|
BOOK OF THE DAMNED
By Charles Fort
CHAPTER: 01,
02, 03,
04, 05,
06, 07,
08, 09,
10, 11,
12, 13,
14, 15,
16, 17,
18, 19,
20, 21,
22, 23,
24, 25,
26, 27,
28
THE living things that have come down to this earth:
Attempts to preserve the system:
That small frogs and toads, for instance, never have fallen
from the sky, but were -- "on the ground, in the first place;" or that
there have been such falls -- "up from one place in a whirlwind, and down in
another."
Were there some especially froggy place near Europe, as there
is an especially sandy place, the scientific explanation would of course be that
all small frogs falling from the sky in Europe, come from that center of
frogeity.
To start with, I'd like to emphasize something that I am
permitted to see because I am still primitive or intelligent or in a state of
maladjustment:
That there is not one report findable of a fall of tadpoles
from the sky.
As to "there in the first place":
See Leisure Hours, 3-779, for accounts of small
frogs, or toads, said to have been seen to fall from the sky. The writer says
that all observers were mistaken: that the frogs or toads must have fallen from
trees or other places overhead.
Tremendous number of little toads, one or two months old, that
were seen to fall from a great thick cloud that appeared suddenly in a sky that
had been cloudless, August, 1804, near Toulouse, France, according to a letter
from Prof. Pontus to M. Arrago. (Comptes Rendus, 3-54.)
Many instances of frogs that were seen to fall from the sky.
("Notes and Queries," 8-6-104); accounts of such falls, signed by
witnesses. ("Notes and Queries," 8-6-190.)
Scientific American, July 12, 1873:
"A shower of frogs which darkened the air and covered the
ground for a long distance is the reported result of a recent rainstorm at
Kansas City, Mo."
As to having been there "in the first place":
Little frogs found in London, after a heavy storm, July 30,
1838. (Notes and Queries, 8-7-437);
Little toads found in a desert, after a rainfall, (Notes
and Queries, 8-8-493).
To start with I do not deny -- positively -- the conventional
explanation of "up and down." I think that there may have been such
occurrences. I omit many notes that I have upon indistinguishables. In the
London Times, July 4, 1883, there is an account of a shower of twigs
and leaves and tiny toads in a storm upon the slopes of the Apennines. These may
have been the ejectamenta of a whirlwind. I add, however, that I have notes upon
two other falls of tiny toads, in 1883, one in France and one in Tahiti; also of
fish in Scotland. But in the phenomenon of the Apennines, the mixture seems to
me to be typical of the products of a whirlwind. The other instances seem to me
to be typical of -- something like migration? Their great numbers and their
homogeneity. Over and over in these annals of the damned occurs the datum of
segregation. But a whirlwind is thought of as a condition of chaos --
quasi-chaos:
not final negativeness, of course--
Monthly Weather Review, July, 1881:
"A small pond in the track of the cloud was sucked dry,
the water being carried over the adjoining fields together with a large quantity
of soft mud, which was scattered over the ground for half a mile around."
It is so easy to say that small frogs that have fallen from
the sky had been scooped up by a whirlwind; but here are the circumstances of a
scoop; in the exclusionist-imagination there is no regard for mud, d�bris from
the bottom of a pond, floating vegetation, loose things from the shores -- but a
precise picking out of frogs only. Of all instances I have that attribute the
fall of small frogs or toads to whirlwinds, only one definitely identifies or
places the whirlwind. Also, as has been said before, a pond going up would be
quite as interesting as frogs coming down. Whirlwinds we read over and over --
but
where and what whirlwind? It seems to me that anybody who had lost a pond would
be heard from. In Symons' Meteorological Magazine, 32-106, a fall of
small frogs, near Birmingham, June 30, 1892, is attributed to a specific
whirlwind -- but not a word as to any special pond that had contributed. And
something that strikes my attention here is that these frogs are described as
almost white.
I'm afraid there is no escape for us: we shall have to give to
civilization upon this earth -- some new worlds.
Places with white frogs in them.
Upon several occasions we have had data of unknown things that
have fallen from -- somewhere. But something not to be overlooked is that if
living things have landed alive upon this earth -- in spite of all we think we
know of the accelerative velocity of falling bodies -- and have propagated --
why
the exotic becomes the indigenous, or from the strangest of places we'd expect
the familiar. Or if hosts of living frogs have come here -- from somewhere else
-- every living thing upon this earth may, ancestrally, have come from --
somewhere else.
I find that I have another note upon a specific hurricane:
Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.,
1-3-185:
After one of the greatest hurricanes in the history of
Ireland, some fish were found "as far as 15 yards from the edge of the
lake."
Have another: this is a good one for the exclusionists:
Fall of fish in Paris: said that a neighboring pond had been
blown dry. (Living Age, 52-186.) Date not given, but I have seen it
recorded somewhere else.
The best-known fall of fishes from the sky is that which
occurred at Mountain Ash, in the Valley of Abedare, Glamorganshire, Feb. 11,
1859.
The Editor of the Zoologist, 2-677, having published
a report of a fall of fishes, writes: "I am continually receiving similar
accounts of frogs and fishes." But, in all the volumes of the Zoologist,
I can find only two reports of such falls. There is nothing to conclude other
than that hosts of data have been lost because orthodoxy does not look favorably
upon such reports. The Monthly Weather Review records several falls of
fishes in the United States; but accounts of these reported occurrences are not
findable in other American publications. Nevertheless, the treatment by the Zoologist
of the fall reported from Mountain Ash is fair. First appears, in the issue of
1859-6493, a letter from the Rev. John Griffith, Vicar of Abedare, asserting
that the fall had occurred, chiefly upon the property of Mr. Nixon, of Mountain
Ash. Upon page 6540, Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, bristling with
exclusionism, writes that some of these fishes, which had been sent to him
alive, were "very young minnows." He says: "On reading the
evidence, it seems to me most probably only a practical joke: that one of Mr.
Nixon's employees had thrown a pailful of water upon another, who had thought
fish in it had fallen from the sky" -- had dipped up a pailful from a brook.
Those fishes -- still alive -- were exhibited at the Zoological
Gardens, Regent's Park. The Editor says that one was a minnow and that the rest
were sticklebacks.
He says that Dr. Gray's explanation is no doubt right.
But, upon page 6564, he publishes a letter from another
correspondent, who apologizes for opposing so "high an authority as Dr.
Gray," but says that he had obtained some of these fishes from persons who
lived a considerable distance apart, or considerably out of range of the playful
pail of water.
According to the Annual Register, 1859-14, the fishes
themselves had fallen by pailfuls.
If these fishes were not upon the ground in the first place,
we base our objections to the whirlwind explanation, upon two data:
That they fell in no such distribution as one could attribute
to the discharge of a whirlwind, but upon a narrow strip of land: about 80 yards
long and 12 yards wide--
The other datum is again the suggestion that at first seemed
so incredible, but for which support is piling up, a suggestion of a stationary
source overhead--
That ten minutes later another fall of fishes occurred upon
this same narrow strip of land.
Even arguing that a whirlwind may stand still axially, it
discharges tangentially. Wherever the fishes came from it does not seem
thinkable that some could have fallen and that others could have whirled even a
tenth of a minute, then falling directly after the first to fall. Because of
these evil circumstances the best adaptation was to laugh the whole thing off
and say that some one had soused some one else with a pailful of water, in which
a few "very young minnows" had been caught up.
In the London Times, March 2, 1859, is a letter from
Mr. Aaron Roberts, curate of St. Peter's, Carmathon. In this letter the fishes
are said to have been about four inches long, but there is some question of
species. I think, myself, that they were minnows and sticklebacks. Some persons,
thinking them to be sea fishes, placed them in salt water, according to Mr.
Roberts. "The effect is stated to have been almost instantaneous
death." "Some were placed in fresh water. These seem to thrive
well." As to narrow distribution, we are told that the fishes fell "in
and about the premises of Mr. Nixon." "It was not observed at the time
that any fish fell [82/83] in any other part of the neighborhood, save in the
particular spot mentioned."
In the London Times, March 10, 1859, Vicar Griffith
writes an account:
"The roofs of some houses were covered with them."
In this letter it is said that the largest fishes were five
inches long, and that these did not survive the fall.
Report of the British Association,
1859-158:
"The evidence of the fall of fish on this occasion was
very conclusive. A specimen |
