Or it's easy enough to think of most of us as deep-sea fishes of a kind.
_Jour. Franklin Inst._, 90-11:
That, upon the 14th of February, 1870, there fell, at Genoa, Italy,
according to Director Boccardo, of the Technical Institute of Genoa, and
Prof. Castellani, a yellow substance. But the microscope revealed
numerous globules of cobalt blue, also corpuscles of a pearly color that
resembled starch. See _Nature_, 2-166.
_Comptes Rendus_, 56-972:
M. Bouis says of a substance, reddish varying to yellowish, that fell
enormously and successively, or upon April 30, May 1 and May 2, in
France and Spain, that it carbonized and spread the odor of charred
animal matter--that it was not pollen--that in alcohol it left a residue
of resinous matter.
Hundreds of thousands of tons of this matter must have fallen.
"Odor of charred animal matter."
Or an aerial battle that occurred in inter-planetary space several
hundred years ago--effect of time in making diverse remains uniform in
appearance--
It's all very absurd because, even though we are told of a prodigious
quantity of animal matter that fell from the sky--three days--France and
Spain--we're not ready yet: that's all. M. Bouis says that this
substance was not pollen; the vastness of the fall makes acceptable that
it was not pollen; still, the resinous residue does suggest pollen of
pine trees. We shall hear a great deal of a substance with a resinous
residue that has fallen from the sky: finally we shall divorce it from
all suggestion of pollen.
_Blackwood's Magazine_, 3-338:
A yellow powder that fell at Gerace, Calabria, March 14, 1813. Some of
this substance was collected by Sig. Simenini, Professor of Chemistry,
at Naples. It had an earthy, insipid taste, and is described as
"unctuous." When heated, this matter turned brown, then black, then red.
According to the _Annals of Philosophy_, 11-466, one of the components
was a greenish-yellow substance, which, when dried, was found to be
resinous.
But concomitants of this fall:
Loud noises were heard in the sky.
Stones fell from the sky.
According to Chladni, these concomitants occurred, and to me they
seem--rather brutal?--or not associable with something so soft and
gentle as a fall of pollen?
* * * * *
Black rains and black snows--rains as black as a deluge of
ink--jet-black snowflakes.
Such a rain as that which fell in Ireland, May 14, 1849, described in
the _Annals of Scientific Discovery_, 1850, and the _Annual Register_,
1849. It fell upon a district of 400 square miles, and was the color of
ink, and of a fetid odor and very disagreeable taste.
The rain at Castlecommon, Ireland, April 30, 1887--"thick, black rain."
(_Amer. Met. Jour._, 4-193.)
A black rain fell in Ireland, Oct. 8 and 9, 1907. (_Symons' Met. Mag._
43-2.) "It left a most peculiar and disagreeable smell in the air."
The orthodox explanation of this rain occurs in _Nature_, March 2,
1908--cloud of soot that had come from South Wales, crossing the Irish
Channel and all of Ireland.
So the black rain of Ireland, of March, 1898: ascribed in _Symons' Met.
Mag._ 33-40, to clouds of soot from the manufacturing towns of North
England and South Scotland.
Our Intermediatist principle of pseudo-logic, or our principle of
Continuity is, of course, that nothing is unique, or individual: that
all phenomena merge away into all other phenomena: that, for
instance--suppose there should be vast celestial super-oceanic, or
inter-planetary vessels that come near this earth and discharge volumes
of smoke at times. We're only supposing such a thing as that now,
because, conventionally, we are beginning modestly and tentatively. But
if it were so, there would necessarily be some phenomenon upon this
earth, with which that phenomenon would merge. Extra-mundane smoke and
smoke from cities merge, or both would manifest in black precipitations
in rain.
In Continuity, it is impossible to distinguish phenomena at their
merging-points, so we look for them at their extremes. Impossible to
distinguish between animal and vegetable in some infusoria--but
hippopotamus and violet. For all practical purposes they're
distinguishable enough. No one but a Barnum or a Bailey would send one a
bunch of hippopotami as a token of regard.
So away from the great manufacturing centers:
Black rain in Switzerland, Jan. 20, 1911. Switzerland is so remote, and
so ill at ease is the conventional explanation here, that _Nature_,
85-451, says of this rain that in certain conditions of weather, snow
may take on an appearance of blackness that is quite deceptive.
May be so. Or at night, if dark enough, snow may look black. This is
simply denying that a black rain fell in Switzerland, Jan. 20, 1911.
Extreme remoteness from great manufacturing centers:
_La Nature_, 1888, 2-406:
That Aug. 14, 1888, there fell at the Cape of Good Hope, a rain so black
as to be described as a "shower of ink."
Continuity dogs us. Continuity rules us and pulls us back. We seemed to
have a little hope that by the method of extremes we could get away from
things that merge indistinguishably into other things. We find that
every departure from one merger is entrance upon another. At the Cape of
Good Hope, vast volumes of smoke from great manufacturing centers, as an
explanation, cannot very acceptably merge with the explanation of
extra-mundane origin--but smoke from a terrestrial volcano can, and that
is the suggestion that is made in _La Nature_.
There is, in human intellection, no real standard to judge by, but our
acceptance, for the present, is that the more nearly positive will
prevail. By the more nearly positive we mean the more nearly Organized.
Everything merges away into everything else, but proportionately to its
complexity, if unified, a thing seems strong, real, and distinct: so, in
aesthetics, it is recognized that diversity in unity is higher beauty,
or approximation to Beauty, than is simpler unity; so the logicians feel
that agreement of diverse data constitute greater convincingness, or
strength, than that of mere parallel instances: so to Herbert Spencer
the more highly differentiated and integrated is the more fully evolved.
Our opponents hold out for mundane origin of all black rains. Our method
will be the presenting of diverse phenomena in agreement with the notion
of some other origin. We take up not only black rains but black rains
and their accompanying phenomena.
A correspondent to _Knowledge_, 5-190, writes of a black rain that fell
in the Clyde Valley, March 1, 1884: of another black rain that fell two
days later. According to the correspondent, a black rain had fallen in
the Clyde Valley, March 20, 1828: then again March 22, 1828. According
to _Nature_, 9-43, a black rain fell at Marlsford, England, Sept. 4,
1873; more than twenty-four hours later another black rain fell in the
same small town.
The black rains of Slains:
According to Rev. James Rust (_Scottish Showers_):
A black rain at Slains, Jan. 14, 1862--another at Carluke, 140 miles
from Slains, May 1, 1862--at Slains, May 20, 1862--Slains, Oct. 28,
1863.
But after two of these showers, vast quantities of a substance described
sometimes as "pumice stone," but sometimes as "slag," were washed upon
the sea coast near Slains. A chemist's opinion is given that this
substance was slag: that it was not a volcanic product: slag from
smelting works. We now have, for black rains, a concomitant that is
irreconcilable with origin from factory chimneys. Whatever it may have
been the quantity of this substance was so enormous that, in Mr. Rust's
opinion, to have produced so much of it would have required the united
output of all the smelting works in the world. If slag it were, we
accept that an artificial product has, in enormous quantities, fallen
from the sky. If you don't think that such occurrences are damned by
Science, read _Scottish Showers_ and see how impossible it was for the
author to have this matter taken up by the scientific world.
The first and second rains corresponded, in time, with ordinary
ebullitions of Vesuvius.
The third and fourth, according to Mr. Rust, corresponded with no known
volcanic activities upon this earth.
_La Science Pour Tous_, 11-26:
That, between October, 1863, and January, 1866, four more black rains
fell at Slains, Scotland.
The writer of this supplementary account tells us, with a better, or
more unscrupulous, orthodoxy than Mr. Rust's, that of the eight black
rains, five coincided with eruptions of Vesuvius and three with
eruptions of Etna.
The fate of all explanation is to close one door only to have another
fly wide open. I should say that my own notions upon this subject will
be considered irrational, but at least my gregariousness is satisfied in
associating here with the preposterous--or this writer, and those who
think in his rut, have to say that they can think of four discharges
from one far-distant volcano, passing over a great part of Europe,
precipitating nowhere else, discharging precisely over one small
northern parish--
But also of three other discharges, from another far-distant volcano,
showing the same precise preference, if not marksmanship, for one small
parish in Scotland.
Nor would orthodoxy be any better off in thinking of exploding
meteorites and their debris: preciseness and recurrence would be just as
difficult to explain.
My own notion is of an island near an oceanic trade-route: it might
receive debris from passing vessels seven times in four years.
Other concomitants of black rains:
In Timb's _Year Book_, 1851-270, there is an account of "a sort of
rumbling, as of wagons, heard for upward of an hour without ceasing,"
July 16, 1850, Bulwick Rectory, Northampton, England. On the 19th, a
black rain fell.
In _Nature_, 30-6, a correspondent writes of an intense darkness at
Preston, England, April 26, 1884: page 32, another correspondent writes
of black rain at Crowle, near Worcester, April 26: that a week later, or
May 3, it had fallen again: another account of black rain, upon the 28th
of April, near Church Shetton, so intense that the following day brooks
were still dyed with it. According to four accounts by correspondents to
_Nature_ there were earthquakes in England at this time.
Or the black rain of Canada, Nov. 9, 1819. This time it is orthodoxy to
attribute the black precipitate to smoke of forest fires south of the
Ohio River--
Zurcher, _Meteors_, p. 238:
That this black rain was accompanied by "shocks like those of an
earthquake."
_Edinburgh Philosophical Journal_, 2-381:
That the earthquake had occurred at the climax of intense darkness and
the fall of black rain.
* * * * *
Red rains.
Orthodoxy:
Sand blown by the sirocco, from the Sahara to Europe.
Especially in the earthquake regions of Europe, there have been many
falls of red substance, usually, but not always, precipitated in rain.
Upon many occasions, these substances have been "absolutely identified"
as sand from the Sahara. When I first took this matter up, I came
across assurance after assurance, so positive to this effect, that, had
I not been an Intermediatist, I'd have looked no further. Samples
collected from a rain at Genoa--samples of sand forwarded from the
Sahara--"absolute agreement" some writers said: same color, same
particles of quartz, even the same shells of diatoms mixed in. Then the
chemical analyses: not a disagreement worth mentioning.
Our intermediatist means of expression will be that, with proper
exclusions, after the scientific or theological method, anything can be
identified with anything else, if all things are only different
expressions of an underlying oneness.
To many minds there's rest and there's satisfaction in that expression
"absolutely identified." Absoluteness, or the illusion of it--the
universal quest. If chemists have identified substances that have fallen
in Europe as sand from African deserts, swept up in African whirlwinds,
that's assuasive to all the irritations that occur to those cloistered
minds that must repose in the concept of a snug, isolated, little world,
free from contact with cosmic wickednesses, safe from stellar guile,
undisturbed by inter-planetary prowlings and invasions. The only trouble
is that a chemist's analysis, which seems so final and authoritative to
some minds, is no more nearly absolute than is identification by a child
or description by an imbecile--