That there is no record of anyone, in England or elsewhere, having seen
tons of "spider webs" going up, September, 1741.
Further confession of intelligence upon my part:
That, if it be contested, then, that the place of origin may have been
far away, but still terrestrial--
Then it's that other familiar matter of incredible "marksmanship"
again--hitting a small, triangular space for hours--interval of
hours--then from nine in the morning until night: same small triangular
space.
These are the disregards of the classic explanation. There is no mention
of spiders having been seen to fall, but a good inclusion is that,
though this substance fell in good-sized flakes of considerable weight,
it was viscous. In this respect it was like cobwebs: dogs nosing it on
grass, were blindfolded with it. This circumstance does strongly suggest
cobwebs--
Unless we can accept that, in regions aloft, there are vast viscous or
gelatinous areas, and that things passing through become daubed. Or
perhaps we clear up the confusion in the descriptions of the substance
that fell in 1841 and 1846, in Asia Minor, described in one publication
as gelatinous, and in another as a cereal--that it was a cereal that had
passed through a gelatinous region. That the paper-like substance of
Memel may have had such an experience may be indicated in that Ehrenberg
found in it gelatinous matter, which he called "nostoc." (_Annals and
Mag. of Nat. Hist._, 1-3-185.)
_Scientific American_, 45-337:
Fall of a substance described as "cobwebs," latter part of October,
1881, in Milwaukee, Wis., and other towns: other towns mentioned are
Green Bay, Vesburge, Fort Howard, Sheboygan, and Ozaukee. The aeronautic
spiders are known as "gossamer" spiders, because of the extreme
lightness of the filaments that they cast out to the wind. Of the
substance that fell in Wisconsin, it is said:
"In all instances the webs were strong in texture and very white."
The Editor says:
"Curiously enough, there is no mention in any of the reports that we
have seen, of the presence of spiders."
So our attempt to divorce a possible external product from its
terrestrial merger: then our joy of the prospector who thinks he's found
something:
The _Monthly Weather Review_, 26-566, quotes the _Montgomery_ (Ala.)
_Advertiser_:
That, upon Nov. 21, 1898, numerous batches of spider-web-like substance
fell in Montgomery, in strands and in occasional masses several inches
long and several inches broad. According to the writer, it was not
spiders' web, but something like asbestos; also that it was
phosphorescent.
The Editor of the _Review_ says that he sees no reason for doubting that
these masses were cobwebs.
_La Nature_, 1883-342:
A correspondent writes that he sends a sample of a substance said to
have fallen at Montussan (Gironde), Oct. 16, 1883. According to a
witness, quoted by the correspondent, a thick cloud, accompanied by rain
and a violent wind, had appeared. This cloud was composed of a woolly
substance in lumps the size of a fist, which fell to the ground. The
Editor (Tissandier) says of this substance that it was white, but was
something that had been burned. It was fibrous. M. Tissandier astonishes
us by saying that he cannot identify this substance. We thought that
anything could be "identified" as anything. He can say only that the
cloud in question must have been an extraordinary conglomeration.
_Annual Register, 1832-447:_
That, March, 1832, there fell, in the fields of Kourianof, Russia, a
combustible yellowish substance, covering, at least two inches thick, an
area of 600 or 700 square feet. It was resinous and yellowish: so one
inclines to the conventional explanation that it was pollen from pine
trees--but, when torn, it had the tenacity of cotton. When placed in
water, it had the consistency of resin. "This resin had the color of
amber, was elastic, like India rubber, and smelled like prepared oil
mixed with wax."
So in general our notion of cargoes--and our notion of cargoes of food
supplies:
In _Philosophical Transactions_, 19-224, is an extract from a letter by
Mr. Robert Vans, of Kilkenny, Ireland, dated Nov. 15, 1695: that there
had been "of late," in the counties of Limerick and Tipperary, showers
of a sort of matter like butter or grease... having "a very stinking
smell."
There follows an extract from a letter by the Bishop of Cloyne, upon "a
very odd phenomenon," which was observed in Munster and Leinster: that
for a good part of the spring of 1695 there fell a substance which the
country people called "butter"--"soft, clammy, and of a dark
yellow"--that cattle fed "indifferently" in fields where this substance
lay.
"It fell in lumps as big as the end of one's finger." It had a "strong
ill scent." His Grace calls it a "stinking dew."
In Mr. Vans' letter, it is said that the "butter" was supposed to have
medicinal properties, and "was gathered in pots and other vessels by
some of the inhabitants of this place."
And:
In all the following volumes of _Philosophical Transactions_ there is no
speculation upon this extraordinary subject. Ostracism. The fate of this
datum is a good instance of damnation, not by denial, and not by
explaining away, but by simple disregard. The fall is listed by
Chladni, and is mentioned in other catalogues, but, from the absence of
all inquiry, and of all but formal mention, we see that it has been
under excommunication as much as was ever anything by the preceding
system. The datum has been buried alive. It is as irreconcilable with
the modern system of dogmas as ever were geologic strata and vermiform
appendix with the preceding system--
If, intermittently, or "for a good part of the spring," this substance
fell in two Irish provinces, and nowhere else, we have, stronger than
before, a sense of a stationary region overhead, or a region that
receives products like this earth's products, but from external sources,
a region in which this earth's gravitational and meteorological forces
are relatively inert--if for many weeks a good part of this substance
did hover before finally falling. We suppose that, in 1685, Mr. Vans and
the Bishop of Cloyne could describe what they saw as well as could
witnesses in 1885: nevertheless, it is going far back; we shall have to
have many modern instances before we can accept.
As to other falls, or another fall, it is said in the _Amer. Jour.
Sci._, 1-28-361, that, April 11, 1832--about a month after the fall of
the substance of Kourianof--fell a substance that was wine-yellow,
transparent, soft, and smelling like rancid oil. M. Herman, a chemist
who examined it, named it "sky oil." For analysis and chemic reactions,
see the _Journal_. The _Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal_, 13-368,
mentions an "unctuous" substance that fell near Rotterdam, in 1832. In
_Comptes Rendus_, 13-215, there is an account of an oily, reddish matter
that fell at Genoa, February, 1841.