Part 4 (1/2)

_Annual Register_, 1883-105:

That the atmospheric effects that have been attributed to Krakatoa were seen in Trinidad before the eruption occurred:

_Knowledge_, 5-418:

That they were seen in Natal, South Africa, six months before the eruption.

Inertia and its inhospitality.

Or raw meat should not be fed to babies.

We shall have a few data initiatorily.

I fear me that the horse and the barn were a little extreme for our budding liberalities.

The outrageous is the reasonable, if introduced politely.

Hailstones, for instance. One reads in the newspapers of hailstones the size of hens' eggs. One smiles. Nevertheless I will engage to list one hundred instances, from the _Monthly Weather Review_, of hailstones the size of hens' eggs. There is an account in _Nature_, Nov. 1, 1894, of hailstones that weighed almost two pounds each. See Chambers'

Encyclopedia for three-pounders. _Report of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution_, 1870-479--two-pounders authenticated, and six-pounders reported. At Seringapatam, India, about the year 1800, fell a hailstone--

I fear me, I fear me: this is one of the profoundly d.a.m.ned. I blurt out something that should, perhaps, be withheld for several hundred pages--but that d.a.m.ned thing was the size of an elephant.

We laugh.

Or snowflakes. Size of saucers. Said to have fallen at Nashville, Tenn., Jan. 24, 1891. One smiles.

”In Montana, in the winter of 1887, fell snowflakes 15 inches across, and 8 inches thick.” (_Monthly Weather Review_, 1915-73.)

In the topography of intellection, I should say that what we call knowledge is ignorance surrounded by laughter.

Black rains--red rains--the fall of a thousand tons of b.u.t.ter.

Jet-black snow--pink snow--blue hailstones--hailstones flavored like oranges.

Punk and silk and charcoal.

About one hundred years ago, if anyone was so credulous as to think that stones had ever fallen from the sky, he was reasoned with:

In the first place there are no stones in the sky:

Therefore no stones can fall from the sky.

Or nothing more reasonable or scientific or logical than that could be said upon any subject. The only trouble is the universal trouble: that the major premise is not real, or is intermediate somewhere between realness and unrealness.

In 1772, a committee, of whom Lavoisier was a member, was appointed by the French Academy, to investigate a report that a stone had fallen from the sky at Luce, France. Of all attempts at positiveness, in its aspect of isolation, I don't know of anything that has been fought harder for than the notion of this earth's unrelatedness. Lavoisier a.n.a.lyzed the stone of Luce. The exclusionists' explanation at that time was that stones do not fall from the sky: that luminous objects may seem to fall, and that hot stones may be picked up where a luminous object seemingly had landed--only lightning striking a stone, heating, even melting it.

The stone of Luce showed signs of fusion.