In the _Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal_--have to go away back to
1841--days of less efficient strangulation--Sir David Milne lists
phenomena of quakes in Great Britain. I pick out a few that indicate to
me that other worlds were near this earth's surface:
Violent storm before a shock of 1703--ball of fire "preceding," 1750--a
large ball of fire seen upon day following a quake, 1755--"uncommon
phenomenon in the air: a large luminous body, bent like a crescent,
which stretched itself over the heavens, 1816--vast ball of fire,
1750--black rains and black snows, 1755--numerous instances of upward
projection--or upward attraction?--during quakes--preceded by a cloud,
very black and lowering," 1795--fall of black powder, preceding a quake,
by six hours, 1837.
Some of these instances seem to me to be very striking--a smaller world:
it is greatly racked by the attraction of this earth--black substance is
torn down from it--not until six hours later, after an approach still
closer, does this earth suffer perturbation. As to the extraordinary
spectacle of a thing, world, super-construction, that was seen in the
sky, in 1816, I have not yet been able to find out more. I think that
here our acceptance is relatively sound: that this occurrence was
tremendously of more importance than such occurrence as, say, transits
of Venus, upon which hundreds of papers have been written--that not
another mention have I found, though I have not looked so especially as
I shall look for more data--that all but undetailed record of this
occurrence was suppressed.
Altogether we have considerable agreement here between data of vast
masses that do not fall to this earth, but from which substances fall,
and data of fields of ice from which ice may not fall, but from which
water may drip. I'm beginning to modify: that, at a distance from this
earth, gravitation has more effect than we have supposed, though less
effect than the dogmatists suppose and "prove." I'm coming out stronger
for the acceptance of a Neutral Zone--that this earth, like other
magnets, has a neutral zone, in which is the Super-Sargasso Sea, and in
which other worlds may be buoyed up, though projecting parts may be
subject to this earth's attraction--
But my preference:
Here are the data.
I now have one of the most interesting of the new correlates. I think I
should have brought it in before, but, whether out of place here,
because not accompanied by earthquake, or not, we'll have it. I offer it
as an instance of an eclipse, by a vast, dark body, that has been seen
and reported by an astronomer. The astronomer is M. Lias: the phenomenon
was seen by him, at Pernambuco, April 11, 1860.
_Comptes Rendus_, 50-1197:
It was about noon--sky cloudless--suddenly the light of the sun was
diminished. The darkness increased, and, to illustrate its intensity, we
are told that the planet Venus shone brilliant. But Venus was of low
visibility at this time. The observation that burns incense to the New
Dominant is:
That around the sun appeared a corona.
There are many other instances that indicate proximity of other world's
during earthquakes. I note a few--quake and an object in the sky, called
"a large, luminous meteor" (_Quar. Jour. Roy. Inst._, 5-132); luminous
body in the sky, earthquake, and fall of sand, Italy, Feb. 12 and 13,
1870 (_La Science Pour Tous_, 15-159); many reports upon luminous object
in the sky and earthquake, Connecticut, Feb. 27, 1883 (_Monthly Weather
Review_, February, 1883); luminous object, or meteor, in the sky, fall
of stones from the sky, and earthquake, Italy, Jan. 20, 1891
(_L'Astronomie_, 1891-154); earthquake and prodigious number of luminous
bodies, or globes, in the air, Boulogne, France, June 7, 1779 (Sestier,
"_La Foudre_," 1-169); earthquake at Manila, 1863, and "curious luminous
appearance in the sky" (Ponton, _Earthquakes_, p. 124).
The most notable appearance of fishes during an earthquake is that of
Riobamba. Humboldt sketched one of them, and it's an uncanny-looking
thing. Thousands of them appeared upon the ground during this tremendous
earthquake. Humboldt says that they were cast up from subterranean
sources. I think not myself, and have data for thinking not, but there'd
be such a row arguing back and forth that it's simpler to consider a
clearer instance of the fall of living fishes from the sky, during an
earthquake. I can't quite accept, myself, whether a large lake, and all
the fishes in it, was torn down from some other world, or a lake in the
Super-Sargasso Sea, distracted between two pulling worlds, was dragged
down to this earth--
Here are the data:
_La Science Pour Tous_, 6-191:
Feb. 16, 1861. An earthquake at Singapore. Then came an extraordinary
downpour of rain--or as much water as any good-sized lake would consist
of. For three days this rain or this fall of water came down in
torrents. In pools on the ground, formed by this deluge, great numbers
of fishes were found. The writer says that he had, himself, seen nothing
but water fall from the sky. Whether I'm emphasizing what a deluge it
was or not, he says that so terrific had been the downpour that he had
not been able to see three steps away from him. The natives said that
the fishes had fallen from the sky. Three days later the pools dried up
and many dead fishes were found, but, in the first place--though that's
an expression for which we have an instinctive dislike--the fishes had
been active and uninjured. Then follows material for another of our
little studies in the phenomena of disregard. A psycho-tropism here is
mechanically to take pen in hand and mechanically write that fishes
found on the ground after a heavy rainfall came from overflowing
streams. The writer of the account says that some of the fishes had
been found in his courtyard, which was surrounded by high walls--paying
no attention to this, a correspondent (_La Science Pour Tous_, 6-317)
explains that in the heavy rain a body of water had probably overflowed,
carrying fishes with it. We are told by the first writer that these
fishes of Singapore were of a species that was very abundant near
Singapore. So I think, myself, that a whole lakeful of them had been
shaken down from the Super-Sargasso Sea, under the circumstances we have
thought of. However, if appearance of strange fishes after an earthquake
be more pleasing in the sight, or to the nostrils, of the New Dominant,
we faithfully and piously supply that incense--An account of the
occurrence at Singapore was read by M. de Castelnau, before the French
Academy. M. de Castelnau recalled that, upon a former occasion, he had
submitted to the Academy the circumstance that fishes of a new species
had appeared at the Cape of Good Hope, after an earthquake.
It seems proper, and it will give luster to the new orthodoxy, now to
have an instance in which, not merely quake and fall of rocks or
meteorites, or quake and either eclipse or luminous appearances in the
sky have occurred, but in which are combined all the phenomena, one or
more of which, when accompanying earthquake, indicate, in our
acceptance, the proximity of another world. This time a longer duration
is indicated than in other instances.
In the _Canadian Institute Proceedings_, 2-7-198, there is an account,
by the Deputy Commissioner at Dhurmsalla, of the extraordinary
Dhurmsalla meteorite--coated with ice. But the combination of events
related by him is still more extraordinary:
That within a few months of the fall of this meteorite there had been a
fall of live fishes at Benares, a shower of red substance at
Furruckabad, a dark spot observed on the disk of the sun, an earthquake,
"an unnatural darkness of some duration," and a luminous appearance in
the sky that looked like an aurora borealis--
But there's more to this climax:
We are introduced to a new order of phenomena:
Visitors.
The Deputy Commissioner writes that, in the evening, after the fall of
the Dhurmsalla meteorite, or mass of stone covered with ice, he saw
lights. Some of them were not very high. They appeared and went out and
reappeared. I have read many accounts of the Dhurmsalla meteorite--July
28, 1860--but never in any other of them a mention of this new
correlate--something as out of place in the nineteenth century as would
have been an aeroplane--the invention of which would not, in our
acceptance, have been permitted, in the nineteenth century, though
adumbrations to it were permitted. This writer says that the lights
moved like fire balloons, but:
"I am sure that they were neither fire balloons, lanterns, nor bonfires,
or any other thing of that sort, but bona fide lights in the heavens."
It's a subject for which we shall have to have a separate
expression--trespassers upon territory to which something else has a
legal right--perhaps someone lost a rock, and he and his friends came
down looking for it, in the evening--or secret agents, or emissaries,
who had an appointment with certain esoteric ones near Dhurmsalla--things
or beings coming down to explore, and unable to stay down long--
In a way, another strange occurrence during an earthquake is suggested.
The ancient Chinese tradition--the marks like hoof marks in the ground.
We have thought--with a low degree of acceptance--of another world that
may be in secret communication with certain esoteric ones of this
earth's inhabitants--and of messages in symbols like hoof marks that are
sent to some receptor, or special hill, upon this earth--and of messages
that at times miscarry.
This other world comes close to this world--there are quakes--but
advantage of proximity is taken to send a message--the message, designed
for a receptor in India, perhaps, or in Central Europe, miscarries all
the way to England--marks like the marks of the Chinese tradition are
found upon a beach, in Cornwall, after an earthquake--
_Phil. Trans._, 50-500:
After the quake of July 15, 1757, upon the sands of Penzance, Cornwall,
in an area of more than 100 square yards, were found marks like hoof
prints, except that they were not crescentic. We feel a similarity, but
note an arbitrary disregard of our own, this time. It seems to us that
marks described as "little cones surrounded by basins of equal diameter"
would be like hoof prints, if hoofs printed complete circles. Other
disregards are that there were black specks on the tops of cones, as if
something, perhaps gaseous, had issued from them; that from one of these
formations came a gush of water as thick as a man's wrist. Of course the
opening of springs is common in earthquakes--but we suspect, myself,
that the Negative Absolute is compelling us to put in this datum and its
disorders.
There's another matter in which the Negative Absolute seems to work
against us. Though to super-chemistry, we have introduced the principle
of celestio-metathesis, we have no good data of exchange of substances
during proximities. The data are all of falls and not of upward
translations. Of course upward impulses are common during earthquakes,
but I haven't a datum upon a tree or a fish or a brick or a man that
ever did go up and stay up and that never did come down again. Our
classic of the horse and barn occurred in what was called a whirlwind.
It is said that, in an earthquake in Calabria, paving stones shot up far
in the air.
The writer doesn't specifically say that they came down again, but
something seems to tell me they did.
The corpses of Riobamba.
Humboldt reported that, in the quake of Riobamba, "bodies were torn
upward from graves"; that "the vertical motion was so strong that bodies
were tossed several hundred feet in the air."