If we could stop to sing, instead of everlastingly noting vol. this and
p. that, we could have the material of sagas—of the bathers in the sun,
which may be neither intolerably hot nor too uncomfortably cold; and of
the hermit who floats across the moon; of heroes and the hairy monsters
of the sky. I should stand in public places and sing our data—sagas of
parades and explorations and massacres in the sky—having a busy band of
accompanists, who set off fireworks, and send up balloons, and fire off
explosives at regular intervals—extra-geographic songs of boiling lakes
and floating islands—extra-sociologic metres that express the tramp of
space-armies upon inter-planetary paths covered with little black
pebbles—biologic epics of the clouds of mammoths and horses and
antelopes that once upon a time fell from the sky upon the northern
coast of Siberia—
Song that interprets the perpendicular white streaks in the repeating
mirages at Youghal—the rhythmic walruses of space that hang on by their
tusks to the edges of space-islands, sometimes making stars variable as
they swing in cosmic undulations—so a round space-island with its border
of gleaming tusks, and we frighten children with the song of an ogre’s
head, with a wide-open mouth all around it—fairy lands of the little
moon, and the tiny civilizations in rocky cups that are sometimes
drained to their slums by the wide-mouthed ogres. The Maelstrom of
Everlasting Catastrophe that overhangs Genoa, Italy—and twines its
currents around a living island. The ground underneath quakes with the
struggle—then the fall of blood—and the fall of blood—three days the
fall of blood from the broken red brooks of a living island whose
mutilations are scenery—
But after all, it may be better that we go back to _Rept. B. A._—see
vol. 1849, p. 46—a stream of black objects, crossing the sun, watched,
at Naples, May 11, 1845, by Capocci and other astronomers—things that
may have been seeds.
A great number of red points in the sky of Urrugne, July 9, 1853 (_An.
Soc. Met. de France_, 1853-227). Astro. Reg., 5-179—C. L. Prince, of
Uckfield, writes that, upon June 11, 1867, he saw objects crossing the
field of his telescope. They were seeds, in his opinion.
Birmingham _Daily Post_, May 31, 1867:
Mr. Bird, the astronomer, writes that, about 11 A. M., May 30, he saw
unknown forms in the sky. In his telescope, which was focussed upon them
and upon the planet Venus, they appeared to be twice the size of Venus.
They were far away, according to focus; also, it may be accepted that
they were far away because an occasional cloud passed between them and
this earth. They did not move like objects carried in the wind: all did
not move in the same direction, and they moved at different speeds.
“All of them seemed to have hairy appendages, and in many cases a
distinct tail followed the object and was highly luminous.”
Flashes that have been seen in the sky—and they’re from a living island
that wags his luminous peninsular. Hair-like substances that have fallen
to this earth—a meadow has been shorn from a monster’s mane. My
animation is the notion that it is better to think in tentative hysteria
of pairs of vast things, travelling like a North and South America
through the sky, perhaps one biting the other with its Gulf of Mexico,
than to go on thinking that all things that so move in the sky are
seeds, whereas all things that swim in the sea are not sardines.
In the _Post_, June 3, 1867, Mr. W. H. Wood writes that the objects were
probably seeds. _Post_, June 5—Mr. Bird says that the objects were not
seeds. “My intention was simply to describe what was seen, and the
appearance was certainly that of meteors.” He saves himself, in the
annals of extra-geography—“whether they were meteors of the ordinary
acceptation, is another matter.”
And the planet Venus, and her veil that is dotted with blue-fringed
cupids—in the _Astronomical Register_, 7-138, a correspondent writes,
from Northampton, that, upon May 2, 1869, he was looking at Venus, and
saw a host of shining objects, not uniform in size. He thinks that it is
unlikely that so early in the spring could these objects be seeds. He
watched them about an hour and twenty minutes—“many of the larger ones
were fringed on one side, the fringe appearing somewhat bluish.” Or that
it is better even to sentimentalize than to go on stupidly thinking that
all such things in the sky are seeds, whereas all things in the sea are
not the economically adjusting little forms without which critics of
underground traffic in New York probably could not express
themselves—the planet Venus—she approaches this lordly earth—the
blue-fringed ecstasies that suffuse her skies.
With the phenomena of Aug. 7, 1869, I suspect that the “phantom
soldiers” that have been seen in the sky, may have been reflections
from, or mirages of, things or beings that march, in military
formations, in space. In _Popular Astronomy_, 3-159, Prof. Swift writes
that, at Mattoon, Ill., during the eclipse of the sun, of Aug. 7, 1869,
he had seen, crossing the moon, objects that he thought were seeds. If
they were seeds, also there happened to be seeds in the sky of Ottumwa,
Iowa: here, crossing the visible part of the sun, twenty minutes before
totality of the eclipse, Prof. Himes and Prof. Zentmayer saw objects
that marched, or that moved, in straight, parallel lines (_Les Mondes_,
21-241). In the _Jour. Frank. Inst._, 3-58-214, it is said that some of
these objects moved in one direction across the moon, and that others
moved in another direction across another part of the moon, each
division moving in parallel lines. If these things were seeds, also
there happened to be seeds in the sky, at Shelleyville, Kentucky. Here
were seen, by Prof. Winlock, Alvan Clark, Jr., and George W. Dean,
things that moved across the moon, during the eclipse, in parallel,
straight lines (_Pop. Astro._, 2-332).
Whatever these things may have been, I offer another datum indicating
that the moon is nearby: that these objects probably were not, by
coincidence, things in three widely separated skies, parallelness giving
them identity in two of the observations; and, if seen, without
parallax, from places so far apart, against the moon, were close to the
moon; that observation of such detail would be unlikely if they were
near a satellite 240,000 miles away—unless, of course, they were
mountain-sized.
It may be that out from two floating islands of space, two processions
had marched across the moon. _Observatory_, 3-137—that, at St. Paul’s
Junction, Iowa, four persons had seen, without telescopes, a shining
object close to the sun and moon, apparently; that, with a telescope,
another person had seen another large object, crescentically illumined,
farther from the sun and moon in eclipse. See _Nature_, 18-663, and
_Astro. Reg._, 7-227.
I have many data upon the fall of organic matter from the sky. Because
of my familiarity with many records, it seems no more incredible that up
in the seemingly unoccupied sky there should be hosts of living things
than that the seeming blank of the ocean should swarm with life. I have
many notes upon a phosphorescence, or electric condition of things that
fall from the sky, for instance the highly luminous stones of
Dhurmsulla, which were intensely cold—
_Amer. Jour. Sci._, 2-28-270:
It is said that, according to investigations by Prof. Shepard, a
luminous substance was seen falling slowly, by Sparkman R. Scriven, a
young man of seventeen, at his home, in Charleston, S. C., Nov. 16,
1857. It is said that the young man saw a fiery, red ball, the size and
shape of an orange, strike a fence, breaking, and disappearing. Where
this object had struck the fence, was found “a small bristling mass of
black fibres.” According to Prof. Shepard, it was “a confused aggregate
of short clippings of the finest black hair, varying in length from one
tenth to one third of an inch.” Prof. Shepard says that this substance
was not organic. It seems to me that he said this only because of the
coercions of his era. My reason for so thinking is that he wrote that
when he analyzed these hairs they burned away, leaving grayish
skeletons, and that they were “composed in part of carbon,” and burned
with an odor “most nearly bituminous.”
For full details of the following circumstances, see _Comptes Rendus_,
13-215 and _Rept. B. A._, 1854-302:
Feb. 17, 1841—the fall, at Genoa, Italy, of a red substance from the
sky—another fall upon the 18th—a slight quake, at 5 P. M., Feb.
18th—another quake, six hours later—fall of more of the red substance,
upon the 19th. Some of this substance was collected and analyzed by M.
Canobbia, of Genoa. He says it was oily and red.