagle_, March 17, 1891—that, at Wilkesbarre, Pa., March 16th,
two men were “lifted bodily and carried considerable distance in a
whirlwind.” It was a powerful force, but nothing else was affected by
it. Upon the same day, there was an occurrence in Brooklyn. In the New
York _Times_, March 17, 1891, it is said that two men, Smith Morehouse,
of Orange Co., N. Y., and William Owen, of Sussex Co., N. J., were
walking in Vanderbilt Avenue, Brooklyn, about 2 o’clock, afternoon of
the 16th, when a terrific explosion occurred close to the head of
Morehouse, injuring him and stunning Owen, the flash momentarily
blinding both. Morehouse’s face was covered with marks like
powder-marks, and his tongue was pierced. With no one else to accuse,
the police arrested Owen, but held him upon the technical charge of
intoxication. Morehouse was taken to a hospital, where a splinter of
metal, considered either brass or copper, but not a fragment of a
cartridge, was removed from his tongue. No other material could be
found, though an object of considerable size had exploded. Morehouse’s
hat had been perforated in six places by unfindable substances.
According to witnesses there had been no one within a hundred feet of
the men. One witness had seen the flash before the explosion, but could
not say whether it had been from something falling or not. In the
_Brooklyn Eagle_, March 17, 1891, it is said that neither of the men had
a weapon of any kind, and that there had been no disagreement between
them. According to a witness, they had been under observation at the
time of the explosion, her attention having been attracted by their
rustic appearance.
There is an interesting merging here of the findable and the unfindable.
I suppose that no one will suppose that someone threw a bomb at these
men. But enough substance was found to exclude the notion of “lightning
from a clear sky.” Something of a meteoritic nature seems excluded.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Out from a round, red planet, a little white shaft—a fairy’s arrow shot
into an apple. June 10, 1892—a light like a little searchlight,
projecting from the limb of Mars. Upon July 11 and 13, it was seen
again, by Campbell and Hussey (_Nature_, 50-500).
Aug. 3, 1892—climacteric opposition of Mars.
Upon August 12, 1892, flashes were seen by many persons, in the sky of
England. See _Eng. Mec._, vol. 56. At Manchester, so like signals were
they, or so unlike anything commonly known as “auroral” were they, that
Albert Buss mistook them for flashes from a lighthouse. They were seen
at Dewsbury; described by a correspondent to the _English Mechanic_, who
wrote: “I have never seen such an appearance of an aurora.” “Rapid
flashes” reported from Loughborough.
* * * * *
A shining triangle in a dark circle.
In _L’Astronomie_, 1888-75, Dr. Klein publishes an account of de
Speissen’s observation of Nov. 23, 1887—a luminous triangle on the floor
of Plato. Dr. Klein says it was an effect of sunlight.
In this period, there were in cities of the United States, some of the
most astonishing effects at night, in the history of this earth. If
Rigel should run for the Presidency of Orion, and if the stars in the
great nebula should start to march, there would be a spectacle like
those that Grover Cleveland called forth in the United States, in this
period.
So then—at least conceivably—something similar upon the moon. Flakes of
light moving toward Plato, this night of Nov. 23, 1887, from all the
other craters of the moon; a blizzard of shining points gathering into
light-drifts in Plato; then the denizens of Aristarchus and of Kepler,
and dwellers from the lunar Alps, each raising his torch, marching upon
a triangular path, making the triangle shine in the dark—conceivably.
Other formations have been seen in Plato, but, according to my records,
this symbol that shone in the dark had never been seen before, and has
not been seen since.
About two years later—a demonstration of a more exclusive
kind—assemblage of all the undertakers of the moon. They stood in a
circular formation, surrounded by virgins in their nightgowns—and in
nightgowns as nightgowns should be. An appearance in Plinius, Sept. 13,
1889, was reported by Prof. Thury, of Geneva—a black spot with an
“intensely white” border.
March 30, 1889—a black spot that was seen for the first time, by
Gaudibert, near the center of Copernicus (_L’Astro._, 1890-235). May 11,
1889—an object as black as ink upon a rampart of Gassendi (_L’Astro._,
1889-275). It had never been reported before; at the time of the next
lunation, it was not seen again. March 30, 1889—a new black spot in
Plinius (_L’Astro._, 1890-187).
The star-like light of Aristarchus—it is a long time since latest
preceding appearance (May 7, 1867). Then it can not be attributed to
commonplace lunar circumstances. The light was seen, Nov. 7, 1891, by M.
d’Adjuda, of the Observatory of Lisbon—“a very distinct, luminous point”
(_L’Astro._, 11-33).
Upon April 1, 1893, a shaft of light was seen projecting from the moon,
by M. de Moraes, in the Azores. A similar appearance was seen, Sept. 25,
1893, at Paris, by Mr. Gaboreau (_L’Astro._, 13-34).
* * * * *
Another association like that of 1884—in the _English Mechanic_, 55-310,
a correspondent writes that, upon May 6, 1892, he saw a shining point
(not polar) upon Venus. Upon the 13th of August, 1892, the same
object—conceivably—was seen at a short distance from Venus—an unknown,
luminous object, like a star of the 7th magnitude that was seen close to
Venus, by Prof. Barnard (_Ast. Nach._, no. 4106).
Upon August 24, 1895, in the period of primary maximum brilliance of
Venus, a luminous object, it is said, was seen in the sky, in day time,
by someone in Donegal, Ireland. Upon this day, according to the
_Scientific American_, 73-374, a boy, Robert Alcorn, saw a large
luminous object falling from the sky. It exploded near him. The boy’s
experience was like Smith Morehouse’s. He put his hands over his face:
there was a second explosion, shattering his fingers. According to Prof.
George M. Minchin no substance of the object that had exploded could be
found. Whether there be relation or not, something was seen in the sky
of England a week later. In the London _Times_, Sept. 4, 1895, Dr. J. A.
H. Murray writes that, at Oxford, a few minutes before 8 P. M., August
31, 1895, he saw in the sky a luminous object, considerably larger than
Venus at greater brilliance, emerge from behind tree tops, and sail
slowly eastward. It moved as if driven in a strong wind, and disappeared
behind other trees. “The fact that it so perceptibly grew fainter as it
receded seems to imply that it was not at a great elevation, and so
favors a terrestrial origin, though I am unable to conceive how anything
artificial could have presented the same appearance.” In the _Times_, of
the 6th, someone who had read Dr. Murray’s letter says that, about the
same time, same evening, he, in London, had seen the same object moving
eastward so slowly that he had thought it might be a fire balloon from a
neighboring park. Another correspondent, who had not read Dr. Murray’s
letter, his own dated Sept. 3, writes from a place not stated that about
8.20 P. M., Aug. 31, he had seen a star-like object, moving eastward,
remaining in sight four or five minutes. Then someone who, about 8 P.
M., same evening, while driving to the Scarborough station, had seen “a
large shooting star,” astonishing him, because of its leisurely rate, so
different from the velocity of the ordinary “shooting star.” There are
two other accounts of objects that were seen in the sky, at Bath and at
Ramsgate, but not about this time, and I have looked them up in local
newspapers, finding that they were probably meteors.
In the Oxford _Times_, Sept. 7, Dr. Murray’s letter to the London
_Times_ is reprinted, with this comment—“We would suggest to the learned
doctor that the supposed meteor was one of the fire-balloons let off
with the allotments show.”
Let it be that when allotments are shown, balloons are always sent up,
and that this Editor did not merely have a notion to this effect. Our
data are concerned with an object that was seen, at about the same time,
at Oxford, about 50 miles south east of Oxford, and about 170 miles
northeast of Oxford, with a fourth observation that we can not place.
And, in broader terms, our data are concerned with a general expression
that objects like ships have been seen to sail close to this earth at
times when the planet Venus is nearest this earth. Sept. 18,
1895—inferior conjunction of Venus.
Still in the same period, there were, in London, two occurrences perhaps
like that at Donegal. London _Morning Post_, Nov. 16, 1895—that, at
noon, Nov. 15, an “alarming explosion” occurred somewhere near Fenchurch
Street, London. No damage was done; no trace could be found of anything
that had exploded. An hour later, near the Mansion House, which is not
far from Fenchurch Street, occurred a still more violent explosion. The
streets filled with persons who had run from buildings, and there was
investigation, but not a trace could be found of anything that had
exploded. It is said that somebody saw “something falling.” However, the
deadly explainers, usually astronomers, but this time policemen, haunt
or arrest us. In the _Daily News_, though it is not said that a trace of
anything that had exploded had been found, it is said that the
explanation by the police was that somebody had mischievously placed in
the streets fog-signals, which had been exploded by passing vehicles.
Observation by Müller, of Nymegen, Holland—an unknown luminous object
that, about three weeks later, was seen near Venus (_Monthly Notices, R.
A. S._, 52-276).
Upon the 28th of April, 1897, Venus was in inferior conjunction. In
_Popular Astronomy_, 5-55, it is said that many persons had written to
the Editor, telling of “airships” that had been seen, about this time.
The Editor writes that some of the observations were probably upon the
planet Venus, but that others probably related to toy balloons, “which
were provided with various colored lights.”
The first group of our data, I take from dispatches to the New York
_Sun_, April 2, 11, 16, 18. First of April—“the mysterious light” in the
sky of Kansas City—something like a powerful searchlight. “It was
directed toward the earth, travelling east at a rate of sixty miles an
hour.” About a week later, something was seen in Chicago. “Chicago’s
alleged airship is believed to be a myth, in spite of the fact that a
great many persons say that they have seen the mysterious
night-wanderer. A crowd gazed at strange lights, from the top of a
downtown skyscraper, and Evanston students declare they saw the swaying
red and green lights.” April 16—reported from Benton, Texas, but this
time as a dark object that passed across the moon. Reports from other
towns in Texas: Fort Worth, Dallas, Marshall, Ennis, and Beaumont—“It
was shaped like a Mexican cigar, large in the middle, and small at both
ends, with great wings, resembling those of an enormous butterfly. It
was brilliantly illuminated by the rays of two great searchlights, and
was sailing in a southeasterly direction, with the velocity of the wind,
presenting a magnificent appearance.”
New York _Herald_, April 11—that, at Chicago, night of April 9-10,
“until two o’clock in the morning, thousands of amazed spectators
declared that the lights seen in the northwest were those of an airship,
or some floating object, miles above the earth.... Some declare they saw
two cigar-shaped objects and great wings.” It is said that a white
light, a red light, and a green light had been seen.
There does seem to be an association between this object and the planet
Venus, which upon this night was less than three weeks from nearest
approach to this earth. Nevertheless this object could not have been
Venus, which had set hours earlier. Prof. Hough, of the Northwestern
University, is quoted—that the people had mistaken the star _Alpha
Orionis_ for an airship. Prof. Hough explains that astronomeric effects
may have given a changing red and green appearance to this star. _Alpha
Orionis_ as a northern star is some more astronomy by the astronomers
who teach astronomy daytimes and then relax when night comes. That
atmospheric conditions could pick out this one star and not affect other
brilliant stars in Orion is more astronomy. At any rate the standardized
explanation that the thing was Venus disappears.
There were other explainers—someone who said that he knew of an airship
(terrestrial one) that had sailed from San Francisco, and had reached
Chicago.
_Herald_, April 12—said that the object had been photographed in
Chicago: “a cigar-shaped, silken bag,” with a framework—other
explanations and identifications, not one of them applying to this
object, if it be accepted that it was seen in places as far apart as
Illinois and Texas. It is said that, upon March 29th, the thing had been
seen in Omaha, as a bright light sailing to the northwest, and that, for
a few moments, upon the following night, it had been seen in Denver. It
is said that, upon the night of the 9th, despatches had bombarded the
newspaper offices of Chicago, from many places in Illinois, Indiana,
Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin.
“Prof. George Hough maintains that the object seen is _Alpha Orionis_.”
April 14—story, veritable observation, yarn, hoax—despatch from
Carlensville, Ill.—that upon the afternoon of the 10th, the airship had
alighted upon a farm, but had sailed away when approached—“cigar-shaped,
with wings, and a canopy on top.”
April 15—shower of telegrams—development of jokers and explainers—thing
identified as an airship invented by someone in Dodge City, Kansas;
identified as an airship invented by someone in Brule, Wisconsin—stories
of letters found on farms, purporting to have been dropped by the
unknown aëronauts (terrestrial ones)—jokers in various towns, sending up
balloons with lights attached—one laborious joker who rigged up
something that looked like an airship and put it in a vacant lot and
told that it had fallen there—yarn or observation, upon a “queer-looking
boat” that had been seen to rise from the water in Lake Erie—continued
reports upon a moving object in the sky, and its red and green lights.
Against such an alliance as this, between the jokers and the
astronomers, I see small chance for our data. The chance is in the
future. If, in April, 1897, extra-mundane voyagers did visit this earth,
likely enough they will visit again, and then the alliance against the
data may be guarded against.
New York _Herald_, April 20—that, upon the 19th, about 9 P. M., at
Sistersville, W. Va., a luminous object had approached the town from the
northwest, flashing brilliant red, white, and green lights. “An
examination with strong glasses left an impression of a huge cone-shaped
arrangement 180 feet long, with large fins on either side.”
My own general impression:
Night of October 12, 1492—if I have that right. Some night in October,
1492, and savages upon an island-beach are gazing out at lights that
they had never seen before. The indications are that voyagers from some
other world are nearby. But the wise men explain. One of the most nearly
sure expressions in this book is upon how they explain. They explain in
terms of the familiar. For instance, after all that is spiritual in a
fish passes away, the rest of him begins to shine nights. So there are
three big, old, dead things out in the water—
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
There have been published several observations upon a signal-like
regularity of the Barisal Guns, which, because unaccompanied by
phenomena that could be considered seismic, may have been detonations in
the sky, and which, because, according to some hearers, they seemed to
come from the sky, may have come from some region stationary in the
local sky of Barisal. In _Nature_, 61-127, appears a report by Henry S.
Schurr, who investigated the sounds in the years 1890-1891:
“These Guns are always heard in triplets, i. e., three guns are always
heard, one after the other, at regular intervals, and, though several
guns may be heard, the number is always three or a multiple of three.
Then the interval between the three is always constant, i. e., the
interval between the first and the second is the same as the interval
between the second and the third, and this interval is usually three
seconds, though I have heard it up to ten seconds. The interval,
however, between the triplets varies, and varies largely, from a few
seconds up to hours and days. Sometimes only one series of triplets is
heard in a day; at others the triplets follow with great regularity, and
I have counted as many as forty-five of them, one after the other,
without pause.”
In vols. 16 and 17, _Ciel et Terre_, M. Van den Broeck published a
series of papers upon the mysterious sounds that had been heard in
Belgium.
July, 1892—heard near Brée, by Dr. Raemaekers, of Antwerp—detonations at
regular intervals of about 12 seconds, repeated about 20 times.
Aug. 5, 1892—near Dunkirk, by Prof. Gérard, of Brussels—four reports
like sounds of cannons.
Aug. 17, 1893—between Ostend and Ramsgate, by Prof. Gérard—a series of
distinct explosions—state of the sky giving no reason to think that they
were meteorological manifestations.
Sept. 5, 1893—at Middelkirke—loud sounds of remarkable intensity.
Sept. 8, 1893—English Channel near Dover—by Prof. Gérard—an explosive
sound.
In _Ciel et Terre_, 16-485, M. Van den Broeck records an experience of
his own. Upon June 25, 1894, at Louvain, he had heard detonations like
discharges of artillery: he tabulates the intervals in a series of
sounds. If there were signalling from some unknown region over Belgium,
and not far from the surface of this earth, or from extra-mundane
vessels, and if there were something of the code-like, resembling the
Morse alphabet, perhaps, in this series of sounds, there can be small
hope of interpreting such limited material, but there may be suggestion
to someone to record all sounds and their intervals and modulations, if,
with greater duration, such phenomena should ever occur again. The
intervals were four minutes and twenty-three minutes; then three
minutes, four, three quarters, three and three quarters, three quarters.
Sept. 16, 1895—a triplet of detonations, heard by M. de Schryvere, of
Brussels.
There were attempts to explain. Some of M. Van den Broeck’s
correspondents thought that there had been firing from forts on the
coast of England, and somebody thought that the phenomena should be
attributed to gravitational effects of the moon. Upon Sept. 13, 1895,
four shocks were felt and sounds heard at Southampton: a series of three
and then another (_Nature_, 52-552); but I have no other notes upon
sounds that were heard in England at this time, except the two
explosions that were explained by the police of London. However, M. Van
den Broeck says that Mr. Harmer, of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, had, about the
first of November, heard booming sounds that had been attributed to
cannonading at Harwich. Mr. Harmer had heard other sounds that had been
attributed to cannonading somewhere else. He could not offer a definite
opinion upon the first sounds, but had investigated the others, learning
that the attribution was a mistake.
It was M. de Schryvere’s opinion that the triplet of detonations that he
had heard was from vessels in the North Sea. But now, according to
developments, the sounds of Belgium can not very well be attributed to
terrestrial cannonading in or near Belgium: in _Ciel et Terre_, 16-614,
are quoted two artillery officers who had heard the sounds, but could
not so trace them: one of these officers had heard a series of
detonations with intervals of about two minutes. A variety of
explanations was attempted, but in conventional terms, and if these
localized, repeating sounds did come from the sky, there’s nothing to it
but a new variety of attempted explanations, and in most unconventional
terms. There are recorded definite impressions that the sounds were in
the sky: Prof. Peleseneer’s _positivement aérien_. In _Ciel et Terre_,
17-14, M. Van den Broeck announced that General Hennequin, of Brussels,
had co-operated with him, and had sent enquiries to army officers and
other persons, receiving thirty replies. Some of these correspondents
had heard detonations at regular intervals. It is said that the sounds
were like cannonading, but not in one instance were the sounds traced to
terrestrial gunfire.
Jan. 24, 1896—a triplet of triplets—between 2.30 and 3.30, P. M.—by M.
Overloop, of Middelkirke, Belgium—three series of detonations, each of
three sounds.
The sounds went on, but, after this occurrence, there seems to me to be
little inducement to me to continue upon the subject. This is indication
that from somewhere there has been signalling: from extra-mundane
vessels to one another, or from some unknown region to this earth, as
nearly final as we can hope to find. There are persons who will see
nothing but a susceptibility to the mysticism of numbers in a feeling
that there is significance in threes of threes. But, if there be attempt
in some other world to attract attention upon this earth, it would have
to be addressed to some kind of a state of mind that would feel
significances. Let our three threes be as mystic as the eleven horns on
Daniel’s fourth animal; if throughout nature like human nature there be
only superstition as to such serialization, that superstition, for want
of something more nearly intelligent, would be a susceptibility to which
to appeal, and from which response might be expected. I think that a
sense of mystic significance in the number three may be universal,
because upon this earth it is general, appearing in theologies, in the
balanced compositions of all the arts, in logical demonstrations, and in
the indefinite feelings that are supposed to be superstitious.
The sounds went on, as if there were experiments, or attempts to
communicate by means of other regularizations and repetitions. Feb. 18,
1896—a series of more than 20 detonations, at intervals of 2 or 3
minutes, heard at Ostend, by M. Pulzeys, an engineer of Brussels. Four
or five sounds were heard at Ostend by someone else: repeated upon the
21st of Feb. Heard by M. Overloop, at Ostend, April 6: detonations at
11.57.30 A. M., and at 12.1.32 P. M. Heard the next day, by M. Overloop,
at Blankenberghe, at 2.35 and 2.51 P. M.
The last occurrence recorded by M. Van den Broeck was upon the English
Channel, May 23, 1896: detonations at 3.20 and 3.40 P. M. I have no more
data, as to this period, myself, but I have notes upon similar sounds,
by no means so widely reported and commented upon, in France and Belgium
about 15 years later. One notices that the old earthquake-explanation as
to these sounds has not appeared.
But there were other phenomena in England, in this period, and to
considerable degree they were conventionally explained. They were not of
the type of the Belgian phenomena, and, because manifestations were seen
and felt, as well as heard, they were explained in terms of meteors and
earthquakes. But in this double explanation, we meet a divided
opposition, and no longer are we held back by the uncompromising attempt
by exclusionist science to attribute all disturbances of this earth’s
surface to a subterranean origin. The admission by Symons and Fordham
that we have recorded, as to occurrences of 1887-89, has survived.
The earliest of the accounts that I have read of the quakes in the
general region of Worcester and Hereford (London Triangle) that
associated with appearances in the sky, was published by two church
wardens in the years 1661, as to occurrences of October, 1661, and is
entitled, _A True and Perfect Relation of the Terrible Earthquake_. It
is said that monstrous flaming things were seen in the sky, and that
phenomena below were interesting. We are told, “truly and perfectly,”
that Mrs. Margaret Petmore fell in labor and brought forth three male
offsprings all of whom had teeth and spoke at birth. Inasmuch as it is
not recorded what the infants said, and whether in plain English or not,
it is not so much an extraordinary birth such as, in one way or another,
occurs from time to time, that affronts our conventional notions, as it
is the idea that there could be relation between the abnormal in
obstetrics and the unusual in terrestrics. The conventional scientist
has just this reluctance toward considering shocks of this earth and
phenomena in the sky at the same time. If he could accept with us that
there often has been relation, the seeming discord would turn into a
commonplace, but with us he would never again want to hear of
extraordinary detonating meteors exploding only by coincidence over a
part of this earth where an earthquake was occurring, or of concussions
of this earth, time after time, in one small region, from meteors that,
only by coincidence, happened to explode in one little local sky, time
after time. Give up the idea that this earth moves, however, and
coincidences many times repeated do not have to be lugged in.
Our subject now is the supposed earthquake centering around Worcester
and Hereford, Dec. 17, 1896; but there may have been related events,
leading up to this climax, signifying long duration of something in the
sky that occasionally manifested relatively to this corner of the London
Triangle. Mrs. Margaret Petmore was too sensational a person for our
liking, at least in our colder and more nearly scientific moments, so we
shall not date so far back as the time of her performance; but the
so-called earthquakes of Oct. 6, 1863, and of Oct. 30, 1868, were in
this region, and we had data for thinking that they were said to be
earthquakes only because they could not be traced to terrestrial
explosions.
At 5.45 P. M., Nov. 2. 1893, a loud sound was heard at a place ten miles
northeast of Worcester, and no shock was felt (_Nature_, 49-245);
however at Worcester and in various parts of the west of England and in
Wales a shock was felt.
According to James G. Wood, writing in _Symons’ Met. Mag._, 29-8, at
9.30 P. M., Jan. 25, 1894, at Llanthomas and Clifford, towns less than
20 miles west of Hereford, a brilliant light was seen in the sky, an
explosion was heard, and a quake was felt. Half an hour later, something
else occurred: according to Denning (_Nature_, 49-325) it was in several
places, near Hereford and Worcester, supposed to be an earthquake. But,
at Stokesay Vicarage, Shropshire (_Symons’ Met. Mag._, 29-8) was seen
the same kind of an appearance as that which had been seen at Llanthomas
and Clifford, half an hour before: an illumination so brilliant that for
half a minute everything was almost as visible as by daylight.
In the _English Mechanic_, 74-155, David Packer calls attention to “a
strange meteoric light” that was seen in the sky, at Worcester, during
the quake of Dec. 17, 1896. I should say that this was the severest
shock felt in the British Isles, in the 19th century, with the exception
of the shock of April 22, 1884, in the eastern point of the London
Triangle. There was something in the sky. In _Nature_, 55-179, J. Lloyd
Bozward writes that, at Worcester, a great light was seen in the sky, at
the time of the shock, and that, in another town, “a great blaze” had
been seen in the sky. In _Symons’ Met. Mag._, 31-180, are recorded many
observations upon lights that were seen in the sky. In an appendix to
his book, _The Hereford Earthquake of 1896_, Dr. Charles Davison says
that at the time of the quake (5.30 A. M.) there was a luminous object
in the sky, and that it “traversed a large part of the disturbed area.”
He says that it was a meteor, and an extraordinary meteor that lighted
up the ground so that one could have picked up a pin. With the data so
far considered, almost anyone would think that of course an object had
exploded in the sky, shaking the earth underneath. Dr. Davison does not
say this. He says that the meteor only happened to appear over a part of
this earth where an earthquake was occurring, “by a strange
coincidence.”
Suppose that, with ordinary common sense, he had not lugged in his
“strange coincidence,” and had written that of course the shock was
concussion from an explosion in the sky—
Shocks that had been felt before midnight, Dec. 17, and at 1.30 or 1.45,
2, 3, 3.30, 4, 5, and 5.20, and then others at 5.40 or 5.45 and at 6.15
o’clock—and were they, too, concussions, but fainter and from remoter
explosions in the sky—and why not, if of course the great shock of 5.30
o’clock was from a great explosion in the sky—and by what multiplication
of strangeness of coincidence could detonating meteors, or explosions of
any other kind, so localize in the one little sky of Worcester, if this
earth be a moving earth—and how could their origin be otherwise than a
fixed region nearby?
In some minds it may be questionable that the earth could be so affected
as it was at 5.30 A. M., Dec. 17, 1896, by an explosion in the sky. Upon
Feb. 10, 1896, a tremendous explosion occurred in the sky of Madrid:
throughout the city windows were smashed; a wall in the building
occupied by the American Legation was thrown down. The people of Madrid
rushed to the streets, and there was a panic in which many were injured.
For five hours and a half a luminous cloud of débris hung over Madrid,
and stones fell from the sky.
Suppose, just at present, we disregard all the Worcester-Hereford
phenomena except those of Dec. 17, 1896. Draw a diagram, illustrating a
stream of meteors pursuing this earth, now supposed to be rotating and
revolving, for more than 400,000 miles in its orbit, and curving around
gracefully and unerringly after the rotating earth, so as to explode
precisely in this one little local sky and nowhere else. But we can’t
think very reasonably even of a flock of birds flying after and so
precisely pecking one spot on an apple thrown in the air by somebody.
Another diagram—stationary earth—bombardment of any kind one chooses to
think of—same point hit every time—thinkable.
The phenomena associate with an opposition of Mars. Dec. 10,
1896—opposition of Mars.
But we have gone on rather elaborately with perhaps an insufficiency to
base upon. We can not say, directly, that all the phenomena of the night
of Dec. 16-17, 1896, were shocks from explosions in the sky: only during
the greatest of the concussions was something seen, or was something
near enough to be seen.
We apply the idea of the diagrams to another series of occurrences in
this period. Now draw a diagram relatively to the sky of Florida, and
see just what the explanation of coincidence demands or exacts. But then
consider the diagram as one of an earth that does not move and of
something that is fixed over a point upon its surface. Things can be
thought of as coming down from somewhere else to one special sky of this
earth, as logically as precariously placed objects on one special window
sill sometimes come down to a special neighbor.
In the _Monthly Weather Review_, 23-57, is a report, by the Director of
the Florida Weather Service, upon “mysterious sounds” and luminous
effects in the sky of Florida. According to investigation, these
phenomena did occur in the sky of Florida, about noon, Feb. 7, 1895,
again at 5 o’clock in the morning of the 8th, and again between 6 and 10
o’clock, night of the 8th. The Editor of the _Review_ thinks that three
meteors may have exploded so in succession in the sky of Florida, and
nowhere else, “by coincidence.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Char me the trunk of a redwood tree. Give me pages of white chalk cliffs
to write upon. Magnify me thousands of times, and replace my trifling
immodesties with a titanic megalomania—then might I write largely enough
for our subjects. Because of accessibility and abundance of data, our
accounts deal very much with the relatively insignificant phenomena of
Great Britain. But our subjects, if not so restricted, would be the
violences that have screamed from the heavens, lapping up villages with
tongues of fire. If, because of appearances in the sky, be accepted that
some of the so-called earthquakes of Italy and South America represented
relations with regions beyond this earth, then is accepted that some of
this earth’s greatest catastrophes have been relations with the unknown
and the external. We have data that seem to be indications of
signalling, but not unless we can think that foreign giants have hurled
explosive mountains at this earth can we see such indications in all the
data.
Our data do seem to fall into two orders of phenomena: sounds of Melida,
Barisal, and Belgium, and nothing falling from the sky, and nothing seen
in the sky, and excellently supported observations for accepting a
signal-like intent in intervals and grouping of sounds, at least in
Barisal and Belgium; and the unregularized phenomena of
Worcester-Hereford, Colchester, Comrie, and Birmingham, in which
appearances are seen in the sky, or in which substances fall from the
sky, and in which effects upon this earth, not noted at all in Belgium
and Bengal, are great, and sometimes tremendous. It seems that
extra-geography divides into the extra-sociologic and the
extra-physical; and in the second type of phenomena, we suppose the data
are of physical relations between this earth and other worlds. We think
of a difference of potential. There were tremendous detonations in the
sky at the times of the falls of the little black stones of Birmingham
and Wolverhampton, and the electric manifestations, according to
descriptions in the newspapers, were extraordinary, and great volumes of
water fell. Consequently the events were supposed to be thunderstorms. I
suppose, myself, that they were electric storms, but electric storms
that represented difference of potential between this earth and some
region that was fixed, at least eleven years, over Birmingham and
Wolverhampton, bringing down stones and volumes of water from some other
world, or bringing down stones, and dislodging intervening volumes of
water, such as we have many data for thinking exist in outer space,
sometimes in bodies of warm or hot water, and sometimes as great masses,
or fields, of ice.
Let two objects be generically similar, but specifically different and a
relation that may be known as a difference of potential, though that
term is usually confined to electric relations, generates between them.
Quite as the Gulf Stream—though there are no reasons to suppose that
there is such a Gulf Stream as one reads of—represents a relation
between bodies of water heated differently, given any two worlds, alike
in general constitution, but differing, say, electrically, and given
proximity, we conceive of relations between them other than
gravitational.
But this cloistered earth, and its monkish science—shrinking from,
denying, or disregarding, all data of external relations, except some
one controlling force that was once upon a time known as Jehovah, but
that has been re-named Gravitation—
That the electric exchanges that were recognized by the ancients, but
that were anthropomorphically explained by them, have poured from the
sky and have gushed to the sky, afferently and efferently, between this
earth and the nearby planets, or between this mainland and its San
Salvadors, and have been recognized by the moderns, or the neo-ancients,
but have been meteorologically and seismologically misconstrued by them.
When a village spouts to the sky, it is said to have been caught up in a
cyclone: when unknown substances fall from the sky, not much of anything
is said upon the subject.
Lost tribes and the nations that have disappeared from the face of
this earth—that the skies have reeked with terrestrial civilizations,
spreading out in celestial stagnations, where their remains to this
day may be. The Mayans—and what became of them? Bones of the Mayans,
picked white as frost by space-scavengers, regioned to this day in a
sterile luxuriance somewhere, spread upon existence like the
pseudo-breath of Death, crystallized on a sky-pane. Three times gaps
wide and dark the history of Egypt—and that these abysses were gulfed
by disappearances—that some of the eliminations from this earth may
have been upward translations in functional suctions. We conceive of
Supervision upon this earth’s development, but for it the names of
Jehovah and Allah seem old-fashioned—that the equivalence of wrath,
but like the storms of cells that, in an embryonic thing, invade and
destroy cartilage-cells, when they have outlived their usefulness,
have devastated this earth’s undesirables. Likely enough, or not quite
likely enough, one of these earlier Egypts was populated by sphinxes,
if one can suppose that some of the statuary still extant in Egypt
were portraitures. This is good, though also not so good, orthodox
Evolutionary doctrine—that between types occur transitionals—
That Elimination and Redistribution swept an earlier Egypt with
suctions—because it was written, in symbols of embryonic law, that life
upon this earth must form onward—and the crouching sphinx on the sands
of Egypt, blinking the mysticism of her morphologic mixtures, would
perhaps detain forever the less interesting type that was advancing—
That often has Clarification destroyed transitionals, that they shall
not hold back development.
One conceives of their remains, to this day, wafting still in the
currents of the sky: floating avenues of frozen sphinxes, solemnly
dipping in cosmic undulations, down which circulate processions of
Egyptian mummies.
An astronomer upon this earth notes that things in parallel lines have
crossed the sun.
We offer this contribution as comparing favorably with the works of any
other historian. We think that some of the details may need revision,
but that what they typify is somewhere nearly acceptable.
Latitudes and longitudes of bones, not in the sky, but upon the surface
of this earth. Baron Toll and other explorers have, upon the surface of
this earth kicked their way through networks of ribs and protrusions of
skulls and stacks of vertebræ, as numerous as if from dead land they had
sprouted there. Anybody who has read of these tracts of bones upon the
northern coast of Siberia, and of some of the outlying islands that are
virtually composed of bones cemented with icy sand, will agree with me
that there have been cataclysms of which conventionality and
standardization tell us nothing. Once upon a time, some unknown force
translated, from somewhere, a million animals to Colorado, where their
remains now form great bone-quarries. Very largely do we express a
reaction against dogmatism, and sometimes we are not dogmatic,
ourselves. We don’t know very positively whether at times the animal
life of some other world has been swept away from that world, or not,
eventually pouring from the sky of Siberia and of Colorado, in some of
the shockingest floods of mammoths from which spattered cats and
rabbits, in cosmic scenery, or not. All that we can say is that when we
turn to conventionality it is to blankness or suppression. Every now and
then, to this day, occurs an alleged fall of blood from the sky, and I
have notes upon at least one instance in which the microscopically
examined substance was identified as blood. But now we conceive of
intenser times, when every now and then a red cataract hung in the
heavens like the bridal veil of the goddess of murder. But the science
of today is a soporific like the idealism of Europe before the War broke
out. Science and idealism—wings of a vampire that lulls consciousness
that might otherwise foresee catastrophe. Showers of frogs and showers
of fishes that occur to this day—that they are the dwindled
representatives to this day of the cataclysms of intenser times when the
skies of this earth were darkened by afferent clouds of dinosaurs. We
conceive of intenser times, but we conceive of all times as being
rhythmic times. We are too busy to take up alarmism, but, if Rome, for
instance, never was destroyed by terrestrial barbarians, if we can not
very well think of Apaches seizing Chicago, extra-mundane vandals may
often have swooped down upon this earth, and they may swoop again; and
it may be a comfort to us, some day, to mention in our last gasp that we
told about this.
History, geology, palæontology, astronomy, meteorology—that nothing
short of cataclysmic thinking can break down these united walls of
Exclusionism.
Unknown monsters sometimes appear in the ocean. When, upon the closed
system of normal preoccupations, a story of a sea serpent appears, it is
inhospitably treated. To us of the wider cordialities, it has
recommendations for kinder reception. I think that we shall be noted in
recognitions of good works for our bizarre charities. Far back in the
topography of the nineteenth century, Richard Proctor was almost
submerged in an ocean of smugness, but now and then he was a little
island emerging from the gently alternating doubts and satisfactions of
his era, and by means of several papers upon the “sea serpent” he so
protruded and gave variety to a dreary uniformity. Proctor reviewed some
of the stories of “sea serpents.” He accepted some of them. This will be
news to some conventionalists. But the mystery that he could not solve
is their conceivable origin. To be sure this earth may not be round, or
top-shaped, and may tower away somewhere, perhaps with the great
Antarctic plateau as its foothills, to a gigantic existence commensurate
throughout with the sea monsters that sometimes reach regions known to
us. Judging by our experience in other fields of research, we suspect
that this earth never has been traversed except in conventional
trade-routes and standard explorations. One supposes that enormous forms
of life that have appeared upon the surface of the ocean, did not come
from conditions of great pressure below the surface. If there be no
habitat of their own, in unknown seas of this earth, the monsters fell
from the sky, surviving for a while. In his day, Charles Lyell never
said a more preposterous thing than this—however we have no idea that
mere preposterousness is a criterion.
Then at times the things have fallen upon land, presumably. To
scientific minds in their present anæmia of malnutrition, we offer new
nourishment. There are materials for a science of neo-palæontology—as it
were—at least a new view of animal-remains upon this earth. Remains of
monsters, supposed to have lived geologic ages ago, are sometimes found,
not in ancient deposits, but upon, or near, the surface of the ground,
sometimes barely covered. I have notes upon a great pile of bones,
supposed to be the remains of a whale, out in open view in a western
desert.
In the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, is the
mummified body of a monster called a _trachodon_, found in Converse
County, Wyoming. It was not found upon the surface of the ground, which
is bad for our attempts to stimulate palæontology. But the striking
datum to me is that the only other huge mummy that I know of is another
_trachodon_, now in the Museum of Frankfort. If only extraordinarily
would geologic processes mummify remains of a huge animal, doubly
extraordinarily would two animals of the same species be so exclusively
affected. One at least gives some consideration to the idea that these
_trachodons_ are not products of geologic circumstances, but were
affected, in common, by other circumstances. By inspiration, or
progressive deterioration, one then conceives of the things as having
wafted and dried in space, finally falling to this earth. Our swooping
vandals are relieved with showering mummies. Life is turning out to be
interesting.
Organic substances like life-fluids of living things have rained from
the sky. However, it is enough for our general purposes to make
acceptable simply that unknown substances have, in large quantities,
fallen from the sky. That is neo-ism enough, it seems to me. I consider,
myself, all such data relatively to this earth’s stationariness or
possible motions. In _Ciel et Terre_, 22-198, it is said that, about 2
P. M., June 8, 1901, a glue-like substance fell at Sart. The story is
told by an investigator, M. Michael, a meteorologist. He says that he
saw this substance falling from the sky, but does not give an estimate
of duration: he says that he arrived during the last five minutes of the
shower. Editors and extra-geographers can’t help trying to explain. The
Editor of _Ciel et Terre_ writes that, three days before, there had
been, at Antwerp, a great fire, in which, among other substances, a
large quantity of sugar had been burned. He asks whether there could be
any connection. Antwerp is about 80 miles from Sart.
Sept. 2, 1905—the tragedy of the space-pig:
In the _English Mechanic_, 86-100, Col. Markwick writes that, according
to the _Cambrian Natural Observer_, something was seen in the sky, at
Llangollen, Wales, Sept. 2, 1905. It is described as an intensely black
object, about two miles above the earth’s surface, moving at the rate of
about twenty miles an hour. Col. Markwick writes: “Could it have been a
balloon?” We give Col. Markwick good rating as an extra-geographer, but
of the early, or differentiating type, a transitional, if not a sphinx:
so he was not quite developed enough to publish the details of this
object. In the _Cambrian Natural Observer_, 1905-35—the journal of the
Astronomical Society of Wales—it is said that, according to accounts in
the newspapers, an object had appeared in the sky, at Llangollen, Wales,
Sept. 2, 1905. At the schoolhouse, in Vroncysylite—I think that’s it:
with all my credulity, some of these Welsh names look incredible to me,
in my notes—the thing in the sky had been examined through powerful
field glasses. We are told that it had short wings, and flew, or moved,
in a way described as “casually inclining sideways.” It seemed to have
four legs, and looked to be about ten feet long. According to several
witnesses it looked like a huge, winged pig, with webbed feet. “Much
speculation was rife as to what the mysterious object could be.”
Five days later, according to a member of the Astronomical Society of
Wales—see _Cambrian Observer_, 1905-30—a purple-red substance fell from
the sky, at Llanelly, Wales.
I don’t know that my own attitude toward these data is understood, and I
don’t know that it matters in the least; also from time to time my own
attitude changes: but very largely my feeling is that not much can be,
or should be, concluded from our meagre accounts, but that so often are
these occurrences, in our fields, reported, that several times every
year there will be occurrences that one would like to have investigated
by someone who believes that we have written nothing but bosh, and by
someone who believes in our data almost religiously. It may be that,
early in February, 1892, a luminous thing travelled back and forth,
exploring for ten hours in the sky of Sweden. The story is copied from a
newspaper, and ridiculed, in the _English Mechanic_, 55-34. Upon March
7, 1893, a luminous object, shaped like an elongated pear was seen in
the sky of Val-de-la-Haye, by M. Raimond Coulon (_L’Astro._, 1893-169).
M. Coulon’s suggestion is that the light may have been a signal
suspended from a balloon. The signal-idea is interesting.
In the summer of 1897, several weeks after Prof. Andrée and his two
companions had sailed in a balloon, from Amsterdam Island, Spitzbergen,
it was reported that a balloon had been seen in British Columbia. There
was wide publicity: the report was investigated. It may be that had a
terrestrial balloon escaped from somewhere in the United States or
Canada, or if there had been a balloon-ascension at this time, the
circumstance would have been reported: it may well be that the object
was not Andrée’s balloon. President Bell, of the National Geographic
Society, heard of this object, and heard that details had been sent to
the Swedish Foreign Office, and cabled to the American Minister, at
Stockholm, for information. He publishes his account in the _National
Geographic Magazine_, 9-102. He was referred to the Swedish Consul, at
San Francisco. In reply to inquiry, the Consul telegraphed the following
data, which had been collected by the President of the Geographical
Society of the Pacific:
“Statement of a balloon passing over the Horse-Fly Hydraulic Mining
Camp, in Caribou, British Columbia, 52°, 20′, and Longitude 120°, 30′—
“From letters of J. B. Robson, manager of the Caribou Mining Co., and of
Mrs. Wm. Sullivan, the blacksmith’s wife, there, and a statement of Mr.
John J. Newsome, San Francisco, then at camp. About 2 or 3 o’clock, in
the afternoon, between fourth and seventh of August last, weather calm
and cloudless, Mrs. Sullivan, while looking over the Hydraulic Bank,
noticed a round, grayish-looking object in the sky, to the right of the
sun. As she watched, it grew larger and was descending. She saw the
larger mass of the balloon above, and a smaller mass apparently
suspended from the larger. It continued to descend, until she plainly
recognized it as a balloon and a large basket hanging thereto. It
finally commenced to swing violently back and forth, and move very fast
toward the eastward and northward. Mrs. Sullivan called her daughter,
aged 18, and about this time Mrs. Robson and her daughter were observing
it.”
If someone saw a strange fish in the ocean, we’d like to know—what was
it like? Stripes on him—spots—what? It would be unsatisfactory to be
told over and over only that a dark body had crossed some waves. In
_Cosmos_, n. s., 39-356, a satisfactory correspondent writes that, at
Lille, France, Sept. 4, 1898, he saw a red object in the sky. It was
like the planet Mars, but was in the position of no known planet. He
looked through his telescope, and saw a rectangular object, with a
violet-colored band on one side of it, and the rest of it striped with
black and red. He watched it ten minutes, during which time it was
stationary; then, like the object that was seen at the time of the
Powell-mystery, it cast out sparks and disappeared.
In the _English Mechanic_, 75-417, Col. Markwick writes that, upon May
10, 1902, a friend of his had seen in the sky, in South Devon, a great
number of highly colored objects like little suns or toy-balloons.
“Altogether beats me,” says Col. Markwick.
Upon March 2, 1899, a luminous object in the sky, from 10 A. M., until 4
P. M., was reported from El Paso, Texas. Mentioned in the _Observatory_,
22-247—supposed to have been Venus, even though Venus was then two
months past secondary maximum brilliance. This seems reasonable enough,
in itself, but there are other data for thinking that an unknown,
luminous body was at this time in the especial sky of the southwestern
states. In the _U. S. Weather Bureau Report_ (_Ariz. Sec._, March, 1899)
it is said that, at Prescott, Arizona, Dr. Warren E. Day had seen a
luminous object, upon the 8th of March, “that travelled with the moon”
all day, until 2 P. M. It is said that, the day before, this object had
been seen close to the moon, by Mr. G. O. Scott, at Tonto, Arizona. Dr.
Day and Mr. Scott were voluntary observers for the Weather Review. This
association with the moon and this localization of observation are
puzzling.
_La Nature (Sup.)_ Nov. 11, 1899—that at Luzarches, France, upon the
28th of October, 1899, M. A. Garrie had seen, at 4.50 P. M., a round,
luminous object rising above the horizon. About the size of the moon. He
watched it for 15 minutes, as it moved away, diminishing to a point. It
may be that something from external regions was for several weeks in the
especial sky of France. In _La Nature (Sup.)_ Dec. 16, 1899, someone
writes that he had seen, Nov. 15, 1899, 7 P. M., at Dourite (Dordogne)
an object like an enormous star, at times white, then red, and sometimes
blue, but moving like a kite. It was in the south. He had never seen it
before. Someone, in the issue of Dec. 30th, says that, without doubt it
was the star Fomalhaut, and asks for precise position. Issue of Jan. 20,
1900—the first correspondent says that the object was in the southwest,
about 35 degrees above the horizon, but moving so that the precise
position could not be stated. The kite-like motion may have been merely
seeming motion—object may have been Fomalhaut, though 35 degrees above
the horizon seem to me to be too high for Fomalhaut—but, then, like the
astronomers, I’m likely at times to expose what I don’t know about
astronomy. Fomalhaut is not an enormous star. Seventeen are larger.
May 1, 1908, between 8 and 9 P. M., at Vittel, France—an object, with a
nebulosity around it, diameter equal to the moon’s, according to a
correspondent to _Cosmos_, n. s., 58-535. At 9 o’clock a black band
appeared upon the object, and moved obliquely across it, then
disappearing. The Editor thinks that the object was the planet Venus,
under extraordinary meteorologic conditions.
Dark obj., by Prof. Brooks, July 21, 1896 (_Eng. Mec._, 64-12); dark
obj., by Gathmann, Aug. 22, 1896 (_Sci. Amer. Sup._, 67-363); two
luminous objs., by Prof. Swift, evidently in a local sky of California,
because unseen elsewhere in California, Sept. 20, and one of them again,
Sept. 21, 1896 (_Astro. Jour._ 17-8, 103); “Waldemath’s second moon,”
Feb. 5, 1898 (_Eng. Mec._, 67-545); unknown obj., March 30, 1908
(_Observatory_, 31-215); dark obj., Nov. 10, 1908 (_Bull. Soc. Astro. de
France_, 23-74).
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Cold Harbor, Hanover Co., Virginia—two men in a field—“an apparently
clear sky.” In the _Monthly Weather Review_, 28-29, it is said that upon
Aug. 7, 1900, two men were struck by lightning. The Editor says that the
weather map gave no indication of a thunderstorm, nor of rain, in this
region at the time.
In July, 1904, a man was killed on the summit of Mt. San Gorgionio, near
the Mojave desert. It is said that he was killed by lightning. Two days
later, upon the summit of Mt. Whitney, 180 miles away, another man was
killed “by lightning” (_Ciel et Terre_, 29-120).
It is said, in _Ciel et Terre_, 17-42, that, in the year 1893, nineteen
soldiers were marching near Bourges, France, when they were struck by an
unknown force. It is said that in known terms there is no explanation.
Some of the men were killed, and others were struck insensible. At the
inquest it was testified that there had been no storm, and that nothing
had been heard.
If there occur upon the surface of this earth pounces from blankness and
seizures by nothings, and “sniping” with bullets of unfindable
substance, we nevertheless hesitate to bring witchcraft and demonology
into our fields. Our general subject now is the existence of a great
deal that may be nearby, or temporarily nearby, ordinarily invisible,
but occasionally revealed by special circumstances. A background of
stars is not to be compared, in our data, with the sun for a background,
as a means of revelations. We accept that there are sunspots, but we
gather from general experience and special instances that the word
“sunspot” is another of the standardizing terms like “auroral” and
“meteoric” and “earthquakes.” See Webb’s _Celestial Objects_ for some
observations upon large definite obscurations called “sunspots” but
which were as evanescent against the sun as would be islands and jungles
of space, if intervening only a few moments between this earth and the
swiftly moving sun. According to Webb, astronomers have looked at great
obscurations upon the sun, have turned away, and then looked again,
finding no trace of the phenomena. Eclipses are special circumstances,
and rather often have large, unknown bulks been revealed by different
light-effects during eclipses. For instance, upon Jan. 22, 1898, Lieut.
Blackett, R. N., assisting Sir Norman Lockyer, at Viziadrug, India,
during the total eclipse of the sun, saw an unknown body between Venus
and Mars (_Jour. Leeds Astro. Soc._, 1906-23). We have had other
instances, and I have notes upon still more. The photographic plate is a
special condition, or sensitiveness. In _Knowledge_, 16-234, a
correspondent writes that, in August, 1893, in Switzerland, moon-lighted
night, he had exposed a photographic plate for one hour. Upon the
photograph, when developed, were seen irregular, bright markings, but
there had been no lightning to this correspondent’s perceptions.
The details of the sheep-panic of Nov. 3, 1888, are extraordinary. The
region affected was much greater than was supposed by the writer whom we
quoted in an earlier chapter. It is said in another account in _Symons’
Meteorological Magazine_, that, in a tract of land twenty-five miles
long and eight miles wide, thousands of sheep had, by a simultaneous
impulse, burst from their bounds; and had been found the next morning,
widely scattered, some of them still panting with terror under hedges,
and many crowded into corners of fields. See London _Times_, Nov. 20,
1888. An idea of the great number of flocks affected is given by one
correspondent who says that malicious mischief was out of the question,
because a thousand men could not have frightened and released all these
sheep. Someone else tries to explain that, given an alarm in one flock,
it might spread to the others. But all the sheep so burst from their
folds at about eight o’clock in the evening, and one supposes that many
folds were far from contiguous, and one thinks of such contagion
requiring considerable time spread over 200 square miles. Something of
an alarming nature and of a pronounced degree occurred somewhere near,
Reading, Berkshire, upon this evening. Also there seems to be something
of special localization: the next year another panic occurred in
Berkshire not far from Reading.
I have a datum that looks very much like the revelation of a ghost-moon,
though I think of it myself in physical terms of light-effects. In
_Country Queries and Notes_, 1-138, 417, it is said that, in the sky of
Gosport, Hampshire, night of Sept. 14, 1908, was seen a light that came
as if from an unseen moon. It may be that I can here record that there
was a moon-like object in the sky of the Midlands and the south of
England, this night, and that, though to human eyesight, this world,
island of space, whatever it may have been, was invisible, it was,
nevertheless, revealed. Upon this evening of Sept. 14, 1908, David
Packer, then in Northfield, Worcestershire, saw a luminous appearance
that he supposed was auroral, and photographed it. When the photograph
was developed, it was seen that the “auroral” light came from a large,
moon-like object. A reproduction of the photograph is published in the
_English Mechanic_, 88-211. It shows an object as bright and as
well-defined as the conventionally accepted moon, but only to the camera
had it revealed itself, and Mr. Packer had caught upon a film a
space-island that had been invisible to his eyes. It seems so, anyway.
In _Country Queries and Notes_, 1-328, it is said that, upon Aug. 2,
1908, at Ballyconneely, Connemara coast of Ireland, was seen a phantom
city of different-sized houses, in different styles of architecture;
visible three hours. It is said that no doubt the appearance was a
mirage of some city far away—far away, but upon this earth, of course.
This apparition is not of the type that we consider so especially of our
own data. The so-called mirages that so especially interest us are
interesting to us not in themselves, but in that they belong to the one
order of phenomena or evidence that unifies so many fields of our data:
that is, repetitions in a local sky, signifying the fixed position of
something relatively to a small part of this earth’s surface. We can not
think that mirages, terrestrial or extra-terrestrial, could so repeat.
But if in a local sky of this earth there be a fixed region, perhaps not
a city, but something of rugged and featureful outlines, with
projections that might look architectural, reflections from it, shadows,
or Brocken spectres repeating always in one special sky are thinkable
except by the Chinese-minded who regard all our data as “foreign
devils.” The writer in _Country Queries and Notes_ says—“Circumstantial
accounts have even been published of the city of Bristol being
distinctly recognized in a mirage seen occasionally in North America.”
If we shall accept that anywhere in North America repeated
representations of the same city or city-like scene have appeared in the
same local sky, I prefer, myself, a foreign devil of a thought, and its
significance, whether hellish or not, that this earth is stationary, to
such a domestic vagrant of a thought as the idea that mirage could so
pick out the city of Bristol, or any other city, over and over, and also
invariably pick out for its screen the same local sky, thousands of
miles, or five miles, away.
In the _English Mechanic_, Sept. 10, 1897, a correspondent to the
_Weekly Times and Echo_ is quoted. He had just returned from the Yukon.
Early in June, 1897, he had seen a city pictured in the sky of Alaska.
“Not one of us could form the remotest idea in what part of the world
this settlement could be. Some guessed Toronto, others Montreal, and one
of us even suggested Pekin. But whether this city exists in some unknown
world on the other side of the North Pole, or not, it is a fact that
this wonderful mirage occurs from time to time yearly, and we were not
the only ones who witnessed the spectacle. Therefore it is evident that
it must be the reflection of some place built by the hand of man.”
According to this correspondent, the “mirage” did not look like one of
the cities named, but like “some immense city of the past.”
In the New York _Tribune_, Feb. 17, 1901, it is said that Indians of
Alaska had told of an occasional appearance, as if of a city, suspended
in the sky, and that a prospector, named Willoughby, having heard the
stories, had investigated, in the year 1887, and had seen the spectacle.
It is said that, having several times attempted to photograph the scene,
Willoughby did finally at least show an alleged photograph of an aërial
city. In _Alaska_, p. 140, Miner Bruce says that Willoughby, one of the
early pioneers in Alaska, after whom Willoughby Island is named, had
told him of the phenomenon, and that, early in 1899, he had accompanied
Willoughby to the place over which the mirage was said to repeat. It
seems that he saw nothing himself, but he quotes a member of the Duc
d’Abruzzi’s expedition to Mt. St. Elias, summer of 1897, Mr. C. W.
Thornton, of Seattle, who saw the spectacle, and wrote—“It required no
effort of the imagination to liken it to a city, but was so distinct
that it required, instead, faith to believe that it was not in reality a
city.” Bruce publishes a reproduction of Willoughby’s photograph, and
says that the city was identified as Bristol, England. So definite, or
so un-mirage-like, is this reproduction, trees and many buildings shown
in detail, that one supposes that the original was a photograph of a
good-sized terrestrial city, perhaps Bristol, England.
In Chapter 10, of his book, _Wonders of Alaska_, Alexander Badlam tries
to explain. He publishes a reproduction of Willoughby’s photograph: it
is the same as Bruce’s, except that all buildings are transposed, or are
negative in positions. Badlam does not like to accuse Willoughby of
fraud: his idea is that some unknown humorist had sold Willoughby a dry
plate, picturing part of the city of Bristol. My own idea is that
something of this kind did occur, and that this photograph, greatly
involved in accounts of the repeating mirages, has nothing to do with
the mirages. Badlam then tells of another photograph. He tells that two
men, near the Muir Glacier, had, by means of a pan of quicksilver, seen
a reflection of an unknown city somewhere, and that their idea was that
it was at the bottom of the sea near the glacier, reflecting in the sky,
and reflecting back to and from the quicksilver. That’s complicated. A
photographer named Taber then announced that he had photographed this
scene, as reflected in a pan of quicksilver. Badlam publishes a
reproduction of Taber’s photograph, or alleged photograph. This time,
for anybody who prefers to think that there is, somewhere in the sky of
Alaska, a great, unknown city, we have a most agreeable photograph:
exotic-looking city; a structure like a coliseum, and another prominent
building like a mosque, and many indefinite, mirage-like buildings. I’d
like to think this photograph genuine, myself, but I do conceive that
Taber could have taken it by photographing a panorama that he had
painted. Badlam’s explanation is that mirages of glaciers are common, in
Alaska, and that they look architectural. Some years ago, I read five or
six hundred pounds of literature upon the Arctic, and I should say that
far-projected mirages are not common in the Arctic: mere looming is
common. Badlam publishes a photograph of a mirage of Muir Glacier. The
looming points of ice do look Gothic, but they are obviously only
loomings, extending only short distances from primaries, with no
detachment from primaries, and not reflecting in the sky.
For the first identification of the Willoughby photograph as a
photograph of part of the city of Bristol, see the New York _Times_,
Oct. 20, 1889. That this photograph was somebody’s hoax seems to be
acceptable. But it was not similar to the frequently reported scene in
the sky of Alaska, according to descriptions. In the New York _Times_,
Oct. 31, 1889, is an account, by Mr. L. B. French, of Chicago, of the
spectral representation, as he saw it, near Mt. Fairweather. “We could
see plainly houses, well-defined streets, and trees. Here and there rose
tall spires over huge buildings, which appeared to be ancient mosques or
cathedrals.... It did not look like a modern city—more like an ancient
European City.”
_Jour. Roy. Met. Soc._, 27-158:
That every year, between June 21 and July 10, a “phantom city” appears
in the sky, over a glacier in Alaska; that features of it had been
recognized as buildings in the city of Bristol, England, so that the
“mirage” was supposed to be a mirage of Bristol. It is said that for
generations these repeating representations had been known to the
Alaskan Indians, and that, in May, 1901, a scientific expedition from
San Francisco would investigate. It is said that, except for slight
changes, from year to year, the scene was always the same.
_La Nature_, 1901-1-303:
That a number of scientists had set out from Victoria, B. C., to Mt.
Fairweather, Alaska, to study a repeating mirage of a city in the sky,
which had been reported by the Duc d’Abruzzi, who had seen it and had
sketched it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Night of Dec. 7, 1900—for seventy minutes a fountain of light played
upon the planet Mars.
Prof. Pickering—“absolutely inexplicable” (_Sci. Amer._, 84-179).
It may have been a geyser of messages. It may be translated some day. If
it were expressed in imagery befitting the salutation by a planet to its
dominant, it may be known some day as the most heroic oration in the
literature of this geo-system. See Lowell’s account in _Popular
Astronomy_, 10-187. Here are published several of the values in a
possible code of long flashes and short flashes. Lowell takes a supposed
normality for unity, and records variations of two thirds, one and one
third, and one and a half. If there be, at Flagstaff, Arizona, records
of all the long flashes and short flashes that were seen, for seventy
minutes, upon this night of Dec. 7, 1900, it is either that the
greetings of an island of space have been hopelessly addressed to a
continental stolidity, or there will have to be the descent, upon
Flagstaff, Arizona, by all the amateur Champollions of this earth, to
concentrate in one deafening buzz of attempted translation.
It was at this time that Tesla announced that he had received, upon his
wireless apparatus, vibrations that he attributed to the Martians. They
were series of triplets.
* * * * *
It is our expression that, during eclipses and oppositions and other
notable celestial events, lunarians try to communicate with this earth,
having a notion that at such times the astronomers of this earth may be
more nearly alert.
An eclipse of the moon, March 10-11, 1895—not a cloud; no mist—electric
flashes like lightning, reported from a ship upon the Atlantic (_Eng.
Mec._, 61-100).
During the eclipse of the sun, July 29, 1897, a strange image was taken
on a sensitive plate, by Mr. L. E. Martindale, of St. Mary’s, Ohio. It
looks like a record of knotted lightning. See _Photography_, May 26,
1898.
In the _Bull. Soc. Astro. de France_, 17-205, 315, 447, it is said that
upon the first and the third of March, 1903, a light like a little star,
flashing intermittently, was seen by M. Rey, in Marseilles, and by
Maurice Gheury, in London, in the lunar crater Aristarchus. March 28,
1903—opposition of Mars.
* * * * *
In _Cosmos_, n. s., 49-259, M. Desmoulins writes, from Argenteuil, that,
upon August 9, 1903, at 11 P. M., moving from north to south, he saw a
luminous object. The planet Venus was at primary greatest brilliance
upon August 13, 1903. In three respects it was like other objects that
have been observed upon this earth at times of the nearest approach of
Venus: it was a red object; it appeared only in a local sky, and it
appeared in the time of the visibility of Venus. With M. Desmoulins were
four persons, one of whom had field glasses. The object was watched
twenty minutes, during which time it travelled a distance estimated at
five or six kilometres. It looked like a light suspended from a balloon,
but, through glasses, no outline of a balloon could be seen, and there
were no reflections of light as if from the opaque body of a balloon. It
was a red body, with greatest luminosity in its nucleus. The Editor of
_Cosmos_ writes that, according to other correspondents, this object had
been seen, at 11 P. M., July 19th and 26th, at Chatou. Argenteuil and
Chatou are 4 or 5 miles apart, and both are about 5 miles from Paris.
All three of these dates were Sundays, and even though nothing like a
balloon had been seen through glasses, one naturally supposes that
somebody near Paris had been amusing himself sending up fire-balloons,
Sunday evenings. The one great resistance to all that is known as
progress is what one “naturally supposes.”
In the _English Mechanic_, 81-220, Arthur Mee writes that several
persons, in the neighborhood of Cardiff, had, upon the night of March
29, 1905, seen in the sky, “an appearance like a vertical beam of light,
which was not due (they say) to a search light, or any such cause.”
There were other observations, and they remind us of the observations by
Noble and Bradgate, Aug. 28-29, 1883: then upon an object that cast a
light like a searchlight; this time an association between a light like
a searchlight, and a luminosity of definite form. In the _Cambrian
Natural Observer_, 1905-32, are several accounts of a more
definite-looking appearance that was seen, this night, in the sky of
Wales—“like a long cluster of stars, obscured by a thin film or mist.”
It was seen at the time of the visibility of Venus, then an “evening
star”—about 10 P. M. It grew brighter, and for about half an hour looked
like an incandescent light. It was a conspicuous and definite object,
according to another description—“like an iron bar, heated to an
orange-colored glow, and suspended vertically.”
Three nights later, something appeared in the sky of Cherbourg,
France—_L’Astre Cherbourg_—the thing that appeared, night after night,
in the sky of the city of Cherbourg, at a time when the planet Venus was
nearest (inferior conjunction April 26, 1905).
Flammarion, in the _Bull. Soc. Astro. de France_, 19-243, says that this
object was the planet Venus. He therefore denies that it had moved in
various directions, saying that the supposed observations to this effect
were illusions. In _L’Illustration_, April 22, 1905, he tells the story
in his own way, and says some things that we are not disposed to agree
with, but also he says that the ignorance of some persons is
_inénarrable_. In _Cosmos_, n. s., 42-420, months after the occurrence,
it is said that many correspondents had written to inquire as to
_L’Astre Cherbourg_. The Editor gives his opinion that the object was
either Jupiter or Venus. Throughout our Venus-visitor expression, the
most important point is appearance in a local sky. That unifies this
expression with other expressions, all of them converging into our
general extra-geographic acceptances. The Editor of _Cosmos_ says that
this object, which was reported from Cherbourg, was reported from other
towns as well. He probably means to say that it was seen simultaneously
in different towns. For all guardians of this earth’s isolation, this is
a convenient thing to say: the conclusion then is that the planet Venus,
exceptionally bright, was attracting unusual attention generally, and
that there was nothing in the especial sky of Cherbourg. But we have
learned that standardizing disguisements often obscure our data in later
accounts, and we have formed the habit of going to contemporaneous
sources. We shall find that the newspapers of the time reported a
luminous object that appeared, night after night, only over the city of
Cherbourg, as the name by which it was known indicates. It was a reddish
object. The Editor of _Cosmos_ explains that atmospheric conditions
could give this coloration to Venus. I suppose this could be so
occasionally: not night after night, I should say. We shall find that
this object, or a similar object was reported from other places, but not
simultaneously with its appearance over Cherbourg.
In the _Journal des Débats_, the first news is in the issue of April 4,
1905. It is said that a luminous body was appearing, every evening,
between 8 and 10 o’clock, over the city of Cherbourg.
These were about the hours of the visibility of Venus. In this period,
Venus set at 9.30 P. M., and Jupiter at 8 P. M. It is enough to make any
conventionalist feel most reasonable, though he’d feel that way anyway,
in thinking that of course then this object was Venus. In my own earlier
speculations upon this subject, this one datum stood out so that had it
not been for other data, I’d have abandoned the subject. But then I read
of other occurrences: time after time has something been seen in a local
sky of this earth, sometimes so definitely seen to move, not like Venus,
but in various directions, that one has to think that it was not Venus,
though appearing at the time of visibility of Venus. Between these
appearances and visibility of Venus there does seem to be relation.
In the _Journal_, it is said that _L’Astre Cherbourg_ had an apparent
diameter of 15 centimetres, and a less definite margin of 75
centimetres—seemed to be about a yard wide—meaningless of course. In the
_Bull. Soc. Astro. de France_, it is said that, according to reports,
its form was oval. In the _Journal des Débats_, we are told that, at
first the thing was supposed to be a captive balloon but that this idea
was given up because it appeared and disappeared.
_Journal des Débats_, April 12:
That every evening the luminous object was continuing to appear above
Cherbourg; that many explanations had been thought of: by some persons
that it was the planet Jupiter, and by others that it was a comet but
that no one knew what it was. The comet-explanation is of course ruled
out. The writer in the _Journal_ expresses regret that neither the
Meteorological Bureau nor the Observatory of Paris had sent anybody to
investigate, but says that the _préfet maritime_, of Cherbourg had
commissioned a naval officer to investigate. In _Le Temps_, of the 12th,
is published an interview with Flammarion, who complains some more
against general _inénarrable-ness_, and says that of course the object
was Venus. The writer in _Le Temps_ says that soon would the matter be
settled, because the commander of a war ship had undertaken to decide
what the luminous body was.
_Le Figaro_, April 13:
The report of Commander de Kerillis, of the _Chasseloup-Laubut_—that the
position of _L’Astre Cherbourg_ was not the position of Venus, and that
the disc did not look like the crescentic disc of Venus, but that the
observations had been made from a vessel, under unfavorable conditions,
and that the commander and his colleagues did not offer a final opinion.
I think that there was _inénarrable-ness_ all around. Given visibility,
I can’t think what the unfavorable conditions could have been. Given,
however, observations upon something that all the astronomers in the
world would say could not be, one does think of the dislike of a naval
officer, who, though he probably knew right ascension from declination,
was himself no astronomer, to commit himself. In _Le Temps_, and other
newspapers published in Paris, it is said that, according to the naval
officers, the object might have been a comet, but that they would not
positively commit themselves to this opinion, either.
I think that somebody should be brave; so, though not positively, of
course, I incline, myself, to relate these appearances over Cherbourg
with the observations in Wales, upon March 29th; also I suggest that
there is another report that may relate. In _Le Temps_, April 12, it is
said that, at midnight, April 9-10, a luminous body, like _L’Astre
Cherbourg_, was seen in the sky of Tunis. Though it was visible several
minutes, it is said that this object was probably a meteor.
Every night, from the first to the eleventh of April, a luminous body
appeared in the sky of Cherbourg. Then it was seen no longer. It may
have been seen sailing away, upon its final departure from the sky of
Cherbourg. In _Le Figaro_, April 15, it is said that, upon the night of
the eleventh of April, the guards of La Blanche Lighthouse had seen
something like a lighted balloon in the sky. Supposing it was a balloon,
they had started to signal to it, but it had disappeared. It is said
that the lighthouse had been out of communication with the mainland, and
that the guards had not heard of _L’Astre Cherbourg_.
* * * * *
In the London _Times_, Nov. 23, 1905, a correspondent writes that, at
East Liss, Hants., which is about 40 miles from Reading, he and his
gamekeeper had, about 3.30 P. M., Nov. 17th, heard a loud, distant
rumbling. According to this hearer, the rumbling seemed to be a
composition of triplets of sounds. We shall accept that three sounds
were heard, but we have no other assertion that each sound was itself so
sub-serialized. This correspondent’s gamekeeper said that he had heard
similar sounds at 11.30 A. M., and at 1.30 P. M. It is said that the
sounds were not like gunfire, and that the direction from which they
seemed to come, and the time in the afternoon, precluded the explanation
of artillery-practice at Aldershot or Portsmouth. Aldershot is about 15
miles from East Liss, and Portsmouth about 20.
_Times_, Nov. 24—that the “quake” had been distinctly felt in Reading,
about 3.30 P. M., Nov. 17th. _Times_, Nov. 25—heard at Reading, at
11.30, 1.30, and 3.30 o’clock, Nov. 17th.
_Reading Standard_, Nov. 25:
That consternation had been caused in Reading, upon the 17th, by sounds
and vibrations of the earth, about 11.30 A. M., 1.30 P. M., and 3.30 P.
M. It is said that nothing had been seen, but that the sounds closely
resembled those that had been heard during the meteoric shower of 1866.
Mr. H. G. Fordham appears again. In the _Times_, Dec. 1, he writes that
the phenomena pointed clearly to an explosion in the sky, and not to an
earthquake of subterranean origin. “The noise and shock experienced are
no doubt attributable to the explosion (or to more than one explosion)
of a meteorite, or bolide, high up in the atmosphere, and setting up a
wave (or waves) of sound and aërial shock. It is probable, indeed, that
a good many phenomena having this source are wrongly ascribed to slight
and local earthshock.”
Mr. Fordham wrote this, but he wrote no more, and I think that somewhere
else something else was written, and that, in the year 1905, it had to
be obeyed; and that it may be interpreted in these words—“Thou shalt
not.” Mr. Fordham did not inquire into the reasonableness of thinking
that, only by coincidence, meteors so successively exploded, in a period
of four hours, in one local sky of this earth, and nowhere else; and
into the inference, then, as to whether this earth is stationary or not.
We have data of a succession occupying far more than four hours.
In the _Times_, Mrs. Lane, of Petersfield, 20 miles from Portsmouth,
writes that, at 11.30 A. M., and at 3.30 P. M., several days before the
17th, she had heard the detonations, then hearing them again, upon the
17th. Mrs. Lane thinks that there must have been artillery-practice at
Portsmouth. It seems clear that there was no cannonading anywhere in
England, at this time. It seems clear that there was signalling from
some other world.
In the _English Mechanic_, 82-433, Joseph Clark writes that, a few
minutes past 3 P. M., upon the 18th a triplet of detonations was heard
at Somerset—“as loud as thunder, but not exactly like thunder.”
_Reading Observer_, Nov. 25—that, according to a correspondent, the
sounds had been heard again, at Whitechurch (20 miles from Reading) upon
the 21st, at 1.35 P. M., and 3.8 P. M. The sounds had been attributed to
artillery-practice at Aldershot, but the correspondent had written to
the artillery commandant, at Bulford Camp, and had received word that
there had been no heavy firing at the times of his inquiry. The Editor
of the _Observer_ says that he, too, had written to the commandant, and
had received the same answer.
I have searched widely. I have found record of nobody’s supposition that
he had traced these detonations to origin upon this earth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
In Coconino County, Arizona, is an extraordinary formation. It is known
as Coon Butte and as Crater Mountain. Once upon a time, something gouged
this part of Arizona. The cavity in the ground is about 3,800 feet in
diameter, and it is approximately 600 feet deep, from the rim of the
ramparts to the floor of the interior. Out from this cavity had been
hurled blocks of limestone, some of them a mile or so away, some of
these masses weighing probably 5,000 tons each. And in the formation,
and around it, have been found either extraordinary numbers of
meteorites, or fragments of one super-meteorite. Barringer, in his
report to the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia (_Proceedings,
A. N. S. P._, Dec., 1905) says that, of the trafficers in this
meteoritic material, he knew of two men who had shipped away fifteen
tons of it. But Barringer’s minimum estimate of a body large enough so
to gouge the ground is ten million tons.
It was supposed that a main mass of meteoritic material was buried under
the floor of the formation, but this floor was drilled, and nothing was
found to support this supposition. One drill went down 1020 feet, going
through 100 feet of red sandstone, which seems to be the natural,
undisturbed sub-structure. The datum that opposes most strongly the idea
that this pit was gouged by one super-meteorite is that in it and around
it at least three kinds of meteorites have been found: they are irons,
masses of iron-shale, and shale-balls that are so rounded and
individualized that they can not be thought of as fragments of a greater
body, and can not be very well thought of as great drops of molten
matter cast from a main, incandescent mass, inasmuch as there is not a
trace of igneous rock such as would mark such contact.
There are data for thinking that these three kinds of objects fell at
different times, presumably from origin of fixed position relatively to
this point in Arizona. Within the formation, shales were found, buried
at various distances, as if they had fallen at different times, for
instance seven of them in a vertical line, the deepest-buried 27 feet
down; also shales outside the formation were found buried. But, quite as
if they had fallen more recently, the hundreds of irons were found upon
the surface of the ground, or partly covered, or wholly covered, but
only with superficial soil.
There is no knowing when this great gouge occurred, but cedars upon the
rim are said to be about 700 years old.
In terms of our general expression upon differences of potential, and of
electric relations between nearby worlds, I think of a blast between
this earth and a land somewhere else, and of something that was more
than a cyclone that gouged this pit.
Other meteorites have been found in Arizona: the 85-pound iron that was
found at Weaver, near Wickenburg, 130 miles from Crater Mountain, in
1898, and the 960-pound mass, now in the National Museum, said to have
been found at Peach Springs, 140 miles from Crater Mountain. These two
irons indicate nothing in particular; but, if we accept that somewhere
else in Arizona there is another deposit of meteorites, also
extraordinarily abundant, such abundance gives something of commonness
of nature if not of commonness of origin to two deposits. There are
several large irons known as the Tucson meteorites, one weighing 632
pounds and another 1514 pounds, now in museums. They came from a place
known as Iron Valley, in the Santa Rita Mountains, about 30 miles south
of Tucson, and about 200 miles from Crater Mountain. Iron Valley was so
named because of the great number of meteorites found in it. According
to the people of Tucson, this fall occurred about the year 1660. See
_Amer. Jour. Sci._, 2-13-290.
Upon June 24, 1905, Barringer found, upon the plain, about a mile and a
half northwest of Crater Mountain, a meteorite of a fourth kind. It was
a meteoritic stone, “as different from all the other specimens as one
specimen could be from another.” Barringer thinks that it fell, about
the 15th of January, 1904. Upon a night in the middle of January, 1904,
two of his employees were awakened by a loud hissing sound, and saw a
meteor falling north of the formation. At the same time, two Arizona
physicians, north of the formation, saw the meteor falling south of
them. For analysis and description of this object, see _Amer. Jour.
Sci._, 4-21-353. Barringer, who believes that once upon a time one
super-meteorite, of which only a very small part has ever been found,
gouged this hole in the ground, writes—“That a small stony meteorite
should have fallen on almost exactly the same spot on this earth’s
surface as the great Canon Diablo iron meteorite fell many centuries
ago, is certainly a most remarkable coincidence. I have stated the facts
as accurately as possible, and I have no opinion to offer, as to whether
or not these involve anything more than a coincidence.”
Other phenomena in Arizona:
Upon Feb. 24, 1897, a great explosion was heard over the town of
Tombstone. It is said that a fragment of a meteor fell at St. David
(_Monthly Weather Review_, 1897-56). Yarnell, Arizona, Sept. 12, 1898—“a
loud, deep, thundering noise” that was heard between noon and 1 P. M.
“The noise proceeded from the Granite Range, this side of Prescott. From
all accounts, a large meteor struck the earth at this time” (_U. S.
Weather Bureau Rept., Ariz. Section_, Sept., 1898).
Upon July 19, 1912, at Holbrook, Arizona, about 50 miles from Crater
Mountain, occurred a loud detonation and one of the most remarkable
falls of stones recorded. See _Amer. Jour. Sci._, 4-34-437. Some of the
stones are very small. About 14,000 were collected. Only twice, since
the year 1800, have stones in greater numbers fallen from the sky to
this earth, according to conventional records.
About a month later (Aug. 18) there was another concussion at Holbrook.
This was said to be an earthquake (_Bull. Seis. Soc. Amer._, 1-209).
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The climacteric opposition of Mars, of 1909—the last in our records—the
next will be in 1924—
Aug. 8, 1909—see _Quar. Jour. Met. Soc._, n. s., 35-299—flashes in a
clear sky that were seen in Epsom, Surrey, and other places in the
southeast of England. They could not be attributed to lightning in
England. The writer in the _Journal_ finds that there was a
storm in France, more than one hundred miles away, For an
account of these flashes, tabulated at Epsom—“night fine and
starlight”—see _Symons’ Met. Mag._, 44-148. During each period
of five minutes, from 10 to 11.15, P. M., the number of
flashes—16-14-20-31-15-26-12-20-30-18-27-22-14-12-10-21-8-5-3-1-0-1-0.
With such a time-basis, I can see no possibility of detecting anything
of a code-like significance. I do see development. There were similar
observations at times in the favorable oppositions of Mars of 1875 and
1877. In 1892, such flashes were noted more particularly. Now we have
them noted and tabulated, but upon a basis that could be of interest
only to meteorologists. If they shall be seen in 1924, we may have
observation, tabulation, and some marvellously different translations of
them. After that there will be some intolerably similar translations,
suspiciously delayed in publication.
Sept. 23, 1909—opposition of Mars.
Throughout our data, we have noticed successions of appearances in local
skies of this earth, that indicate that this earth is stationary, but
that also relate to nearest approaches of Mars. Upon the night of Dec.
16-17, 1896, concussion after concussion was felt at Worcester, England;
a great “meteor” was seen at the time of the greatest concussion. Mars
was seven days past opposition. We thought it likely enough that
explosion after explosion had occurred over Worcester, and that
something in the sky had been seen only at the time of the greatest, or
the nearest, explosion. We did not think well of the conventional
explanation that only by coincidence had a great meteor exploded over a
region where a series of earthquakes was occurring, and exactly at the
moment of the greatest of these shocks.
In November, 1911, Mars was completing his cycle of changing proximities
of a duration of fifteen years, and was duplicating the relationship of
the year 1896. About 10 o’clock, night of Nov. 16, 1911, a concussion
that is conventionally said to have been an earthquake occurred in
Germany and Switzerland. But plainly there was an explosion in the sky.
In the _Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America_, 3-189, Count
Montessus de Ballore writes that he had examined 112 reports upon
flashes and other luminous appearances in the sky that had preceded the
“earthquake” by a few seconds. He concludes that a great meteor had only
happened to explode over a region where, a few seconds later, there was
going to be an earthquake. “It therefore seems highly probable that the
earthquake coincided with a fall of meteors or of shooting stars.”
The duplication of the circumstances of Dec., 1896, continues. If of
course this concussion in Germany and Switzerland was the effect of
something that exploded in the sky—of what were the concussions that
were felt later, the effects? De Ballore does not mention anything that
occurred later. But, a few minutes past midnight, and then again, at 3
o’clock, morning of the 17th, there were other, but slighter, shocks.
Only at the time of the greatest shock was something seen in the sky.
_Nature_, 88-117—that this succession of phenomena did occur. We relate
the phenomena to the planet Mars, but also we ask—how, if most
reasonably, all three of these shocks were concussions from explosions
in the sky, if of course one of them was, meteors could ever so hound
one small region upon a moving earth, or projectiles be fired with such
specialization and preciseness? November 17th, 1911 was seven days
before the opposition of Mars. Though the opposition occurred upon the
24th of November, Mars was at minimum distance upon the 17th.
No matter how difficult of acceptance our own notions may be, they are
opposed by this barbarism, or puerility, or pill that can’t be digested:
Seven days from the opposition of Mars, in 1896, a great meteor exploded
over a region where there had been a succession of earthquakes—by
coincidence.
Seven days from the next similar opposition of Mars, a great meteor
exploded over a region where there was going to be a succession of
earthquakes—by coincidence.
* * * * *
The Advantagerians of the moon—that is the cult of lunar
communicationists, who try to take advantage of such celestial events as
oppositions and eclipses, thinking that astronomers, or night watchmen,
or policemen of this earth might at such times look up at the sky—
A great luminous object, or a meteor, that was seen at the time of the
eclipse of June 28, 1908—“as if to make the date of the eclipse more
memorable,” says W. F. Denning (_Observatory_, 31-288).
Not long before the opposition of Mars, in 1909, the bright spot west of
Picard was seen twice: March 26 and May 23 (_Jour. B. A. A._, 19-376).
Nov. 16, 1910—an eclipse of the moon, and a “meteor” that appeared,
almost at the moment of totality (_Eng. Mec._, 92-430). It is reported,
in _Nature_, 85-118, as seen by Madame de Robeck, at Naas, Ireland,
“from an apparent radiant, just below the eclipsed moon.” The thing may
have come from the moon. Seemingly with the same origin, it was seen far
away in France. In _La Nature_, Nov. 26, 1910, it is said that, at
Besançon, France, during the eclipse, was seen a meteor like a superb
rocket, “qui serait partie de la lune.” There may have been something
occurring upon the moon at the time. In the _Jour. B. A. A._, 21-100, it
is said that Mrs. Albright had seen a luminous point upon the moon
throughout the eclipse.
* * * * *
Our expression is that there is an association between reported objects,
like extra-mundane visitors, and nearest approaches by the planet Venus
to this earth. Perhaps unfortunately this is our expression, because it
makes for more restriction than we intend. The objects, or the voyagers,
have often been seen during the few hours of the visibility of Venus,
when the planet is nearest. “Then such an object is Venus,” say the
astronomers. If anybody wonders why, if these seeming navigators can
come close to this earth—as they do approach, if they appear only in a
local sky—they do not then come all the way to this earth, let him ask a
sea captain why said captain never purposely descends to the bottom of
the ocean, though travelling often not far away. However, I conceive of
a great variety of extra-mundanians, and I am now collecting data for a
future expression—that some kinds of beings from outer space can adapt
to our conditions, which may be like the bottom of a sea, and have been
seen, but have been supposed to be psychic phenomena.
Upon Oct. 31, 1908, the planet Venus was four months past inferior
conjunction, and so had moved far from nearest approach, but there are
vague stories of strange objects that had been seen in the skies of this
earth—localized in New England—back to the time of nearest approach. In
the New York _Sun_, Nov. 1, 1908, is published a dispatch, from Boston,
dated Oct. 31. It is said that, near Bridgewater, at four o’clock in the
morning of Oct. 31, two men had seen a spectacle in the sky. The men
were not astronomers. They were undertakers. There may be a disposition
to think that these observers were not in their own field of greatest
expertness, and to think that we are not very exacting as to the sources
of our data. But we have to depend upon undertakers, for instance: early
in our investigations, we learned that the prestige of astronomers has
been built upon their high moral character, all of them most excellently
going to bed soon after sunset, so as to get up early and write all day
upon astronomical subjects. But the exemplary in one respect may not
lead to much advancement in some other respect. Our undertakers saw, in
the sky, something like a searchlight. It played down upon this earth,
as if directed by an investigator, and then it flashed upward. “All of
the balloons in which ascensions are made, in this State, were accounted
for today, and a search through southeastern Massachusetts failed to
reveal any further trace of the supposed airship.” It is said that
“mysterious bright lights,” believed to have come from a balloon, had
been reported from many places in New England. The week before, persons
at Ware had said that they had seen an illuminated balloon passing over
the town, early in the morning. During the summer such reports had come
from Bristol, Conn., and later from Pittsfield, Mass., and from White
River Junction, Vt. “In all these cases, however, no balloon could be
found, all the known airships being accounted for.” In the New York
_Sun_, Dec. 13, 1909, it is said that, during the autumn of 1908,
reports had come from different places in Connecticut, upon a mysterious
light that moved rapidly in the sky.
Venus moved on, travelling around the sun, which was revolving around
this earth, or travelling any way to suit anybody. In December, 1909,
the planet was again approaching this earth. So close was Venus to this
earth that, upon the 15th of December, 1909, crowds stood, at noon, in
the streets of Rome, watching it, or her (New York _Sun_, Dec. 16). At 3
o’clock, afternoon of December 24th crowds stood in the streets of New
York, watching Venus (New York _Tribune_, Dec. 25). One supposes that
upon these occasions Venus may have been within several thousand miles
of this earth. At any rate I have never heard of one fairly good reason
for supposing otherwise. If again something appeared in local skies of
this earth, or in the skies of New England, and sometimes during the few
hours of the visibility of Venus, the object was or was not Venus, all
according to the details of various descriptions, and the credibility of
the details. The searchlight, for instance; more than one light;
directions and motions. Venus, at the time, was for several hours after
sunset, slowly descending in the southwest: primary maximum brilliance
Jan. 8th, 1910; inferior conjunction Feb. 12th.
There is an amusing befuddlement to clear away first. Upon the night of
September 8, 1909, a luminous object had been seen sailing over New
England, and sounds from it, like sounds from a motor, had been heard.
Then Mr. Wallace Tillinghast, of Worcester, Mass., announced that this
light had been a lamp in his “secret aëroplane,” and that upon this
night he had travelled, in said “secret aëroplane,” from Boston to New
York, and back to Boston. At this time the longest recorded flight, in
an aëroplane, was Farman’s, of 111 miles, from Rheims, August, 1909;
and, in the United States, according to records, it was not until May
29, 1910, that Curtiss flew from Albany to New York City, making one
stop in the 150 miles, however. So this unrecorded flight made some stir
in the newspapers. Mr. Tillinghast meant his story humorously of course.
I mention it because, if anybody should look the matter up, he will find
the yarn involved in the newspaper accounts. If nothing else had been
seen, Mr. Tillinghast might still tell his story, and explain why he
never did anything with his astonishing “secret aëroplane”; but
something else was seen, and upon one of the nights in which it
appeared, Tillinghast was known to be in his home.
According to the New York _Tribune_, Dec. 21, 1909, Immigration
Inspector Hoe, of Boston, had reported having seen, at one o’clock in
the morning of December 20, “a bright light passing over the harbor” and
had concluded that he had seen an airship of some kind.
New York _Tribune_, Dec. 23—that a “mysterious airship” had appeared
over the town of Worcester, Mass., “sweeping the heavens with a
searchlight of tremendous power.” It had come from the southeast, and
travelled northwest, then hovering over the city, disappearing in the
direction of Marlboro. Two hours later, it returned. “Thousands thronged
the streets, watching the mysterious visitor.” Again it hovered, then
moving away, heading first to the south and then to the east.
The next night, something was seen, at 6 o’clock, at Boston. “The
searchlights shot across the sky line.” “As it flew away to the north,
queries began to pour into the newspaper offices and the police
stations, regarding the remarkable visitation.” It is said that an hour
and a half later, an object that was supposed to be an airship with a
powerful searchlight, appeared in the sky, at Willimantic, Conn.,
“hovering” over the town about 15 minutes. In the New York _Sun_, Dec.
24, are more details. It is said that, at Willimantic, had been seen a
large searchlight, approaching from the east, and that then dark
outlines of something behind the searchlight had been seen. Also, in the
_Sun_, it is said that whatever it may have been that was seen at
Boston, it was a dark object, with several red lights and a searchlight,
approaching Boston from the west, hovering for 10 minutes, and then
moving away westward. From Lynn, Mass., it was described as “a long
black object,” moving in the direction of Salem, and then returning, “at
a high speed.” It is said that the object had been seen at Marlboro,
Mass., nine times since Dec. 14.
New York _Tribune_, Jan. 1, 1910—dispatch from Huntington, West
Virginia, Dec. 31, 1909—“Three huge lights of almost uniform dimensions
appeared in the early morning sky, in this neighborhood, today. Joseph
Green, a farmer, declared that they were meteors, which fell on his
farm. An extensive search of his land by others who saw the lights was
fruitless, and many persons believe that an airship had sped over the
country.”
In the _Tribune_, Jan. 13, 1910, it is said that, at 9 o’clock, morning
of Jan. 12, an airship had been seen at Chattanooga, Tenn. “Thousands
saw the craft, and heard the ‘chug’ of its engine.” Later the object was
reported from Huntsville, Alabama. New York _Tribune_, Jan. 15—dispatch
from Chattanooga, Jan. 14—“For the third successive day, a mysterious
white aircraft passed over Chattanooga, about noon today. It came from
the north, and was travelling southeast, disappearing over Missionary
Ridge. On Wednesday, it came south, and on Thursday, it returned north.”
In the middle of December, 1909, someone had won a prize for sailing in
a dirigible from St. Cyr to the Eiffel Tower and back.
St. Cyr is several miles from Paris.
Huntsville, Alabama, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, are 75 miles apart.
An association between the planet Venus and “mysterious visitors” either
illumines or haunts our data. In the New York _Tribune_, Jan. 29, 1910,
it is said that a luminous object, thought to be Winnecke’s comet, had
been seen, Jan. 28, near Venus; reported from the Manila Observatory.
I have another datum that perhaps belongs to this series of events.
Every night, from the 14th to the 23rd of December, 1909, if we accept
the account from Marlboro, a luminous object was seen travelling, or
exploring, in the sky of New England. Certainly enough it was no “secret
airship” of this earth, unless its navigator went to extremes with the
notion that the best way to kept a secret is to announce it with red
lights and a searchlight. However, our acceptance depends upon general
data as to the development of terrestrial aeronautics. But upon the
night of December 24th, the object was not seen in New England, and it
may have been travelling or exploring somewhere else. Night of the
24th—Venus in the southwest in the early hours of the evening. In the
_English Mechanic_, 104-71, a correspondent, who signs himself “Rigel,”
writes that, upon Dec. 24, at 8.30 o’clock in the evening, he saw a
luminous object appear above the northeastern horizon and slowly move
southward, until 8.50 o’clock, then turning around, retracing, and
disappearing whence it came, at two minutes past nine. The correspondent
is James Fergusen, Rossbrien, Limerick, Ireland. He writes frequently
upon astronomical and meteorological subjects, and is still contributing
to the somewhat enlightened columns of the _English Mechanic_.
* * * * *
Nov. 19, 1912—explosive sounds reported from Sunninghill, Berkshire. No
earthquake was recorded at the Kew Observatory, and, in the opinion of
W. F. Denning (_Nature_, 9-363, 417) the explosion was in the sky. It
was a terrific explosion, according to the Westminster _Gazette_ (Nov.
19). There was either one great explosion that rumbled and echoed for
five minutes, or there were repeated detonations, resembling
cannonading—“like a tremendous discharge of big guns” according to
reports from Abingdon, Lewes, and Epsom. Sunninghill is about ten miles
from Reading, and Abingdon is near Reading, but the sound was heard in
London, and down by the English Channel, and even in the island of
Alderney. In the _Gazette_, Nov. 28, Sir George Fordham (H. G. Fordham)
writes that, in his opinion, it was an explosion in the sky. He
says—“The phenomena of airshock never have, I believe, been very fully
investigated.” His admissions and his omissions remain the same as they
have been since occurrences of the year 1889. He does not mention that,
according to Philip T. Kenway, of Hambledon, near Godalming, about
thirty miles southeast of Reading, the sounds were heard again the next
day, from 1.45 to 2 P. M. Mr. Kenway thinks that there had been big-gun
firing at Portsmouth (_West. Gaz._, Nov. 21). In the London _Standard_,
a correspondent, writing from Dorking, say that the phenomena of the
19th were like concussions from cannonading—“at regular intervals”—“at
quick intervals, lasting some seconds each time, for five minutes, by
the clock.”
It develops that Reading was the center over which the detonations
occurred. In the Westminster _Gazette_, Nov. 30, it is said that the
shocks had been felt in Reading, upon the 19th, 20th, and 21st. Only
from Reading have I record of phenomena upon the 21st. Mr. H. L.
Hawkins, Lecturer in Geology, of the Reading University, writes that
according to his investigations there had been no gun-firing in England,
to which the detonations could be attributed. He says that Fordham’s
explanation was in accord with his own investigations, or that the
detonations had occurred in the sky. He writes that, inasmuch as the
detonations had occurred upon three successive days, a shower of
meteors, of long duration, would have to be supposed. How he ever
visualized that unerring shower, striking one point over this earth’s
surface, and nowhere else, day after day, if this earth be a rotating
and revolving body, I can not see. If he should say that by coincidence
this repetition could occur, then by what coincidence of coincidences
could the same repetitions have occurred in this same local sky,
centering around Reading, seven years before? The indications are that
this earth is stationary, no matter how unreasonable that may sound.
In the Westminster _Gazette_, Dec. 9, W. F. Denning writes that without
doubt the phenomena were “meteoric explosions.” But he alludes to the
“airquake and strange noises” that were heard upon the 19th. He does not
mention the detonations that were heard upon the following days. Not one
of these writers mentions the sounds that were heard in Reading, in
November, 1905.
London _Standard_, Nov. 23, 1912—that, according to Lieut. Col. Trewman,
of Reading, the sounds had been heard at Reading, at 9 A. M., upon the
19th; 1.45 P. M., the 20th; 3.30 P. M., the 21st.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Unknown Aircraft Over Dover.”
According to the Dover correspondent to the London _Times_ (Jan. 6,
1913) something had been seen, over Dover, heading from the sea.
In the London _Standard_, Jan. 24, 1913, it is said that, upon the
morning of Jan. 4, an unknown airship had been seen, over Dover, and
that, about the same time, the lights of an airship had been seen over
the Bristol Channel. These places are several hundred miles apart.
London _Times_, Jan. 21—report by Capt. Lindsay, Chief Constable of
Glamorganshire: that, about five o’clock, in the afternoon of Jan. 17,
he saw an object in the sky of Cardiff, Wales. He says that he called
the attention of a bystander, who agreed with him that it was a large
object. “It was much larger than the Willows airship, and left in its
trail a dense smoke. It disappeared quickly.”
The next day, according to the _Times_, there were other reports: people
in Cardiff saw something that was lighted or that carried lights, moving
rapidly in the sky. In the _Times_, of the 28th, it is said that an
airship that carried a brilliant light had been seen in Liverpool. “It
is stated at the Liverpool Aviation School that none of the airmen had
been out on Saturday night.” Dispatches from town after town—a
travelling thing in the sky, carrying a light, and also a searchlight
that swept the ground. It is said that a vessel, of which the outlines
had been clearly seen, had appeared in the sky of Cardiff, Newport,
Neath, and other places in Wales. In the _Standard_, Jan. 31, is
published a list of cities where the object had been seen. Here a writer
tries to conclude that some foreign airship had made half a dozen visits
to England and Wales, or had come once, remaining three weeks; but he
gives up the attempt, thinking that nothing could have reached England
and have sailed away half a dozen times without being seen to cross the
coast; thinking that the idea of anything having made one journey, and
remaining three weeks in the air deserved no consideration.
If the unknown object did carry something like a searchlight, an idea of
its powers is given in an account in the Cardiff _Evening Express_, Jan.
25, 1913—“Last evening brilliant lights were seen, sweeping skyward, and
now, this evening, the lights grow bolder. Streets and houses in the
locality of Totterdown were suddenly illuminated by a brilliant,
piercing light, which, sweeping upward, gave many spectators a fine view
of the hills beyond.” In the _Express_, Feb. 6, is a report upon this
light like a searchlight, and the object that flashed it, by the police
of Dulais Valley. Also there is an account, by a police sergeant, of a
luminous thing that was for a while stationary in the sky, and then
moved away.
Still does the conventional explanation, or suggestion, survive. It is
said that members of the staff of the _Evening Express_ had gone to the
roof of the newspaper building, but had seen only the planet Venus,
which was brilliant at this time.
Then writes a correspondent, to the _Express_, that the object could not
have been Venus, because he had seen it travelling at a rate of 20 or 30
miles an hour, and had heard sounds from it. Someone else writes that
not possibly could the thing be Venus: he had seen it as “a bright red
light, going very fast.” Still someone else says that he had seen the
seeming vessel upon the 5th of February, and that it had suddenly
disappeared.
There is a hiatus. Between the 5th and the 21st of February, nothing
like an airship was seen in the sky of England and Wales. If we can find
that somewhere else something similar was seen in the sky, in this
period, one supposes that it was the same object, exploring or
manœuvring somewhere else. It seems however that there were several of
these objects, because of simultaneous observations at places far apart.
If we can find that, during the absence from England and Wales, similar
objects were seen somewhere else, a great deal of what we try to think
upon the subject will depend upon how far from Great Britain they were
seen. It seems incredible that the planet Venus should deceive thousands
of Britons, up to the 5th of February, and stop her deceptions abruptly
upon that date, and then abruptly resume deceptions upon the 21st, in
places at a distance apart. These circumstances oppose the idea of
collective hallucinations, by which some writers in the newspapers tried
to explain. If they were hallucinations, the hallucinations renewed
collectively, upon the 21st, in towns one hundred miles apart. One
extraordinary association is that all appearances, except the first,
were in the hours of visibility of Venus, then an “evening star.”
Upon the night of the 21st, a luminous object was reported from towns in
Yorkshire and from towns in Warwickshire, two regions about one hundred
miles apart; about 10 P. M. All former attempts to explain had been
abandoned, and the general supposition was that German airships were
manœuvring over England. But not a thing had been seen to cross the
coast of England, though guards were patrolling the coasts, especially
commissioned to watch for foreign airships. Sailors in the North Sea,
and people in Holland and Belgium had seen nothing that could be thought
a German airship sailing to or from England. A writer in _Flight_ takes
up as especially mysterious the appearance far inland, in Warwickshire.
Then came reports from Portsmouth, Ipswich, Hornsea, and Hull, but, one
notes, no more, at this time, from Wales. Also in Ipswich, which is more
than a hundred miles from the towns in Warwickshire, and more than a
hundred miles from the Yorkshire towns, a luminous object was seen upon
the night of the 21st. Ipswich _Evening Star_, Feb. 25—something that
carried a searchlight that had been seen upon the nights of the 21st and
24th, moving in various directions, and then “dashing off at lightning
speed”—that, at Hunstanton, had been seen three bright lights travelling
from the eastern sky, remaining in sight 30 minutes, stationary, or
hovering over the town, and then disappearing in the northwest.
Portsmouth _Evening News_, Feb. 25—that soon after 8 P. M., evening of
the 24th, had been seen a very bright light, appearing and disappearing,
remaining over Portsmouth about one hour, and then moving away.
Portsmouth and Ipswich are about 120 miles apart. In the London
newspapers, it is said that, upon the evening of the 25th, crowds stood
in the streets of Hull, watching something in the sky, “the lights of
which were easily distinguishable.” Hull is about 190 miles northeast of
Portsmouth. Hull _Daily Mail_, Feb. 26—that a crowd had watched a light
high in the air. It is said that the light had been stationary for
almost half an hour and had then shot away northward. In the _Times_,
Feb. 28, are published reports upon “the clear outlines of an airship,
which was carrying a dazzling searchlight,” from Portland, Burcleaves,
St. Alban’s Head, Papplewich, and the Orkneys. The last account, after a
long interval, that I know of, is another report from Capt. Lindsay:
that, about 9 o’clock, evening of April 8th, he and many other persons
had seen, over Cardiff, something that carried a brilliant light and
travelled at a rate of sixty or seventy miles an hour.
Upon April 24, 1913, the planet Venus was at inferior conjunction.
In the _Times_, Feb. 28, it is said that a fire-balloon had been found
in Yorkshire, and it is suggested that someone had been sending up
fire-balloons.
In the _Bull. Soc. Astro. de France_, 1913-178, it is said that the
people of England were as credulous as the people of Cherbourg, and had
permitted themselves to be deceived by the planet Venus.
If German airships were manœuvring over England, without being seen
either approaching or departing, appearing sometimes far inland in
England without being seen to cross the well-guarded coasts, it was
secret manœuvring, inasmuch as the accusation was denied in Germany
(_Times_, Feb. 26 and 27). It was then one of the most brilliantly
proclaimed of secrets, or it was concealment under one of the most
powerful searchlights ever seen. Possibly an airship from Germany could
appear over such a city as Hull, upon the east coast of England, without
being seen to arrive or to depart, but so far from Germany is
Portsmouth, for instance, that one does feel that something else will
have to be thought of. The appearances over Liverpool and over towns in
Wales might be attributed to German airships by someone who has not seen
a map since he left school. There were more observations upon sudden
appearances and disappearances than I have recorded: stationariness
often occurred.
The objects were absent from the sky of Great Britain, from Feb. 5 to
Feb. 21.
According to data published by Prof. Chant, in the _Journal of the Royal
Astronomical Society of Canada_, 7-148, the most extraordinary
procession in our records was seen, in the sky of Canada, upon the night
of Feb. 9, 1913. Either groups of meteors, in one straight line, passed
over the city of Toronto, or there was a procession of unknown objects,
carrying lights. According to Prof. Chant, the spectacle was seen from
the Saskatchewan to Bermuda, but if this long route was traversed, data
do not so indicate. The supposed route was diagonally across New York
State, from Buffalo, to a point near New York City, but from New York
State are recorded no observations other than might have been upon
ordinary meteors, this night. A succession of luminous objects passed
over Toronto, night of Feb. 9, 1913, occupying from three to five
minutes in passing, according to different estimates. If one will think
that they were meteors, at least one will have to think that no such
meteors had ever been seen before. In the _Journal_, 7-405, W. F.
Denning writes that, though he had been watching the heavens since the
year 1865, he had never seen anything like this. In most of the
observations, the procession is described as a whole—“like an express
train, lighted at night”—“the lights were at different points, one in
front, and a rear light, then a succession of lights in the tail.”
Almost all of the observations relate to the sky of Toronto and not far
from Toronto. It is questionable that the same spectacle was seen in
Bermuda, this night. The supposed long flight from the Saskatchewan to
Bermuda might indicate something of a meteoric nature, but the
meteor-explanation must take into consideration that these objects were
so close to this earth that sounds from them were heard, and that,
without succumbing to gravitation, they followed the curvature of this
earth at a relatively low velocity that can not compare with the
velocity of ordinary meteors.
If now be accepted that again, the next day, objects were seen in the
sky of Toronto, but objects unlighted, in the daytime—I suppose that to
some minds will come the thought that this is extraordinary, and that
almost immediately the whole subject will then be forgotten. Prof. Chant
says that, according to the Toronto _Daily Star_, unknown objects, but
dark objects this time, were seen at Toronto, in the afternoon of the
next day—“not seen clearly enough to determine their nature, but they
did not seem to be clouds or birds or smoke, and it was suggested that
they were airships cruising over the city.” Toronto _Daily Star_, Feb.
10—“They passed from west to east, in three groups, and then returned
west in more scattered formation, about seven or eight in all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
August, 1914—this arena-like earth, with its horizon banking high into a
Coliseum, when seen from not too far above—faint, rattling sounds of the
opening of boundaries—tawny formations slinking into the arena—their
crouchings and seizures and crunchings. Aug. 13, 1914—things that were
gathering in the sky. They were seen by G. W. Atkins, of Elstree, Herts,
and were seen again upon the 16th and the 17th (_Observatory_, 37-358).
Sept. 9, 1914—a host in the sky; watched several hours by W. H.
Steavenson (_Jour. B. A. A._, 25-27). There were round appearances, but
some of them were shaped like dumb bells. They were not seeds,
snowflakes, insects, nor anything else that they “should” have been,
according to Mr. Steavenson. He says that they were large bodies.
Oct. 10, 1914—a ship that was seen in the sky—or “an absolutely black,
spindle-shaped object” crossing the sun. It was seen, at Manchester, by
Albert Buss (_Eng. Mec._, 100-236). “Its extraordinarily clear-cut
outline was surrounded by a kind of halo, giving the impression of a
ship, plowing her way through the sea, throwing up white-foamed waves
with her prow.”
Mikkelsen (_Lost in the Arctic_, p. 345):
“During the last few days (Oct., 1914) we have been much tumbled up and
down in our minds, owing to a remarkable occurrence, somewhat in the
nature of Robinson Crusoe’s encounter with the footprints in the sand.
Our advance load has been attacked—an empty petroleum cask is found,
riddled with tiny holes, such as would be made by a charge of shot! Now
a charge of shot is scarcely likely to materialize out of nowhere; one
is accustomed to associate the phenomenon with the presence of human
beings. It is none of our doing—then whose doing is it? We hit upon the
wildest theories to account for it, as we sit in the tent, turning the
mysterious object over and over. No beast of our acquaintance could make
all those little round holes: what animal could even open its jaws so
wide? And why should anybody take the trouble to make a target of our
gear? Are there Eskimos about—Eskimos with guns? There are no footprints
to be seen: it could scarcely have been an animal—the whole thing is
highly mysterious.”
Jan 31, 1915—a symbolic-looking formation upon the moon—six or seven
white spots, in Littrow, arranged like the Greek letter _Gamma_ (_Eng.
Mec._, 101-47).
Feb. 13, 1915—Steep Island, Chusan Archipelago—a light-house-keeper
complained to Capt. W. F. Tyler, R. N., that a British warship had fired
a projectile at the lighthouse. But no vessel had fired a shot, and it
is said that the object must have been a meteor (_Nature_, 97-17).
In the middle of February, 1915, the planet Venus was about two months
and a half past inferior conjunction. If objects like navigating
constructions were seen in the sky, at this time, there may be an
association, but I am turning against that association, feeling that it
is harmful to our wider expression that extra-mundane vessels have been
seen in the sky of this earth, and that they come from regions at
present unknown. New York _Tribune_, Feb. 15, 1915—that, at 10 P. M.,
Feb. 14, three aëroplanes had been seen to cross the St. Lawrence river,
near Morristown, N. Y., according to reports, but that, in the opinion
of the Dominion police, nothing but fire-balloons had been seen. It is
said that two “responsible residents” had seen two of the objects cross
the river, between 8 and 8.30 P. M., and then return five hours later.
In the Canadian Parliament, Sir Wilfred Laurier had said that, at 9 P.
M., he had been called up by the Mayor of Brockwell, telling him that
three aëroplanes, with “powerful searchlights” had crossed the St.
Lawrence. The story is told in the New York _Herald_. Here it is said
that, according to the Chief of Police, of Ogdensburg, N. Y., a farmer,
living five miles from Ogdensburg, had reported having seen an
aëroplane, upon the 12th. Then it is said that the mystery had been
solved: that, while celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of peace
between the United States and Canada, some young men of Morristown had
sent up paper balloons, which had exploded in the sky, after 9 P. M.,
night of the 14th. New York _Times_—that the objects had been seen first
at Guananoque, Ontario. Here it is said that the balloon-story is
absurd. According to the Dominion Observatory, the wind was, at the
time, blowing from the east, and the objects had travelled toward the
northeast. It is said that one of the objects had, for several minutes,
turned a powerful searchlight upon the town of Brockwell.
Upon Dec. 11, 1915, Bernard Thomas, of Glenorchy, Tasmania, saw a
“particularly bright spot upon the moon” (_Eng. Mec._, 103-10). It was
on the north shore of the Mare Crisium, and “looked almost like a star.”
In Dr. Thomas’ opinion, it was sunlight reflected from the rim of a
small crater. The crater Picard is near the north shore of the Mare
Crisium, and most of the illuminations near Picard have occurred several
months from an opposition of Mars.
In December, 1915, another new formation upon the moon—reported from the
Observatory of Paris—something like a black wall from the center to the
ramparts of Aristillus (_Bull. Soc. Astro. de France_, 30-383).
Jan. 12, 1916—a shock in Cincinnati, Ohio. Buildings were shaken. The
quake was from an explosion in the sky. Flashes were seen in the sky.
(New York _Herald_, Jan. 13, 1916).
Feb. 9, 1916—opposition of Mars.
In the _English Mechanic_, 104-71, James Ferguson writes that someone
had seen, at 11 o’clock, night of July 31, 1916, at Ballinasloe,
Ireland, just such a moving thing, or just such a sailing, exploring
thing as is now familiar in our records. For fifteen minutes it moved in
a northwesterly direction. For three quarters of an hour it was
stationary. Then it moved back to the point where first it had been
seen, remaining visible until four o’clock in the morning. Whatever this
object may have been, it left the sky at about the time that Venus
appeared, as a “morning star,” in the sky at Ballinasloe, and resembles
the occurrence of Sept 11, 1852, reported by Lord Wrottesley. Inferior
conjunction of Venus was upon July 3, 1916. We have noticed that all
occurrences that we somewhat reluctantly associate with nearness of
Venus associate more with times of greatest brilliance, five weeks
before and after inferior conjunction, than with dates of conjunction.
Somebody may demonstrate that at these times Venus comes closest to this
earth.
Oct. 10, 1916—a reddish shadow that spread over part of the lunar crater
Plato; reported from the Observatory of Florence, Italy (_Sci. Amer._,
121-181).
Nov. 25, 1916—about twenty-five bright flashes, in rapid succession, in
the sky of Cardiff, Wales, according to Arthur Mee (_Eng. Mec._,
104-239).
Col. Markwick writes, in the _Jour. B. A. A._, 27-188, that, at 6.10 P.
M., April 15, 1917, he had seen, upon the sun, a solitary spot,
different from all sunspots that he had seen in an experience of
forty-three years. Col. Markwick had written to Mr. Maunder, of the
Greenwich Observatory, and had been told that, in photographs taken of
the sun upon this day, one at 11.17 and another at 11.20 o’clock, there
was no sign of a sunspot.
July 4, 1917—an eclipse of the sun, and an extraordinary luminous object
said to have been a meteor, in France (_Bull. Soc. Astro, de France_,
31-299). About 6.20 P. M., this day, there was an explosion over the
town of Colby, Wisconsin, and a stone fell from the sky (_Science_,
Sept. 14, 1917).
Aug. 29, 1917—a luminous object that was seen moving upon the moon
(_Bull. Soc. Astro. de France_, 31-439).
Feb. 21, 1919—an intensely black line extending out from the lunar
crater Lexall (_Eng. Mec._, 109-517).
Upon May 19, 1919, while Harry Hawker was at sea, untraceable messages,
meaningless in the languages of this earth, were picked up by wireless,
according to dispatches to the newspapers. They were interpreted as the
letters _K U J_ and _V K A J_.
In October, 1913, occurred something that may not be so very mysterious
because of nearness to the sea. One supposes that if extra-mundane
vessels have sometimes come close to this earth, then sailing away,
terrestrial aëronauts may have occasionally left this earth, or may have
been seized and carried away from this earth. Upon the morning of Oct.
13, 1913, Albert Jewel started to fly in his aëroplane from Hempstead
Plains, Long Island, to Staten Island. The route that he expected to
take was over Jamaica Bay, Brooklyn, Coney Island, and the Narrows. New
York _Times_, Oct. 14, 1913—“That was the last seen or heard of him ...
he has been as completely lost as if he had evaporated into air.” But as
to the disappearance of Capt. James there are circumstances that do call
for especial attention. New York _Times_, June 2, 1919—that Capt.
Mansell R. James was lost somewhere in the Berkshire Hills, upon his
flight from Boston to Atlantic City, or, rather, upon the part of his
route between Lee, Mass., and Mitchel Field, Long Island. He had left
Lee upon May 29th. Over the Berkshires, or in the Berkshires, he had
disappeared. According to later dispatches, searching parties had
“scoured” the Berkshires, without finding a trace of him. Upon June 4th,
army planes arrived and searched systematically. There was general
excitement, in this mystery of Capt. James. Rewards were offered; all
subscribers of the Southern New England Telephone Company were enlisted
in a quest for news of any kind; boy scouts turned out. Up to this date
of writing there has been nothing but a confusion of newspaper
dispatches: that two children had seen a plane, about thirteen miles
north of Long Island Sound; that two men had seen a plane fall into the
Hudson River, near Poughkeepsie; that, in a gully of Mount Riga, near
Millerstown, N. Y., had been found the remains of a plane; that part of
a plane had been washed ashore from Long Island Sound, near Branford.
The latest interest in the subject that I know of was in the summer of
1921. A heavy object was known to be at the bottom of the Hudson River,
near Poughkeepsie, and was thought to be Capt. James’ plane. It was
dredged up and found to be a log.
For an extraordinary story of windows, in Newark, N. J., that were
perforated by unfindable bullets, see New York _Evening Telegram_, Sept.
19, 1919, and the Newark _Evening News_. The occurrence is a counterpart
of Mikkelsen’s experience.
The detonations at Reading were heard seven years apart. Here it is not
quite seven years later. London _Times_, Sept. 26, 1919—that upon Sept.
25, a shock had been felt at Reading; that inquiries had led to
information of no known explosion near Reading. In the _Times_, Oct. 14,
Mr. H. L. Hawkins writes that the shock was “quite definitely an
earthquake, but its origin was superficial” and that the shock “was
transmitted through the earth more than through the air.” In the London
_Daily Chronicle_, Sept. 27, Mr. Hawkins, having considered all
suggestions that the shock was a subterranean earthquake, had written:
“However, as the whole thing terminated in a bump and a big bang,
without subsequent shaking of the ground, it points more to an explosion
of a natural type up in the air than to a real earthquake.” And, in the
London _Daily Mail_, Mr. Hawkins is quoted: that if the detonation were
local, he would believe that it was an aërial explosion (“meteoric”);
but, if it were widespread, it would be considered an earthquake. And in
the whole series of the Reading phenomena, this violent detonation was
most distinctly local to Reading.
Reading _Observer_, Sept. 27, 1919—“The most probable explanation of the
occurrence is that there was an explosion somewhere near enough to
affect the town.... Officials at the Greenwich Observatory were unable
to throw any light on the matter, and said that their instruments showed
no signs of earth-disturbance.”
It is said that the sound and shock were violent, and that, in the
residential parts of Reading, the streets were crowded with persons
discussing the occurrence.
There was a similar shock in Michigan, Nov. 27, 1919. In many cities,
persons rushed from their homes, thinking that there had been an
earthquake (New York _Times_, Nov. 28). But, in Indiana, Illinois, and
Michigan, a “blinding glare” was seen in the sky. Our acceptance is that
this occurrence is, upon a small scale, of the type of many catastrophes
in Italy and South America, for instance, when just such “blinding
glares” have been seen in the sky, data of which have been suppressed by
conventional scientists, or data of which have not impressed
conventional scientists.
_English Mechanic_, 110-257—J. W. Scholes, of Huddersfield, writes that,
upon Dec. 19, 1919, he saw, near the lunar crater Littrow, “a very
conspicuous black-ink mark.” Upon page 282, W. J. West, of Gosport,
writes that he had seen the mark upon the 7th of December.
March 22, 1920—a light in the sky of this earth, and an illumination
upon the moon (_Eng. Mec._, 111-142). That so close to this earth is the
moon that illuminations known as “auroral” often affect both this earth
and the moon.
July 20 and 21, and Sept. 13, 1920—dull rumbling sounds and quakes at
Comrie, Perthshire (London _Times_, July 23 and Sept. 14, 1920).
According to a dispatch to the Los Angeles _Times_—clipping sent to me
by Mr. L. A. Hopkins, of Chicago—thunder and lightning and heavy rain,
at Portland, Oregon, July 21, 1920: objects falling from the sky;
glistening, white fragments that looked like “bits of polished china.”
“The explanation of the local Weather Bureau is that they may have been
picked up by a whirlwind and carried to the district where they were
found.” The objection to this standardized explanation is the
homogeneousness of the falling objects. How can one conceive of winds
raging over some region covered with the usual great diversity of loose
objects and substances, having a liking for little white stones, sorting
over maybe a million black ones, green ones, white ones, and red ones,
to make the desired selection? One supposes that a storm brought to this
earth fragments of a manufactured object, made of something like china,
from some other world.
In the _Literary Digest_, Sept. 2, 1921, is published a letter from Carl
G. Gowman, of Detroit, Michigan, upon the fall from the sky, in
southwest China, Nov. 17 (1920?) of a substance that resembled blood. It
fell upon three villages close together, and was said to have fallen
somewhere else forty miles away. The quantity was great: in one of the
villages, the substance “covered the ground completely.” Mr. Gowman
accepts that this substance did fall from the sky, because it was found
upon roofs as well as upon the ground. He rejects the conventional
red-dust explanation, because the spots did not dissolve in several
subsequent rains. He says that anything like pollen is out of the
question, because at the time nothing was in bloom.
Nov. 23, 1920—a correspondent writes, to the _English Mechanic_,
112-214, that he saw a shaft of light projecting from the moon, or a
spot so bright that it appeared to project, from the limb of the moon,
in the region of Funerius.
About Jan. 1, 1921—several irregular, black objects that crossed the
sun. To the Rev. William Ellison (_Eng. Mec._, 112-276) they looked like
pieces of burnt paper.
July 25, 1921—a loud report, followed by a sharp tremor, and a rumbling
sound, at Comrie (London _Times_, July 27, 1921).
July 31, 1921—a common indication of other lands from which come objects
and substances to this earth—but our reluctance to bother with anything
so ordinarily marvellous—
Because we have conceived of intenser times and furies of differences of
potential between this earth and other worlds: torrents of dinosaurs, in
broad volumes that were streaked with lesser animals, pouring from the
sky, with a foam of tusks and fangs, enveloped in a bloody vapor that
was falsely dramatized by the sun, with rainbow-mockery. Or, in terms of
planetary emotions, such an outpouring was the serenade of some other
world to this earth. If poetry is imagery, and, if a flow of images be
solid poetry, such a recitation was in three-dimensional hyperbole that
was probably seen, or overheard, and criticized in Mars, and condemned
for its extravagance in Jupiter. Some other world, meeting this earth,
ransacking his solid imagination and uttering her living metaphors:
singing a flood of mastodons, purring her butterflies, bellowing an
ardor of buffaloes. Sailing away—sneaking up close to the planet Venus,
murmuring her antelopes, or arching his periphery and spitting horses at
her—
Poor, degenerate times—nowadays something comes close to this earth and
lisps little commonplaces to her—
July 31, 1921—a shower of little frogs that fell upon Anton Wagner’s
farm, near Stirling, Conn. (New York _Evening World_, Aug. 1, 1921).
At sunset, Aug. 7, 1921, an unknown luminous object was seen, near the
sun, at Mt. Hamilton, by an astronomer, Prof. Campbell, and by one of
those who may some day go out and set foot upon regions that are
supposed not to be: by an aviator, Capt. Rickenbacker. In the English
Mechanic, 114-211, another character in these fluttering vistas of the
opening of the coming drama of Extra-geography, Col. Markwick, a
conventional astronomer and also a recorder of strange things, lists
other observations upon this object, the earliest upon the 6th, by Dr.
Emmert, of Detroit. In the _English Mechanic_, 114-241, H. P. Hollis,
once upon a time deliciously “exact” and positive, says something, in
commenting upon these observations, that looks like a little weakness in
Exclusionism, because the old sureness is turning slightly shaky—“that
there are more wonderful things in the sky than we suspect, or that it
is easy to be self-deceived.”
It is funny to read of an “earthquake,” described in technical lingo,
and to have a datum that indicates that it was no earthquake at all, in
the usual seismologic sense, but a concussion from an explosion in the
sky. Aug. 7, 1921—a severe shock at New Canton, Virginia. See _Bull.
Seis. Soc. Amer._, 11-197—Prof. Stephen Taber’s explanation that the
shock had probably originated in the slate belt of Buckingham County,
intensity about _V_ on the _R.-F._ scale. But then it is said that,
according to the “authorities” of the McCormick Observatory, the
concussion was from an explosion in the sky. The time is coming when
nothing funny will be seen in this subject, if some day be accepted at
least parts of the masses of data that I am now holding back, until I
can more fully develop them—that some of the greatest catastrophes that
have devastated the face of this earth have been concussions from
explosions in the sky, so repeating in a local sky weeks at a time,
months sometimes, or intermittently for centuries, that fixed origins
above the ravaged areas are indicated.
New York _Tribune_, Sept. 2, 1921:
“J. C. H. Macbeth, London Manager of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph
Company, Ltd., told several hundred men, at a luncheon of the Rotary
Club, of New York, yesterday, that Signor Marconi believed he had
intercepted messages from Mars, during recent atmospheric experiments
with wireless on board his yacht _Electra_, in the Mediterranean. Mr.
Macbeth said that Signor Marconi had been unable to conceive of any
other explanation of the fact that, during his experiments he had picked
up magnetic wave-lengths of 150,000 metres, whereas the maximum length
of wave-production in the world today is 14,000 metres. The regularity
of the signals, Mr. Macbeth declared, disposed of any assumption that
the waves might have been caused by electrical disturbance. The signals
were unintelligible, consisting apparently of a code, the speaker said,
and the only signal recognized was one resembling the letter V in the
Marconi code.” See datum of May 19, 1919.
But, in the summer of 1921, the planet Mars was far from opposition. The
magnetic vibrations may have come from some other world. They may have
had the origin of the sounds that have been heard at regular intervals—
The San Salvadors of the sky—
And we return to the principle that has been our re-enforcement
throughout: that existence is infinite serialization, and that, except
in particulars, it repeats—
That the dot that spread upon the western horizon of Lisbon, March 4,
1493, can not be the only ship that comes back from the unknown, cargoed
with news—
And it may be Sept. this, nineteen hundred and twenty or thirty
something, or Feb. that, nineteen hundred and twenty or thirty something
else—and, later, see record of it in _Eng. Mec._, or _Sci. Amer._, vol.
and p. something or another—a speck in the sky of this earth—the return
of somebody from a San Salvador of the Sky—and the denial by the heavens
themselves, which may answer with explosions the vociferations below
them, of false calculations upon their remotenesses. If the heavens do
not participate with snow, the sky scrapers will precipitate torn up
papers and shirts and skirts, too, when the papers give out.
There will be a procession. Somebody will throw little black pebbles to
the crowds. Over his procession will fly blue-fringed cupids. Later he
will be insulted and abused and finally hounded to his death. But, in
that procession, he will lead by the nose an outrageous thing that
should not be: about ten feet long, short-winged, waddling on webbed
feet. Insult and abuse and death—he will snap his fingers under the nose
of the outrageous thing. It will be worth a great deal to lead that by
the nose and demonstrate that such things had been seen in the sky,
though they had been supposed to be angels. It will be a great moment
for somebody. He will come back to New York, and march up Broadway with
his angel.
Some now unheard-of De Soto, of this earth, will see for himself the
Father of Cloudbursts.
A Balboa of greatness now known only to himself will stand on a ridge in
the sky between two auroral seas.
Fountains of Everlasting Challenge.
Argosies in parallel lines and rabbles of individual adventurers. Well
enough may it be said that they are seeds in the sky. Of such are the
germs of colonies.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
That the Geo-system is an incubating organism, of which this earth is
the nucleus—but an organism that is so strongly characterized by
conditions and features of its own that likening it to any object
internal to it is the interpreting of a thing in terms of a
constituent—so that we think of an organism that is incompletely, or
absurdly inadequately, expressible in terms of the egg-like and the
larval and other forms of the immature—a geo-nucleated system that is
dependent upon its externality as, in one way or another, is every
similar, but lesser and included, thing—stimulated by flows of force
that are now said to be meteoric, though many so-called “meteoric”
streams seem more likely to be electric, that radiate from the umbilical
channels of its constellations—vitalized by its sun, which is itself
replenished by the comets, which, coming from external reservoirs of
force, impart to the sun their freightages, and, unaffected by
gravitation, return to an external existence, some of them even touching
the sun, but showing no indication of supposed solar attraction.
In a technical sense we give up the doctrine of Evolution. Ours is an
expression upon Super-embryonic Development, in one enclosed system.
Ours is an expression upon Design underlying and manifesting in all
things within this one system, with a Final Designer left out, because
we know of no designing force that is not itself the product of remoter
design. In terms of our own experience we can not think of an ultimate
designer, any more than we can think of ultimacy in any other respect.
But we are discussing a system that, in our conception, is not a final
entity; so then no metaphysical expression upon it is required.
I point out that this expression of ours is not meant for aid and
comfort to the reactionaries of the type of Col. W. J. Bryan, for
instance: it is not altogether anti-Darwinian: the concept of
Development replaces the concept of Evolution, but we accept the process
of Selection, not to anything loosely known as Environment, but
relatively to underlying Schedule and Design, predetermined and
supervised, as it were, but by nothing that we conceive of in
anthropomorphic terms.
I define what I mean by dynamic design, in the development of any
embryonic thing: a pre-determined, or not accidental, or not
irresponsible, passage along a schedule of phases to a climax of
unification of many parts. Some of the aspects of this process are the
simultaneous varying of parts, with destiny, and not with independence,
for their rule, or with future co-ordinations and functions for their
goal; and their survival while still incipient, not because they are
fittest relatively to contemporaneous environment, so not because of
usefulness or advantage in the present, inasmuch as at first they are
not only functionless but also discordant with established relations,
but surviving because they are in harmony with the dynamic plan of a
whole being: and the presence of forces of suppression, or repression,
as well as forces of stimulation and protection, so that parts are held
back, or are not permitted to develop before their time.
If we accept that these circumstances of embryonic development are the
circumstances of all wider development, within one enclosed system, the
doctrine of Darwinian Evolution, as applied generally, will, in our
minds, have to be replaced by an expression upon Super-embryonic
Development, and Darwinism, unmodified, will become to us one more of
the insufficiencies of the past. Darwinism concerns itself with the
adaptations of the present, and does heed the part that the past has
played, but, in Darwinism, there is no place for the influence of the
future upon the present.
Consider any part of an embryonic thing—the heart of an embryo—and at
first it is only a loop. It will survive, and it will be nourished in
its functionless incipiency; also it will not be permitted to become a
fully developed heart before its scheduled time arrives; its
circumstances are dominated by what it will be in the future. The eye of
an embryo is a better instance.
Consider anything of a sociologic nature that ever has grown: that there
never has been an art, science, religion, invention that was not at
first out of accord with established environment, visionary,
preposterous in the light of later standards, useless in its incipiency,
and resisted by established forces so that, seemingly animating it and
protectively underlying it, there may have been something that in spite
of its unfitness made it survive for future usefulness. Also there are
data for the acceptance that all things, in wider being, are held back
as well as protected and prepared for, and not permitted to develop
before comes scheduled time. Langley’s flying machine makes me think of
something of the kind—that this machine was premature; that it appeared
a little before the era of aviation upon this earth, and that therefore
Langley could not fly. But this machine was capable of flying, because,
some years later, Curtis did fly in it. Then one thinks that the Wright
Brothers were successful, because they did synchronize with a scheduled
time. I have heard that it is questionable that Curtis made no
alterations in Langley’s machine. There is no lack of instances. One of
the greatest of secrets that have eventually been found out was for ages
blabbed by all the pots and kettles in the world—but that the secret of
the steam engine could not, to the lowliest of intellects, or to
supposititiously highest of intellects, more than adumbratorily reveal
itself until came the time for its co-ordination with the other
phenomena and the requirements of the Industrial Age. And coal that was
stored in abundance near the surface of the ground—and the needs of
dwellers over coal mines, veins of which were often exposed upon the
surface of the ground, for fuel—but that this secret, too, obvious, too,
could not be revealed until the coming of the Industrial Age. Then the
building of factories, the inventing of machines, the digging of coal,
and the use of steam, all appearing by simultaneous variation, and
co-ordinating. Shores of North America—nowadays, with less hero-worship
than formerly, historians tell us that, to English and French fishermen,
the coast of Newfoundland was well-known, long before the year 1492;
nevertheless, to the world in general, it was not, or, according to our
acceptances, could not be, known. About the year 1500, a Portuguese
fleet was driven by storms to the coast of Brazil, and returned to
Europe. Then one thinks that likely enough, before the year 1492, other
vessels had been so swept to the coasts of the western hemisphere, and
had returned—but that data of westward lands could not emerge from the
suppressions of that era—but that the data did survive, or were
preserved for future usefulness—that there are “Thou shalt nots”
engraved upon something underlying all things, and then effacing, when
phases pass away.
We conceive now of all building—within one enclosed system—in terms of
embryonic building, and of all histories as local aspects of
Super-embryonic Development. Cells of an embryo build falsely and
futilely, in the sense that what they construct will be only temporary
and will be out of adjustment later. If however there are conditions by
which successive stages must be traversed before the arrival of
maturity, ours is an expression upon the functioning of the false and
the futile, in which case these terms, as derogations, should not be
applied. We see that the cells that build have no basis of their own;
that for their formations there is nothing of reason and necessity of
their own, because they flourish in other formations quite as well. We
see that they need nothing of basis, nor of guidance of their own,
because basis and guidance are of the essence of the whole. All are
responses, or correlates, to a succession of commandments, as it were,
or of dominant, directing, supervising spirits of different eras: that
they take on appearances that are concordant with the general gastrula
era, changing when comes the stimulus to agree with the reptilian era,
and again responding harmoniously when comes the time of the mammalian
era. It is in accordance with our experience that never has human mind,
scientific, religious, philosophic, formulated one basic thought, one
finally true law, principle, or major premise from which guidance could
be deduced. If any thought were true and final it would include the
deduced. We conceive that there has been guidance, just the same, if
human beings be conceived of as cellular units in one developing
organism; and that human minds no more need foundations of their own
than need the sub-embryonic cells that build so preposterously,
according to standards of later growth, but build as they are guided to
build. In this view, human reason is tropism, or response to stimuli,
and reasoning is the trial-and-error process of the most primitive
unicellular organisms, a susceptibility to underlying mandates, then a
groping in perhaps all possible distortions until adjustment with
underlying requirements is reached. In this view, then, though there
are, for instance, no atoms in the Daltonian sense, if in the service of
a building science, the false doctrine of the atoms be needed, the mind
that responds, perhaps not to stimulus, but to requirement, which seems
to be a negative stimulus, and so conceives, is in adjustment and
reaches the state known as success. I accept, myself, that there may be
Final Truth, and that it may be attainable, but never in a service that
is local or special in any one science or nation or world.
It is our expression that temporary isolations characterize embryonic
growth and super-embryonic growth quite as distinctly as do expansions
and co-ordinations. Local centers of development in an egg—and they are
isolated before they sketch out attempting relations. Or in wider
being—hemisphere isolated from hemisphere, and nation from nation—then
the breaking down of barriers—the appearance of Japan out of
obscurity—threads of a military plasm are cast across an ocean by the
United States.
Shafts of light that have pierced the obscurity surrounding planets—and
something like a star shines in Aristarchus of the moon. Embryonic
heavens that have dreamed—and that their mirages will be realized some
day. Sounds and an interval; sounds and the same interval; sounds
again—that there is one integrating organism and that we have heard its
pulse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Feb. 7, 1922—an explosion “of startling intensity” in the sky of the
northwestern point of the London Triangle (_Nature_, Feb. 23, 1922).
Repeating phenomena in a local sky—in _L’Astronomie_, 36-201, it is said
that, at Orsay (Seine-et-Oise) Feb. 15, 1922, a detonation was heard in
the sky, and that 9 hours later a similar sound was heard, and that an
illumination was seen in the sky. It is said that, 10 nights later, at
Verneuil, in the adjoining province, Oise, a great, fiery mass was seen
falling from the sky.
March 12, 1922—rocks that had been falling “from the clouds,” for three
weeks, at Chico, a town in an “earthquake region” in California (New
York _Times_, March 12, 1922). Large, smooth rocks that “seemed to come
straight from the clouds.”
In the San Francisco _Chronicle_, in issues dating from the 12th to the
18th of March—clippings sent to me by Mr. Maynard Shipley, writer and
lecturer upon scientific subjects, if there be such subjects—the
accounts are of stones that, for four months, had been falling
intermittently from the sky, almost always upon the roofs of two
adjoining warehouses, in Chico, but, upon one occasion, falling three
blocks away: “a downpour of oval-shaped stones”; “a heavy shower of warm
rocks.” San Francisco _Call_, March 16—“warm rocks.” It is said that
crowds gathered, and that upon the 17th of March a “deluge” of rocks
fell upon a crowd, injuring one person. The police “combed” all
surroundings: the only explanation that they could think of was that
somebody was firing stones from a catapult. One person was suspected by
them, but, upon the 14th of March, a rock fell when he was known not to
be in the neighborhood.
The circumstances point to one origin of these stones, stationary in the
sky, above the town of Chico.
Upon the first of January, 1922, the attention of Marshal J. A. Peck, of
Chico, had been called to the phenomena. After investigating more than
two months, he said (San Francisco _Examiner_, March 14) “I could find
no one through my investigations who could explain the matter. At
various times I have heard and seen the stones. I think someone with a
machine is to blame.”
Prof. C. K. Studley, vice-president of the Teachers’ College, Chico, is
quoted in the _Examiner_:
“Some of the rocks are so large that they could not be thrown by any
ordinary means. One of the rocks weighs 16 ounces. They are not of
meteoric origin, as seems to have been hinted, because two of them show
signs of cementation, either natural or artificial, and no meteoric
factor was ever connected with a cement factory.”
Once upon a time, dogmatists supposed, asserted, angrily declared
sometimes, that all stones that fall from the sky must be of “true
meteoric material.” That time is now of the past. See _Nature_,
105-759—a description of two dissimilar stones, cemented together, seen
to fall from the sky, at Cumberland Falls, Ky., April 9, 1919.
Miriam Allen de Ford (P. O. Box 573, San Francisco, Cal.—or see the
_Readers’ Guide_) has sent me an account of her own observations. About
the middle of March, 1922, she was in Chico, and investigated. Went to
the scene of the falling rocks; discussed the subject with persons in
the crowd. “While I was discussing it with some bystanders, I looked up
at the cloudless sky, and suddenly saw a rock falling straight down, as
if becoming visible when it came near enough. This rock struck the roof
with a thud, and bounced off on the track beside the warehouse, and I
could not find it.” “I learned that the rocks had been falling since
July, 1921, though no publicity arose until November.”
There have been other phenomena at Chico. In the New York _Times_, Sept.
2, 1878, it is said that, upon the 20th of August, 1878, according to
the Chico _Record_, a great number of small fishes fell from the sky, at
Chico, covering the roof of a store, and falling in the streets, upon an
area of several acres. Perhaps the most important observation is that
they fell from a cloudless sky. Several occurrences are listed as
earthquakes, by Dr. Holden, in his Catalog; but the detonations that
were heard at Oroville, a town near Chico, Jan. 2, 1887, are said, in
the _Monthly Weather Review_, 1887-24, to have been in the sky. Upon the
night of March 5-6, 1885, according to the Chico _Chronicle_, a large
object, of very hard material, weighing several tons, fell from the sky,
near Chico (_Monthly Weather Review_, March, 1885). In the year 1893, an
iron object, said to be meteoritic, was found at Oroville (_Mems. Nat.
Acad. Sci._, 13-345).
My own idea is either that there is land over the town of Chico, and not
far away, inasmuch as objects from it fall with a very narrow
distribution, or that far away, and therefore invisible, there may be
land from which objects have been carried in a special current to one
very small part of this earth’s surface. If anyone would like to read an
account of stones that fell intermittently for several days, clearly
enough as if in a current, or in a field of special force, of some kind,
at Livet, near Clavaux, France, December, 1842, see the London _Times_,
Jan. 13, 1843. There have been other such occurrences. Absurdly, when
they were noticed at all, they were supposed to be psychic phenomena. I
conceive that there is no more of the psychic to these occurrences than
there is to the arrival of seeds from the West Indies upon the coast of
England. Stones that fell upon a house, near the Pantheon, Paris, for
three weeks, January, 1849—see Dr. Wallace’s _Miracles and Modern
Spiritualism_, p. 284. Several times, in the course of this book, I have
tried to be reasonable. I have asked what such repeating phenomena in
one local sky do indicate, if they do not indicate fixed origins in the
sky. And if such occurrences, supported by many data in other fields, do
not indicate the stationariness of this earth, with new lands not far
away—tell me what it is all about. The falling stones of Chico—new lands
in the sky—or what?
Boston _Transcript_, March 21, 1922—clipping sent to me by Mr. J. David
Stern, Editor and Publisher of the Camden (N. J.) _Daily Courier_—
“Geneva, March 21—During a heavy snow storm in the Alps recently
thousands of exotic insects resembling spiders, caterpillars, and huge
ants fell on the slopes and quickly died. Local naturalists are unable
to explain the phenomenon, but one theory is that the insects were blown
in on the wind from a warmer climate.”
The fall of unknown insects in a snow storm is not the circumstance that
I call most attention to. It is worth noting that I have records of half
a dozen similar occurrences in the Alps, usually about the last of
January, but the striking circumstance is that insects of different
species and of different specific gravities fell together. The
conventional explanation is that a wind, far away, raised a great
variety of small objects, and segregated them according to specific
gravity, so that twigs and grasses fell in one place, dust some other
place, pebbles somewhere else, and insects farther along somewhere. This
would be very fine segregation. There was no very fine segregation in
this occurrence. Something of a seasonal, or migratory, nature, from
some other world, localized in the sky, relatively to the Alps, is
suggested.
May 4, 1922—discovery, by F. Burnerd, of three long mounds in the lunar
crater Archimedes. See the _English Mechanic_, 115-194, 218, 268, 278.
It seems likely that these constructions had been recently built.
St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, May 18, 1922 (_Associated Press_)—particles
of matter falling continuously for several days. “The phenomenon is
supposed here to be of volcanic origin, but all the volcanoes of the
West Indies are reported as quiet.”
New York _Tribune_, July 3, 1922—that, for the fourth time in one month,
a great volume of water, or a “cloudburst,” had poured from one local
sky, near Carbondale, Pa.
Oct. 15, 1922—a large quantity of white substance that fell upon the
shores of Lake Michigan, near Chicago. It fell upon the clothes of
hundreds of persons, fell upon the campus of Northwestern University,
likely enough fell upon the astronomical observatory of the University.
It occurred to one of these hundreds, or thousands, of persons to
collect some of this substance. He is Mr. L. A. Hopkins, 111 West
Jackson Blvd., Chicago. He sent me a sample. I think that it is spider
web, because it is viscous: when burned it chars with the crinkled
effect of burned hair and feathers, and the odor is similar. But it is
strong, tough substance, of a cottony texture, when rolled up. The
interesting circumstance to me is that similar substance has fallen
frequently upon this earth, in October, but that, in terrestrial terms,
seasonal migrations of aëronautical spiders can not be thought of,
because in the tropics and in Australia, as well as in the United States
and in England, such showers have occurred in October. Then something
seasonal, but seasonal in an extra-mundane sense, is suggested. See the
_Scientific Australian_, Sept., 1916—that, from October 5 to 29, 1915,
an enormous fall of similar substance occurred upon a region of
thousands of square miles, in Australia.
Time after time, in data that I have only partly investigated, occur
declarations that, during devastations commonly known as “earthquakes,”
in Chile, the sky has flamed, or that “strange illuminations” in the sky
have been seen. In the _Bul. Seis. Soc. Amer._, for instance, some of
these descriptions have been noted, and have been hushed up with the
explanation that they were the reports of unscientific persons.
Latest of the great quakes in Chile—1,500 dead “recovered” in one of the
cities of the Province of Atacama. New York _Tribune_, Nov. 15,
1922—“Again, today, severe earthquakes shook the Province of Coquimbo
and other places, and strange illuminations were observed over the sea,
off La Serena and Copiapo.”
Back to Crater Mountain, Arizona, for an impression—but far more
impressive are similar data as to these places of Atacama and Copiapo,
in Chile. In the year 1845, M. Darlu, of Valparaiso, read, before the
French Academy, a paper, in which he asserted that, in the desert of
Atacama, which begins at Copiapo, meteorites are strewn upon the ground
in such numbers that they are met at every step. If these objects fell
all at one time in this earthquake region, we have another instance
conceivably of mere coincidence between the aërial and the seismic. If
they fell at different times, the indications are of a fixed
relationship between this part of Chile and a center somewhere in the
sky of falling objects commonly called “meteorites” and of cataclysms
that devastate this part of Chile with concussions commonly called
“earthquakes.” There is a paper upon this subject in _Science_, 14-434.
Here the extreme abundance asserted by M. Darlu is questioned: it is
said that only thirteen of these objects were known to science. But,
according to descriptions, four of them are stones, or stone-irons,
differing so that, in the opinion of the writer, and not merely so
interpreted by me, these four objects fell at different times. Then the
nine others are considered. They are nickel-irons. They, too, are
different, one from another. So then it is said that these thirteen
objects, all from one place, were, with reasonable certainty, the
products of different falls.
Behind concepts that sometimes seem delirious, I offer—a reasonable
certainty—
That, existing somewhere beyond this earth, perhaps beyond a revolving
shell in which the nearby stars are openings, there are stationary
regions, from which, upon many occasions, have emanated “meteors,”
sometimes exploding catastrophically over Atacama, Chile, for instance.
Coasts of South America have reeled, and the heavens have been afire.
Reverberations in the sky—the ocean has responded with islands. Between
sky and earth of Chile there have been flaming intimacies of destruction
and slaughter and woe—
Silence that is conspiracy to hide past ignorance; that is imbecility,
or that is the unawareness of profoundest hypnosis.
Hypnosis—
That the seismologists, too, have functioned in preserving the illusion
of this earth’s isolation, and by super-embryonic processes have been
hypnotized into oblivion of a secret that has been proclaimed with
avalanches of fire from the heavens, and that has babbled from brooks of
the blood of crushed populations, and that is monumentalized in ruins.
THE END
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
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