PART II (continued 2)

Perhaps there were definite messages in a Morse-like code. There is a chance for the electricity in somebody’s imagination to start crackling. Up to April, 1871, the selenographers had recorded 1,600 observations upon the fluctuations of the lights of Plato, and had drawn 37 graphs of individual lights. All graphs and other records were deposited by W. R. Birt in the Library of the Royal Astronomical Society, where presumably they are to this day. A Champollion may some day decipher hieroglyphics that may have been flashed from one world to another.

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CHAPTER NINE

Our data indicate that the planets are circulating adjacencies. Almost do we now conceive of a difficulty of the future as being not how to reach the planets, but how to dodge them. Especially do we warn aviators away from that rhinoceros of the skies, Mercury. I have a note somewhere upon one of the wickedest-looking horns in existence, sticking out far from Mercury. I think it was Mr. Whitmell who made this observation. I’d like to hear Andrew Barclay’s opinion upon that. I’d like to hear Capt. Noble’s.

If sometimes does the planet Mars almost graze this earth, as is not told by the great telescopes, which are only millionaires’ memorials, or, at least, which reveal but little more than did the little spy glasses used by Burnham and Williams and Beer and Mädler—but if periodically the planet Mars comes very close to this earth, and, if Mars, an island with perhaps no more surface-area than has England, but likely enough inhabited, like England—

June 19, 1875—opposition of Mars.

Flashes that were seen in the sky upon the 25th of June, 1875, by Charles Gape, of Scole, Norfolk (Eng. Mec., 21-488). The Editor of Symons’ Met. Mag. (see vol. 10-116) was interested, and sent Mr. Gape some questions, receiving answers that nothing had appeared in the local newspapers upon the subject, and that nothing could be learned of a display of fireworks, at the time. To Mr. Gape the appearances seemed to be meteoric.

The year 1877—climacteric opposition of Mars.

There were some discoveries.

We have at times wondered how astronomers spend their nights. Of course, according to many of his writings upon the subject, Richard Proctor had an excellent knowledge of whist. But in the year 1877, two astronomers looked up at the sky, and one of them discovered the moons of Mars, and the other called attention 140to lines on Mars—and, if for centuries, the moons of Mars could so remain unknown to all inhabitants of this earth except, as it were, Dean Swift—why it is no wonder that we so respectfully heed some of the Dean’s other intuitions, and think that there may be Lilliputians, or Brobdingnagians, and other forms not conventionally supposed to be. As to our own fields of data, I have a striking number of notes upon signal-like appearances upon the moon, in the year 1877, but have notes upon only one occurrence that, in our interests, may relate to Mars. The occurrence is like that of July 31, 1813 and June 19, 1875.

Sept. 5, 1877—opposition of Mars.

Sept. 7, 1877—lights appeared in the sky of Bloomington, Indiana. They were supposed to be meteoric. They appeared and disappeared, at intervals of three or four seconds; darkness for several minutes; then a final flash of light. See Sci. Amer., 37-193.

That all luminous objects that are seen in the sky when the planet Venus is nearest may not be Venus; may not be fire-balloons:

In the Dundee Advertiser, Dec. 22, 1882, it is said that, between 10 and 11 A. M., Dec. 21, at Broughty Ferry, Scotland, a correspondent had seen an unknown luminous body near and a little above the sun. In the Advertiser, Dec. 25, is published a letter from someone who says that this object had been seen at Dundee, also; that quite certainly it was the planet Venus and “no other.” In Knowledge, 2-489, this story is told by a writer who says that undoubtedly the object was Venus. But, in Knowledge, 3-13, the astronomer J. E. Gore writes that the object could not have been Venus, which upon this date was 1 h. 33 m., R. A., west of the sun. The observation is reviewed in L’Astronomie, 1883-109. Here it is said that the position of Mercury accorded better. Reasonably this object could not have been Mercury: several objections are comprehended in the statement that superior conjunction of Mercury had occurred upon Dec. 16.

Upon Feb. 3, 1884, M. Staevert, of the Brussels Observatory, saw, upon the disc of Venus, an extremely brilliant point (Ciel et Terre, 5-127). Nine days later, Niesten saw just such a point 141of light as this, but at a distance from the planet. If no one had ever heard that such things can not be, one might think that these two observations were upon something that had been seen leaving Venus and had then been seen farther along. Upon the 3rd of July, 1884, a luminous object was seen moving slowly in the sky of Norwood, N. Y. It had features that suggest the structural: a globe the size of the moon, surrounded by a ring; two dark lines crossing the nucleus (Science Monthly, 2-136). Upon the 26th of July, a luminous globe, size of the moon, was seen at Cologne; it seemed to be moving upward from this earth, then was stationary “some minutes,” and then continued upward until it disappeared (Nature, 30-360). And in the English Mechanic, 40-130, it is not said that a luminous vessel that had sailed out from Venus, in February, visiting this earth, where it was seen in several places, was seen upon its return to the planet, but it is said that an observer in Rochester, N. Y., had, upon August 17, seen a brilliant point upon Venus.

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CHAPTER TEN

Explosions over the towns of Barisal, Bengal, if they were aërial explosions, were continuing. As to some of these detonations that were heard in May, 1874, a writer in Nature, 53-197, says that they did seem to come from overhead. For a report upon the Barisal Guns, heard between April 28, 1888, and March 1, 1889, see Proc. Asiatic Soc. of Bengal, 1889-199.

Phenomena at Comrie were continuing. The latest date in Roper’s List of Earthquakes is April 8, 1886, but this list goes on only a few years later. See Knowledge, n. s., 6-145—shock and a rumbling sound at Comrie, July 12, 1894—a repetition upon the corresponding date, the next year. In the English Mechanic, 74-155, David Packer says that, upon Sept. 17, 1901, ribbon-like flashes of lightning, which were not ordinary lightning, were seen in the sky (I think of Birmingham) one hour before a shock in Scotland. According to other accounts, this shock was in Comrie and surrounding regions (London Times, Sept. 19, 1901).

Smithson. Miscell. Cols., 37-Appendix, p. 71:

According to L. Tennyson, Quartermaster’s Clerk, at Fort Klamath, Oregon, at daylight, Jan. 8, 1867, the garrison was startled from sleep by what he supposed to be an earthquake and a sound like thunder. Then came darkness, and the sky was covered with black smoke or clouds. Then ashes, of a brownish color, fell—“as fast as I ever saw it snow.” Half an hour later there was another shock, described as “frightful.” No one was injured, but the sutler’s store was thrown a distance of ninety feet, and the vibrations lasted several minutes. Mr. Tennyson thought that somewhere near Fort Klamath, a volcano had broken loose, because, in the direction of the Klamath Marsh, a dark column of smoke was seen. I can find record of no such volcanic eruption. In a list of quakes, in Oregon, from 1846, to 1916, 143published in the Bull. Seis. Soc. Amer., Sept., 1919, not one is attributed to volcanic eruptions. Mr. W. D. Smith, compiler of the list, says, as to the occurrence at Fort Klamath—“If there was an eruption, where was it?” He asks whether possibly it could have been in Lassen Peak. But Lassen Peak is in California, and the explosion upon Jan. 8, 1867 was so close to Fort Klamath that almost immediately ashes fell from the sky.

The following is of the type of phenomena that might be considered evidence of signalling from some unknown world nearby:

La Nature, 17-126—that, upon June 17, 1881, sounds like cannonading were heard at Gabes, Tunis, and that quaking of the earth was felt, at intervals of 32 seconds, lasting about 6 minutes.

July 30, 1883—a somewhat startling experience—steamship Resolute alone in the Arctic Ocean—six reports like gunfire—Nature, 53-295.

In Nature, 30-19, a correspondent writes that, upon the 3rd of January, 1869, a policeman in Harlton, Cambridgeshire, heard six or seven reports, as if of heavy guns far away. There is no findable record of an earthquake in England upon this date. In the London Times, Jan. 12, 15, 16, 1869, several correspondents write that upon the 9th of January a loud report had been heard and a shock felt at places near Colchester, Essex, about 30 miles from Harlton. One of the correspondents writes that he had heard the sound but had felt no shock. In the London Standard, Jan. 12, the Rev. J. F. Bateman, of South Lopham, Norfolk, writes as to the occurrence upon the 9th—“An extraordinary vibration, described variously by my parishioners as being ‘like a gunpowder explosion,’ ‘a big thunder clap,’ and ‘a little earthquake’ was noticed here this morning about 11.20.” In the Morning Post, Jan. 14, it is said that at places about twenty miles from Colchester it was thought that an explosion had occurred, upon the 9th, but, inasmuch as no explosion had been heard of, the disturbance was attributed to an earthquake. Night of Jan. 13—an explosion in the sky, at Brighton (Rept. B. A., 1869-307). In the Standard, Jan. 22, a correspondent writes from Swaffham, Norfolk, that, about 8 P. M., Jan. 15, something of an unknown nature had frightened flocks of sheep, which had 144burst from their bounds in various places. All these occurrences were in adjoining counties in southeastern England. Something was seen in the sky upon the 13th, and, according to the Chudleigh Weekly Express, Jan. 13, 1869, something was seen in the sky, night of the 10th, at Weston-super-Mare, near Bristol, in southwestern England. It was seen between 9 and 10 o’clock, and is said to have been an extraordinary meteor. Five hours later were felt three shocks said to have been earthquakes.

Upon the night of March 17, 1871, there was a series of events in France, and a series in England. A “meteor” was seen at Tours, at 8 P. M.—at 10.45, a “meteor” that left a luminous cloud over Saintes (Charante-Inferieure)—another at Paris, 11.15, leaving a mark in the sky, of fifteen minutes’ duration—another at Tours, at 11.45 P. M. See Les Mondes, 24-190, and Comptes Rendus, 72-789. There were “earthquakes” this night affecting virtually all England north of the Mersey and the Trent, and also southern parts of Scotland. As has often been the case, the phenomena were thought to have been explosions and were then said to have been earthquakes when no terrestrial explosions could be heard of (Symons’ Met. Mag., 6-39). There were six shocks near Manchester, between 6 and 7 P. M., and others about 11 P. M.; and in Lancashire about 11 P. M., and continuing in places as far apart as Liverpool and Newcastle, until 11.30 o’clock. The shocks felt about 11 o’clock correspond, in time, with the luminous phenomena in the sky of France, but our way of expressing that these so-called earthquakes in England may have been concussions from repeating explosions in the sky, is to record that, according to correspondence in the London Times, there were, upon the 20th, aërial phenomena in the region of Lancashire that had been affected upon the 17th—“sounds that seemed to come from a number of guns at a distance” and “pale flashes of lightning in the sky.”

Whether these series of phenomena be relatable to Mars or Martians or not, we note that in 1871 opposition of Mars was upon March 19; and, in 1869, upon Feb. 13; and in 1867 two days after the explosions at Fort Klamath. In our records in this book, similar coincidences can be found up to the year 1879. 145I have other such records not here published, and others that will be here investigated.

There is a triangular region in England, three points of which appear so often in our data that the region should be specially known to us, and I know it myself as the London Triangle. It is pointed in the north by Worcester and Hereford, in the south by Reading, Berkshire, and in the east by Colchester, Essex. The line between Colchester and Reading runs through London.

Upon Feb. 18, 1884, at West Mersea, near Colchester, a loud report was heard (Nature, 53-4). Upon the 22nd of April, 1884, centering around Colchester, occurred the severest earthquake in England in the 19th century. For several columns of description, see the London Times, April 23. There is a long list of towns in which there was great damage: in 24 parishes near Colchester, 1250 buildings were damaged. One of the places that suffered most was West Mersea (Daily Chronicle, April 28).

There was something in the sky. According to G. P. Yeats (Observations upon the Earthquake of Dec. 17, 1896, p. 6) there was a red appearance in the sky over Colchester, at the time of the shock of April 22, 1884.

The next day, according to a writer in Knowledge, 5-336, a stone fell from the sky, breaking glass in his greenhouse, in Essex. It was a quartz stone, and unlike anything usually known as meteoritic.

The indications, according to my reading of the data, and my impressions of such repeating occurrences as those at Fort Klamath, are that perhaps an explosion occurred in the sky, near Colchester, upon Feb. 18, 1884; that a great explosion did occur over Colchester, upon the 22nd of April, and that a great volume of débris spread over England, in a northwesterly direction, passing over Worcestershire and Shropshire, and continuing on toward Liverpool, nucleating moisture and falling in blackest of rain. From the Stonyhurst Observatory, near Liverpool, was reported, occurring at 11 A. M., April 26, “the most extraordinary darkness remembered”; forty minutes later fell rain “as black as ink,” and then black snow and black hail (Nature, 30-6). Black hail fell at Chaigley, several miles from Liverpool (Stonyhurst Magazine, 1461-267). Five hours later, black substance fell at Crowle, near Worcester (Nature, 30-32). Upon the 28th, at Church Stretton and Much Wenlock, Shropshire, fell torrents of liquid like ink and water in equal proportions (The Field, May 3, 1884). In the Jour. Roy. Met. Soc., 11-7, it is said that, upon the 28th, half a mile from Lilleshall, Shropshire, an unknown pink substance was brought down by a storm. Upon the 3rd of May, black substance fell again at Crowle (Nature, 30-32).

In Nature, 30-216, a correspondent writes that, upon June 22, 1884, at Fletching, Sussex, southwest of Colchester, there was intense darkness, and that rain then brought down flakes of soot in such abundance that it seemed to be “snowing black.” This was several months after the shock at Colchester, but my datum for thinking that another explosion, or disturbance of some kind, had occurred in the same local sky, is that, as reported by the inmates of one house, a slight shock was felt, upon the 24th of June, at Colchester, showing that the phenomena were continuing. See Roper’s List of Earthquakes.

Was not the loud report heard upon Feb. 18 probably an explosion in the sky, inasmuch as the sound was great and the quake little? Were not succeeding phenomena sounds and concussions and the fall of débris from explosions in the sky, acceptably upon April 22, and perhaps continuing until the 24th of June? Then what are the circumstances by which one small part of this earth’s surface could continue in relation with something somewhere else in space?

Comrie, Irkutsk, and Birmingham.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

Upon the night of the 13th of July, 1875, at midnight, two officers of H. M. S. Coronation, in the Gulf of Siam, saw a luminous projection from the moon’s upper limb (Nature, 12-495). Upon the 14th it was gone, but a smaller projection was seen from another part of the moon’s limb. This was in the period of the opposition of Mars.

Upon the night of Feb. 20, 1877, M. Trouvelot, of the Observatory of Meudon, saw, in the lunar crater Eudoxus, which, like almost all other centers of seeming signalling, is in the north-western quadrant of the moon, a fine line of light (L’Astronomie, 1885-212). It was like a luminous cable drawn across the crater.

March 21, 1877—a brilliant illumination, and not by the light of the sun, according to C. Barrett, in the lunar crater Proclus (Eng. Mec., 25-89).

May 15 and 29, 1877—the bright spot west of Picard (Eng. Mec., 25-335).

The changes upon Linné were first seen by Schmidt, in 1866, near the time of opposition of Mars. In May, 1877, Dr. Klein announced that a new object had appeared upon the moon. It was close to the center of the visible disc of the moon, and was in a region that had been most carefully studied by the selenographers. In the Observatory, 2-238, is Neison’s report from his own memoranda. In the years 1874 and 1875, he had studied this part of the moon, but had not seen this newly reported object in the crater Hyginus, or the object, Hyginus N, according to the selenographers’ terminology. In the Astronomical Register, 17-204, Neison lists, with details, 20 minute examinations of this region, from July, 1870, to August, 1875, in which this conspicuous object was not recorded.

June 14, 1877—a light on the dark part of the moon, resembling a reflection from a moving mirror; reported by Prof. Henry Harrison 148(Sidereal Messenger, 3-150). June 15—the bright spot west of Picard, according to Birt (Jour B. A. A., 19-376). Upon the 16th, Prof. Harrison thought that again he saw the moving light of the 14th, but shining faintly. In the English Mechanic, 25-432, Frank Dennett writes, as to an observation of June 17, 1877—“I fancied I could detect a minute point of light shining out of the darkness that filled Bessel.”

These are data of extraordinary activity upon the moon preceding the climacteric opposition of Mars, early in September, 1877.

Now we have an account of an occurrence during an eclipse of the moon:

On the night of the eclipse (Aug. 27, 1877) a ball of fire, of the apparent size of the moon, was seen, at ten minutes to eleven, dropping apparently from cloud to cloud, and the light flashing across the road (Astro. Reg., 1878-75).

Astro. Reg., 17-251:

Nov. 13, 1877—Hyginus N standing out with such prominence as to be seen at the first glance;

Nov. 14, 1877—not a trace of Hyginus N, though seeing was excellent:

Oct. 3, 1878—the most conspicuous of all appearances of Hyginus N;

Oct. 4, 1878—not a trace of Hyginus N.

Upon the night of Nov. 1, 1879, again in the period of opposition of Mars (opposition Nov. 12) again the bright spot west of Picard (Jour. B. A. A., 19-376). But I have several records of observations upon this appearance not in times of opposition of Mars. Whether there be any relation with anything else or not, at five o’clock, morning of Nov. 1, 1879, a “vivid flash” was seen and a shock was felt at West Cumberland (Nature, 21-19).

In the autumn of the year 1883, began extraordinary atmospheric effects in the sky of this earth. For Prof. John Haywood’s description of similar appearances upon the moon, Nov. 4, 1883 and March 29, 1884, see the Sidereal Messenger, 3-121. They were misty light-effects upon the dark part of the moon, not like “earthshine.” Our expression is that so close is the moon to this earth that it, too, may be affected by phenomena in the atmosphere of this earth.

149Something like another luminous cable, or like a shining wall, that was seen in Aristarchus, by Trouvelot, Jan. 23, 1880 (L’Astro., 1885-215); a speck of light in Marius, Jan. 13, 1881, by A. S. Williams (Eng. Mec., 32-494); unexplained light in Eudoxus, by Trouvelot, May 4, 1881 (L’Astro., 1885-213); an illumination in Kepler, by Morales, Feb. 5, 1884 (L’Astro., 9-149).

In Knowledge, 7-224, William Gray writes that, upon Feb. 19, 1885, he saw, in Hercules, a dull, deep, reddish appearance. In L’Astronomie, 1885-227, Lorenzo Kropp, an astronomer of Paysandu, Uruguay, writes that, upon Feb. 21, 1885, he had seen, in Cassini, a formation not far from Hercules, both of them in the northwestern quadrant of the moon, a reddish smoke or mist. He had heard that several other persons had seen, not a misty appearance, but a star-like light here, and upon the 22nd he had seen a definite light, himself, shining like the planet Saturn.

May 11, 1885—two lights upon the moon (L’Astro., 9-73).

May 11, 1886—two lights upon the moon (L’Astro., 6-312).

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CHAPTER TWELVE

That through lenses rimmed with horizons inhabitants of this earth have seen revelations of other worlds—that atmospheric strata of different densities are lenses—but that the faults of the wide glasses in the observatories are so intensified in atmospheric revelations that all our data are distortions. Our acceptance is that every mirage has a primary; that in human mind all poetry is based upon observation, and that imagery in the sky is similarly uncreative. If a mirage can not be traced to the known upon this earth, one supposes that it is either a derivation from the unknown upon this earth, or from the unknown somewhere else. We shall have data of a series of mirages in Sweden, or upon the shores of the Baltic, from Oct., 1881, to Dec., 1888. I take most of the data from Nature, Knowledge, Cosmos, and L’Astronomie, published in this period. I have no data of such appearances in this region either before or after this period: the suggestion in my own mind is that they were not mirages from terrestrial primaries, or they would not be so confined to one period, but were shadows or mirages from something that was in temporary suspension over the Baltic and Sweden, all details distorted and reported in terms of familiar terrestrial appearances.

Oct. 10, 1881—that at Rugenwalde, Pomerania, the mirage of a village had been seen: snow-covered roofs from which hung icicles; human forms distinctly visible. It was believed that the mirage was a representation of the town of Nexo, on the island of Bornholm. Rugenwalde is on the Baltic, and Nexo is about 100 miles northwest, in the Baltic.

The first definite account of the mirages of Sweden, findable by me, is published in Nature, June 29, 1882, where it is said that preceding instances had attracted attention—that, in May, 1882, over Lake Orsa, Sweden, representations of steamships had been seen, and then “islands covered with vegetation.” Night of 151May 19, 1883—beams of light at Lake Ludyika, Sweden—they looked like a representation of a lake in moonshine, with shores covered with trees, showing faint outlines of farms (Monthly Weather Review, May, 1883). May 28, 1883—at Finsbo, Sweden—changing scenes, at short intervals: mountains, lakes, and farms. Oct. 16, 1884—Lindsberg—a large town, with four-storied houses, a castle and a lake. May 22, 1885—Gothland—a town surrounded by high mountains, a large vessel in front of the town. June 15, 1885—near Oxelosund—two wooded islands, a construction upon one of them, and two warships. It is said that at the time two Swedish warships were at sea, but were at considerable distance north of Oxelosund. Sept. 12, 1885—Valla—a representation that is said to have been a “remarkable mirage” but that is described as if the appearances were cloud-forms—several monitors, one changing into a spouting whale, and the other into a crocodile—then forests—dancers—a wooded island with buildings and a park. Sept. 29, 1885—again at Valla—between 8 and 9 o’clock, P. M.; a lurid glare upon the northwestern horizon; a cloud bank—animals, groups of dancers, a forest, and then a park with paths. July 15, 1888—Hudikwall—a tempestuous sea, and a vessel upon it; a small boat leaving the vessel. Upon Oct. 8, 1888, at Merexull, on the Baltic, but in Russia, was seen a mirage of a city that lasted an hour. It is said that some buildings were recognized, and that the representation was identified with St. Petersburgh, which is about 200 miles from the Baltic.

That a large, substantial mass, presumably of land, can be in at least temporary suspension over a point upon this earth’s surface, and not fall, and be, in ordinary circumstances, invisible—

In L’Astronomie, 1887-426, MM. Codde and Payan, both of them astronomers, well-known for their conventional observations and writings, publish accounts of an unknown body that appeared upon the sun’s limb, for twenty or thirty seconds, after the eclipse of August 19, 1887. They saw a round body, apparent diameter about one tenth of the apparent diameter of the sun, according to the sketch that is published. In L’Astronomie, these two observers write separately, and, in the city of Marseilles, their 152observations were made at a distance apart. But the unknown body was seen by both upon the same part of the sun’s limb. So it is supposed that it could not have been a balloon, nor a circular cloud, nor anything else very near this earth. But many astronomers in other parts of Europe were watching this eclipse, and it seems acceptable that others, besides two in Marseilles, continued to look, immediately after the eclipse; but from nowhere else came a report upon this object, so that all indications are that it was far from the sun and near Marseilles, but farther than clouds or balloons in this local sky. I can draw no diagram that can satisfy all these circumstances, except by supposing the sun to be only a few thousand miles away.

If little black stones fall four times, in eleven years, to one part of this earth’s surface, and fall nowhere else, we are, in conceiving of a fixed origin somewhere above a stationary earth, at least conceiving in terms of data, and, whether we are fanatics or not, we are not of the type of other upholders of stationariness of this earth, who care more for Moses than they do for data. I’d not like to have it thought that we are not great admirers of Moses, sometimes.

The rock that hung in the sky of Servia—

Upon October 13, 1872, a stone fell from the sky, to this earth, near the town of Soko-Banja, Servia. If it were not a peculiar stone, there is no force to this datum. It is said that it was unknown stone. A name was invented for it. The stone was called banjite, after the town near which it fell.

Seventeen years later (Dec. 1, 1889) another rock of banjite fell in Servia, near Jelica.

For Meunier’s account of these stones, see L’Astronomie, 1890-272, and Comptes Rendus, 92-331. Also, see La Nature, 1881-1-192. According to Meunier these stones did fall from the sky; indigenous to this earth there are no such stones; nowhere else have such stones fallen from the sky; they are identical in material; they fell seventeen years apart.

At times when we think favorably of this work of ours, we see in it a pointing-out of an evil of modern specialization. A seismologist 153studies earthquakes, and an astronomer studies meteors; neither studies both earthquakes and meteors, and consequently each, ignorant of the data collected by the other, sees no relation between the two phenomena. The treatment of the event in Servia, Dec. 1, 1889, is an instance of conventional scientific attempts to understand something by separately, or specially, focussing upon different aspects, and not combining into an inclusive concept. Meunier writes only upon the stones that fell from the sky, and does not mention an earthquake at the time. Milne, in his Catalogue of Destructive Earthquakes, lists the occurrence as an earthquake, and does not mention stones that fell from the sky. All combinations greatly affect the character of components: in our combination of the two aspects, we see that the phenomenon was not an earthquake, as earthquakes are commonly understood, though it may have been meteoric; but was not meteoric, in ordinary terms of meteors, because of the unlikelihood that meteors, identical in material, should, seventeen years apart, fall upon the same part of this earth’s surface, and nowhere else.

This occurrence was of course an explosion in the sky, and its vibrations were communicated to the earth below, with all the effects of any other kind of earthquakes. Back in our earliest confusion of the data of a century’s first quarter, we had awareness of this combination and its conventional misinterpretation: that many concussions that have been communicated from explosions in the sky have been cataloged in lists of subterranean earthquakes. We are farther along now, in our data of the 19th century, and now we come across awareness, in other minds, of this distinguishment. At 8:20 A. M., Nov. 20, 1887, was heard and felt something that was reported from many places in the region that is known to us as the London Triangle, as an earthquake, though in some towns it was thought that a great explosion, perhaps in London, had occurred. It was reported from Reading, and from four towns near Reading, and Reading is said to be one of the places where the concussion was greatest. There were several accounts of slight alarm among sheep, which are sensitive to meteors and earthquakes. But, in Symons’ Met. Mag., Mr. H. G. Fordham wrote that the occurrence was not an earthquake; that a meteor had exploded. He had very little to base 154this opinion upon: out of scores of descriptions, he had record of only two assertions that something had been seen in the sky. Nevertheless, because the sound was so much greater than the concussion, Mr. Fordham came to his conclusion.

In Symons’ Met. Mag., 23-154, Dr. R. H. Wake writes that, upon the evening of Nov. 3, 1888, in a region about four miles wide and ten or fifteen miles long, in the Thames Valley (near Reading) flocks of sheep had rushed from their folds in a common alarm. About a year later, in the Chiltern Hills, which extend in a northeasterly direction from the Thames Valley, near Reading, there was another such occurrence. In the London Standard, Nov. 7, 1889, the Rev. J. Ross Barker, of Chesham, a town about 25 miles northeast of Reading, writes that, upon Oct. 25, 1889, many flocks of sheep, in a region of 30 square miles, had, by common impulse, broken from their folds. Mr. Barker asks whether anyone knew of a meteor or of an earthquake at the time. In vol. 24, Symons’ Met. Mag., Mr. Symons accepts that all three of these occurrences were effects of meteoric explosions in the sky. The phenomena are insignificant relatively to some that we have considered: the significance is in this definite recognition in orthodoxy, itself, that some supposed earthquakes, or effects of supposed earthquakes, are reactions to explosions in the sky.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Exploding monasteries that shoot out clouds of monks into cyclonic formations with stormy nuns similarly dispossessed—or collapsing monasteries—sometimes slowly crumbling confines of the cloistered—by which we typify all things: that all developments pass through a process of walling-away within shells that will break. Once upon a time there was a shell around the United States. The shell broke. Some other things were smashed.

The doctrines of great distances among heavenly bodies, and of a moving earth are the strongest elements of Exclusionism: the mere idea of separations by millions of miles discourages thoughts of communication with other worlds; and only to think that this earth shoots through space at a velocity of 19 miles a second puts an end to speculation upon how to leave it and how to return. But, if these two conventions be features of a walling-away like that of a chick within its shell, or that of the United States within its boundaries, and if some day all such confinements of the embryonic break, our own prophecy, in the vague terms of all successful prophecies, is that a matured view of astronomic phenomena will be from a litter of broken demonstrations.

Our expression now is upon the function of Isolation in Development. Specially it is not ours, because I think we learned it from the biologists, but we are applying it generally. If the general expression be accepted, we conceive that functionally have the astronomers taught that planets are millions of miles away, and that this earth moves at such terrific velocity that it is encysted with speed. Whether isolations function or not, that exclusions that break down are typical of all developments is signified by data upon all growing things, beginning with the aristocratic seeds, which, however, liberalize to intercourse with mean materials or die. All animal-organisms are at first walled away. 156In human circumstances conditions are the same. The development of every science has been a series of temporary exclusions, and the story of every industry tells of inventions that were resisted, but that were finally admitted. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Hegel published his demonstration that there could be only seven planets: too late to recall the work, he learned that Ceres had been discovered. It is our expression that the mental state of Hegel partook of a general spirit of his time, and that it was necessary, or that it functioned, because early astronomers could scarcely have systematized their doctrine had they been bewildered by seven or eight hundred planetary bodies; and that, besides the functions of the astronomers, according to our expressions, there was also their usefulness in breaking down the walls of the older, and outlived, orthodoxy. We conceive that it is well that a great deal of experience should be withheld from children, and that, any way, in their early years, they are sexually isolated, for instance, and our idea is that our data have been held back by no outspoken conspiracy, but by an inhibition similar to that by which a great deal of biology, for instance, is not taught to children. But, if we think of something of this kind, equally acceptable is it that even in the face of orthodox principles, these data have been preserved in orthodox publications, and that, in the face of supposed principles of Darwinism, as applied generally they have survived, though not in harmony with their environment.

Tons of paper have been consumed by calculations upon the remoteness of stars and planets. But I can find nothing that has been calculated, or said, that is sounder than Mr. Shaw’s determination that the moon is 37 miles away. It is that the Vogels and the Struves and the Newcombs have been functionally hypnotized and have usefully spread the embryonic delusion that there is a vast, untraversible expanse of space around this earth, or that they have had some basis that it has been my misfortune to be unable to find, or that there is no pleasant and unaccusatory way of explaining them.

April 10, 1874—a luminous object that exploded in the sky of Kuttenberg, Bohemia. It is said that the glare was like sunlight, and that the “terrifying flash” was followed by a detonation that 157rumbled about a minute. April 9, 1876—an explosion that is said to have been violent, over the town of Rosenau, Hungary. See Rept. B. A., 1877-147.

These two objects which appeared in virtually the same local sky of this earth—points of explosion 250 miles apart—came from virtually the same point in the sky: constellation of Cassiopeia; different by two degrees in right ascension, and with no difference in declination. About the same time in the evening: one at 8.9 P. M., and the other at 8.20 P. M. Same night in the year, according to extra-terrestrial calendars: the year 1876 was a leap year.

If they had been ordinary meteors, by coincidence two ordinary meteors of the same stream might, exactly two years apart, come from almost the same point in the heavens and strike almost the same point over this earth. But they were two of the most extraordinary occurrences in the records of explosions in the sky. Coincidences multiply, or these objects did come from the not far-distant constellation Cassiopeia, and their striking so closely together indicates that this earth is stationary; and something of the purposeful may be thought of. Serially related to these events, or representing some more coincidence, there had been, upon June 9, 1866, a tremendous explosion in the sky of Knysahinya, Hungary, and about a thousand stones had fallen from the sky (Rept. B. A., 1867-430). Rosenau and Knysahinya are about 75 miles apart. Of course one can very much extend our own circumscribed little notions, and think of the firing of projectiles from beyond the stars, just as one can think of our unknown lands as being not in the immediate sky of Servia or Birmingham or Comrie, but as being beyond the nearby stars, reducing everything more than we have reduced—but the firing of stones to this earth seems crude to me. Of course, objects, or fragments of objects made of steel, like the manufactured steel of this earth, have fallen to this earth, and are now in collections of “meteorites.” There is a story in a book that is not very accessible to us, because it can’t be found along with C. R., or Eng. Mec., or L’Astro., of tablets of stone that were once upon a time fired to this earth. It may be that inhabitants of this earth have been receiving instructions ever since, engravings arriving very badly damaged, however.

158I have data upon repeating appearances, said to have been “auroral,” in a local sky. If they were auroral, repetitions at regular intervals and so localized are challengers to the most resolute of explainers. If they were of extra-mundane origin, they indicate that this earth is stationary. The regularity is suggestive of signalling. For instance—a light in the sky of Lyons, N. Y., Dec. 9, 1891, Jan. 5, Feb. 2, Feb. 29, March 27, April 23, 1892. In the Scientific American, May 7, 1892, Dr. M. A. Veeder writes that, from Dec. 9, 1891, to April 23, 1892, there had been a bright light that he calls “auroral,” in the sky of Lyons, every 27th night. He associates the lights with the sun’s synodic period, and says that upon each of the days preceding a nocturnal display, there had been a disturbance in the sun. How a disturbance in the sun could, at night, sun somewhere near the antipodes of Lyons, N. Y., so localize its effects, one can’t clear up. In Nature, 46-29, Dr. Veeder associates the phenomena with the synodic period of the sun, but he says that this period is of 27 days, 6 hours, and 47 minutes, noting that this period is inconsistent with the phenomena at Lyons, making more than a day’s difference in the time of his records. This precise determination is more of the “exact science” that is driving some of us away from refinements into hoping for caves. Different parts of the sun move at different rates: I have read of sun spots that moved diagonally across the sun.

In Nature, 15-451, a correspondent writes that, at 8.55 P. M., he saw a large red star in Serpens, where he had never seen such an appearance before—Gunnersbury, March 17, 1877. Ten minutes later, the object increased and decreased several times, flashing like the revolving light of a lighthouse, then disappearing. This correspondent writes that, about 10 P. M., he saw a great meteor. He suggests no relation between the two appearances, but there may have been relation, and there may be indication of something that was stationary at least one hour over Gunnersbury, because the object said to have been a “meteor” was first seen at Gunnersbury. In the Observatory, 1-20, Capt. Tupman writes that, at 9.57 o’clock, a great meteor was seen first at Frome, Tetbury, and Gunnersbury. The red object might not have been in 159the local sky of Gunnersbury; might have been in the constellation Serpens, unseen in all the rest of the world.

There is a great field of records of “meteors” that, with no parallax, or with little parallax, or with little parallax that may be accounted for by supposing that observations were not quite simultaneous, have been seen to come as if from a star or from a planet, and that may have come from such points, indicating that they are not far away. For instance, Rept. B. A., 1879-77—the great meteor of Sept. 5, 1868. It was seen, at Zurich, Switzerland, to come from a point near Jupiter; at Tremont, France, origin was so close to Jupiter that this object and the planet were seen in the same telescopic field; at Bergamo, Italy, it was seen five or six degrees from Jupiter. Zurich is about 140 miles from Bergamo, and Tremont is farther from Zurich and Bergamo than that.

So there are data that indicate that objects have come to this earth from planets or from stars, enforcing our idea that the remotest planet is not so far from this earth as the moon is said, conventionally, to be; and that the stars, all equi-distant from this earth might be reached by travelling from this earth. One notices that I always conclude that, if phenomena repeatedly occur in one local sky of this earth, their origin is traceable to a fixed place over a stationary earth. The fixed place over this earth is indicated, but that fixed place—island of space, foreign coast, whatever it may be—may be conceived of as accompanying this earth in its rotations and revolutions around the sun. Accepting that nothing much is known of gravitation; that gravitational astronomy is a myth; that attraction may extend but a few miles around this earth, if I can think of something hanging unsupported in space, I always think of an island, say, over Birmingham, or Irkutsk, or Comrie, as soon flying off by the centrifugal force of a rotating earth, or as being soon left behind in a rush around the sun. Nevertheless there is good room for discussion here. But when it comes to other orders of data, I find one convergence toward the explanation that this earth is stationary. But the subject is supposed to be sacred. One must not think that this earth is stationary. One must not investigate. 160To think upon this subject, except as one is told to think, is, or seems to be considered, impious.

But how can one account for an earth that moves?

By thinking that something started it and that nothing ever stopped it.

Earth that doesn’t move?

That nothing ever started it.

Some more sacrilege.

161

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

If a grasshopper could hop on a cannon ball, passing overhead, I could conceive, perhaps, how something, from outer space, could flit to a moving earth, explore a while, and then hop off.

But suppose we have to accept that there have been instances of just such enterprise and agility, relatively to the planet Venus. Irrespective of our notion that it may be that sometimes a vessel sails to this earth from Venus and returns, there are striking data indicating that, whether conceivable or not, luminous objects have appeared from somewhere, or presumably from outer space, and have been seen temporarily suspended over the planet Venus. This is in accord with our indications that there are regions in the sky suspended over and near this earth. It looks bad for our inference that this earth is stationary, but it is the supposed rotary motion of this earth more than the supposed orbital motion that seems to us would dislodge such neighboring bodies; and all astronomers, except those who say that Venus rotates in about 24 hours, say that Venus rotates in about 224 days, a velocity that would generate little centrifugal force.

I have a note upon a determined luminosity that was bent upon Saturn, as its objective. In the English Mechanic, 63-496, a correspondent writes that, upon July 13, 1896, he saw, through his telescope, from 10 until after 11.15, P. M., after which the planet was too near the horizon for good seeing, a luminous object moving near Saturn. He saw it pass several small stars. “It was certainly going toward Saturn at a good rate.” There may be swifts of the sky that can board planets. If they can swoop on and off an earth moving at a rate of 19 miles a second, disregarding rotation, because entrance at a pole may be thought of, why, then, for all I know smaller things do ride on cannon balls. Of course if our data that indicate that the supposed solar system, or the geo-system, is to an enormous degree smaller than is conventionally 162taught be accepted, the orbital velocity of Venus is far cut down.

About the last of August, 1873—Brussels; eight o’clock in the evening—rising above the horizon, into a clear sky, was seen a star-like object. It mounted higher and higher, until, about ten minutes later, it disappeared (La Nature, 1873-239). It seems that this conspicuous object did appear in a local sky, and was therefore not far from this earth. If it were not a fire-balloon, one supposes that it did come from outer space, and then returned.

Perhaps a similar thing that visited the moon, and was then seen sailing away—in the Astronomical Register, 23-205, Prof. Schafarik, of Prague, writes that upon April 24, 1874, he saw “an object of so peculiar a nature that I do not know what to make of it.” He saw a dazzling white object slowly traversing the disc of the moon. He had not seen it approaching the moon. He watched it after it left the moon. Sept. 27, 1881—South Africa—an object that was seen near the moon, by Col. Markwick—like a comet but moving rapidly (Jour. Liverpool Astro. Soc., 7-117).

Our chief interest is in objects, like ships, that have “boarded” this moving earth with the agility of a Columbus who could dodge a San Salvador and throw out an anchor to an American coast screeching past him at a rate of 19 miles a second, or in objects that have come as close as atmospheric conditions, or unknown conditions, would permit to the bottom of a kind of stationary sea. We now graduate Capt. Noble to the extra-geographic fold. In Knowledge, 4-173, Capt. Noble writes that, at 10.35 o’clock, night of August 28, 1883, he saw in the sky something “like a new and most glorious comet.” First he saw something like the tail of a comet, or it was like a search light, according to Capt. Noble’s sketch of it in Knowledge. Then Capt. Noble saw the nucleus from which this light came. It was a brilliant object. Upon page 207, W. K. Bradgate writes that, at 12.40 A. M., August 29, at Liverpool, he saw an object like the planet Jupiter, a ray of light emanating from it. Upon the nights of Sept. 11 and 13, Prof. Swift saw, at Rochester, N. Y., an unknown object like a comet, perhaps in the local sky of Rochester, inasmuch as it was reported from nowhere else (Observatory, 6-345). In 163Knowledge, 4-219, Mrs. Harbin writes that, upon the night of Sept. 21, at Yeovil, she saw the same brilliant searchlight-like light that had been seen by Capt. Noble, but that it had disappeared before she could turn her telescope upon it. And several months later (Nov., 1883) a similar object was seen obviously not far away, but in the local sky of Porto Rico and then of Ohio (Amer. Met. Jour., 1-110, and Sci. Amer., 50-40, 97). It may be better not to say at this time that we have data for thinking that a vessel carrying something like a searchlight, visited this earth, and explored for several months over regions as far apart as England and Porto Rico. Just at present it is enough to record that something that was presumably not a fire-balloon appeared in the sky of England, close to this earth, if seen nowhere else, and in two hours traversed the distance of about 200 miles between Sussex and Liverpool.

Aug. 22, 1885—Saigon, Cochin-China—according to Lieut. Réveillère, of the vessel Guiberteau—object like a magnificent red star, but larger than the planet Venus—it moved no faster than a cloud in a moderate wind; observed 7 or 8 minutes, then disappearing behind clouds (C. R., 101-680).

In this book it is my frustrated desire to subordinate the theme of this earth’s stationariness. My subject is New Lands—things, objects, beings that are, or may be, the data of coming expansions—

But the stationariness of this earth can not be subordinated. It is crucial.

Again—there is no use discussing possible explorations beyond this earth, if this earth moves at a rate of 19 miles a second, or 19 miles a minute.

As to voyagers who may come to or near this earth from other planets—how could they leave and return to swiftly moving planets? According to our principles of Extra-geography, the planets move part of the time with the revolving stars, the remotest planets remaining in, under, or near one constellation years at a time. Anything that could reach, and then travel from, a swiftly revolving constellation in the ecliptic could arrive at a stellar polar region, where, relatively to a central, stationary body, there is no motion.

164

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It may be that we now add to our sins the horse that swam in the sky. For all I know, we contribute to a wider biology. In the New York Times, July 8, 1878, is published a dispatch from Parkersburg, West Virginia: that, about July 1, 1878, three or four farmers had seen, in a cloudless sky, apparently half a mile high, “an opaque substance.” It looked like a white horse, “swimming in the clear atmosphere.” It is said to have been a mirage of a horse in some distant field. If so, it is interesting not only because it was opaque, but because of a selection or preference: the field itself was not miraged.

Black bodies and the dark rabbles of the sky—and that rioting thing, from floating anarchies, have often spotted the sun. Then, by all that is compensatory, in the balances of existence, there are disciplined forces in space. In the Scientific American, 44-291, it is said that, according to newspapers of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, figures had been seen in the sky in the latter part of September, and the first week in October, 1881, reports that “exhibited a mediæval condition of intelligence scarcely less than marvellous.” The writer suggests that, though probably something had been seen in the sky, it was only an aurora. Our own intelligence and that of astronomers and meteorologists and everybody else with whom we have had experience had better not be discussed, but the accusation of mediævalism is something that we’re sensitive about, and we hasten to the Monthly Weather Review, and if that doesn’t give us a modern touch, I mistake the sound of it. Monthly Weather Review, Sept, and Oct., 1881—an auroral display in Maryland and New York, upon the 23rd of September; all other auroras in September far north of the three states in which it was said phenomena were seen. October—no auroras until the 18th; that one in the north. There was a mirage upon Sept. 23, but at Indianola; two instances in October, but late in the month, and in northern states.

165It is said, in the Scientific American, that, according to the Warrentown (Va.) Solid South, a number of persons had seen white-robed figures in the sky, at night. The story in the Richmond Dispatch is that many persons had seen, or had thought they had seen, an alarming sight in the sky, at night: a vast number of armed, uniformed soldiers drilling. Then a dispatch from Wilmington, Delaware—platoons of angels marching and counter-marching in the sky, their white robes and helmets gleaming. Similar accounts came from Laurel and Talbot. Several persons said that they had seen, in the sky, the figure of President Garfield, who had died not long before. Our general acceptance is that all reports upon such phenomena are colored in terms of appearances and subjects uppermost in minds.

L’Astronomie, 1888-392:

That, about the first of August, 1888, near Warasdin, Hungary, several divisions of infantry, led by a chief, who waved a flaming sword, had been seen in the sky, three consecutive days, marching several hours a day. The writer in L’Astronomie says that in vain does one try to explain that this appearance was a mirage of terrestrial soldiers marching at a distance from Warasdin, because widespread publicity and investigation had disclosed no such soldiers. Even if there had been terrestrial soldiers near Warasdin repeating mirages localized would call for explanation.

But that there may be space-armies, from which reflections or shadows or Brocken spectres are sometimes cast—a procession that crossed the sun: forms that moved, or that marched, sometimes four abreast; observation by M. Bruguière, at Marseilles, April 15 and 16, 1883 (L’Astro., 5-70). An army that was watched, forty minutes, by M. Jacquot, Aug. 30, 1886 (L’Astro., 1886-71)—things or beings that seemed to march and to counter-march: all that moved in the same direction, moved in parallel lines. In L’Année Scientifique, 29-8, there is an account of observations by M. Trouvelot, Aug. 29, 1871. He saw objects, some round, some triangular, and some of complex forms. Then occurred something that at least suggests that these things were not moving in the wind, nor sustained in space by the orbital forces of meteors; that each was depending upon its own powers of flight, and that 166an accident occurred to one of them. All of them, though most of the time moving with great rapidity, occasionally stopped, but then one of them fell toward the earth, and the indications are that it was a heavy body, and had not been sustained by the wind, which would scarcely suddenly desert one of its flotsam and continue to sustain all the others. The thing fell, oscillating from side to side like a disc falling through water.

New York Sun, March 16, 1890—that, at 4 o’clock, in the afternoon of March 12th, in the sky of Ashland, Ohio, was seen a representation of a large, unknown city. By some persons it was supposed to be a mirage of the town of Mansfield, thirty miles away; other observers thought that they recognized Sandusky, sixty miles away. “The more superstitious declared that it was a vision of the New Jerusalem.”

May have been a revelation of heaven, and for all I know heaven may resemble Sandusky, and those of us who have no desire to go to Sandusky may ponder that point, but our own expression is that things have been pictured in the sky, and have not been traced to terrestrial origins, but have been interpreted always in local terms. Probably a living thing in the sky—seen by farmers—a horse. Other things, or far-refracted images, or shadows—and they were supposed to be vast lions or soldiers or angels, all according to preconceived ideas. Representations that have been seen in India—Hindoo costumes described upon them. Suppose that, in the afternoon of January 17, 1892, there was a battle in the sky of Montana—we know just about in what terms the description would be published. Brooklyn Eagle, Jan. 18, 1892—a mirage in the sky of Lewiston, Montana—Indians and hunters alternately charging and retreating. The Indians were in superior numbers and captured the hunters. Then details—hunters tied to stakes; the piling of faggots; etc. “So far as could be ascertained last night, the Indians on the reservations are peaceable.” I think that we’re peaceable enough, but, unless the astronomers can put us on reservations, where we’ll work out expressions in beads and wampum instead of data, we’ll have to carry on a conflict with the vacant minds to which appear mirages of their own emptiness in the sometimes swarming skies.

Altogether there are many data indicating that vessels and living 167things of space do come close to this earth, but there is absence of data of beings that have ever landed upon this earth, unless someone will take up the idea that Kaspar Hauser, for instance, came to this earth from some other physical world. Whether spacarians have ever dredged down here or not, or “sniped” down here, pouncing, assailing, either wantonly, or in the interests of their sciences, there are data of seeming seizures and attacks from somewhere, and I have strong objections against lugging in the fourth dimension, because then I am no better off, wondering what the fifth and sixth are like.

In La Nature, 1888-2-66, M. Adrian Arcelin writes that, while excavating near de Solutré, in August, 1878, upon a day, described as superbe, sky clear to a degree said to have been parfaitement, several dozen sheets of wrapping paper upon the ground suddenly rose. Nearby were a dozen men, and not one of them had felt a trace of wind. A strong force had seized upon these conspicuous objects, touching nothing else. According to M. Arcelin, the dust on the ground under and around was not disturbed. The sheets of paper continued upward, and disappeared in the sky.

A powerful force that swooped upon a fishing vessel, raising it so far that when it fell back it sank—see London Times, Sept. 24, 1875. A quarter of a mile away were other vessels, from which set out rescuers to the sailors who had been thrown into the sea. There was no wind: the rescuers could not use sails, but had to row their boats.

Upon Oct. 2, 1875, a man was trundling a cart from Schaffhausen, near Beringen, Germany. His right arm was perforated from front to back, as if by a musket ball (Pop. Sci., 15-566). This man had two companions. He had heard a whirring sound, but his companions had heard nothing. At one side of the road there were laborers in a field, but they were not within gunshot distance. Whatever the missile may have been, it was unfindable.

La Nature, 1879-1-166, quotes the Courrier des Ardennes as to an occurrence in the Commune Signy-le-Pettit, Easter Sunday, 1879—a conspicuous, isolated house—suddenly its slate roof shot into the air, and then fell to the ground. There had not been 168a trace of wind. The writer of the account says that the force, which he calls a trouble inoui had so singled out this house that nothing in its surroundings beyond a distance of thirty feet had been disturbed.

Scientific American, July 10, 1880—that, according to the Plaindealer, of East Kent, Ontario, two citizens of East Kent were in a field, and heard a loud report. They saw stones shooting upward from a field. They examined the spot, which was about 16 feet in diameter, finding nothing to suggest an explanation of the occurrence. It is said that there had been neither a whirlwind nor anything else by which to explain.

It may be that witnesses have seen human beings dragged from our own existence either into the objectionable fourth dimension, perhaps then sifting into the fifth, or up to the sky by some exploring thing. I have data, but they are from the records of psychic research. For instance, a man has been seen walking along a road—sudden disappearance. Explanation—that he was not a living human being, but an apparition that had disappeared. I have not been able to develop such data, finding, for instance, that someone in the neighborhood had been reported missing; but it may be that we can find material in our own field.

Upon December 10, 1881, Walter Powell and two companions ascended from Bath in the Government balloon Saladin (Valentine and Tomlinson, Travels in Space, p. 227). The balloon descended at Bridport, coast of the English Channel. Two of the aëronauts got out, but the balloon, with Powell in it, shot upward. There was a report that the balloon had been seen to fall in the English Channel, near Bridport, but according to Capt. Temple, one of Powell’s companions, probably something thrown from the balloon had been seen to fall.

A balloon is lost near or over the sea. If it should fall into the sea it would probably float and for considerable time be a conspicuous object; nevertheless the disappearance of a balloon last seen over the English Channel, can not, without other circumstances, be considered very mysterious. Now one expects to learn of reports from many places of supposed balloons that had been seen. But the extraordinary circumstance is that reports 169came in upon a luminous object that was seen in the sky at the time that this balloon disappeared. In the London Times, it is said that a luminous object had been seen, evening of the 13th, moving in various directions in the sky near Cherbourg. It is said that upon the night of the 16th three customhouse guards, at Laredo, Spain, had seen something like a balloon in the sky, and had climbed a mountain in order to see it better, but that it had shot out sparks and had disappeared—and had been reported from Bilbao, Spain, the next day. In the Morning Post, it is said that this luminous display was the chief feature; that it was this sparkling that had made the object visible. In the Standard, Dec. 16, is an account of something that was seen in the sky, five o’clock, morning of Dec. 15, by Capt. Mc. Bain, of the steamship Countess of Aberdeen, off the coast of Scotland, 25 miles from Montrose. Through glasses, the object seemed to be a light attached to something thought to be the car of a balloon, increasing and decreasing in size—a large light—“as large as the light at Girdleness.” It moved in a direction opposite to that of the wind, though possibly with wind of an upper stratum. It was visible half an hour, and when it finally disappeared, was moving toward Bervie, a town on the Scottish coast about 12 miles north of Montrose. In the Morning Post it is said that the explanation is simple: that someone in Monfreith, 8 miles from Dundee, had, late in the evening of the 15th, sent up a fire-balloon, “which had been carried along the coast by a gentle breeze, and, after burning all night, extinguished and collapsed off Montrose, early on Thursday morning (16th).” This story of a balloon that wafted to Montrose, and that was evidently traced until it collapsed near Montrose does not so simply explain an object that was seen 25 miles from Montrose. In the Standard, Dec. 19, it is said that two bright lights were seen over Dartmouth Harbor, upon the 11th.

Walter Powell was Member of Parliament for Malmesbury, and had many friends, some of whom started immediately to search. His relatives offered a reward. A steamboat searched the Channel, and did not give up until the 13th; fishing vessels kept on searching. A “sweeping expedition” was organized, and the 170coast guard was doubled, searching the shore for wreckage, but not a fragment of the balloon, nor from the balloon, except a thermometer in a bag, was found.

In L’Astronomie, 1886-312, Prof. Paroisse, of the College Bar-sur-Aube, quotes two witnesses of a curieux phénomène that occurred in a garden of the College, May, 22, 1886—cloudless sky; wind très faible. Within a small circle in the garden were some baskets and ashes and a window frame that weighed sixty kilogrammes. These things suddenly rose from the ground. At a height of about forty feet, they remained suspended several minutes, then falling back to the place from which they had risen. Not a thing outside this small circle had been touched by the seizure. The witnesses said that they had felt no disturbance in the air.

Scientific American, 56-65—that in June, 1886, according to the London Times, “a well-known official” was entering Pall Mall, when he felt a violent blow on the shoulder and heard a hissing sound. There was no one in sight except a distant policeman. At home, he found that the nap of his coat looked as if a hot wire had been pressed against the cloth, in a long, straight line. No missile was found, but it was thought that something of a meteoritic nature had struck him.

Charleston News and Courier, Nov. 25, 1886—that, at Edina, Mo., Nov. 23, a man and his three sons were pulling corn on a farm. Nothing is said of meteorologic conditions, and, for all I know, they may have been pulling corn in a violent thunder storm. Something that is said to have been lightning flashed from the sky. The man was slightly injured, one son killed, the other seriously injured—the third had disappeared. “What has become of him is not known, but it is supposed that he was blinded or crazed by the shock, and wandered away.”

Brooklyn Eagle, March 17, 1891—that, at Wilkesbarre, Pa., March 16th, two men were “lifted bodily and carried considerable distance in a whirlwind.” It was a powerful force, but nothing else was affected by it. Upon the same day, there was an occurrence in Brooklyn. In the New York Times, March 17, 1891, it is said that two men, Smith Morehouse, of Orange Co., N. Y., and William Owen, of Sussex Co., N. J., were walking in Vanderbilt 171Avenue, Brooklyn, about 2 o’clock, afternoon of the 16th, when a terrific explosion occurred close to the head of Morehouse, injuring him and stunning Owen, the flash momentarily blinding both. Morehouse’s face was covered with marks like powder-marks, and his tongue was pierced. With no one else to accuse, the police arrested Owen, but held him upon the technical charge of intoxication. Morehouse was taken to a hospital, where a splinter of metal, considered either brass or copper, but not a fragment of a cartridge, was removed from his tongue. No other material could be found, though an object of considerable size had exploded. Morehouse’s hat had been perforated in six places by unfindable substances. According to witnesses there had been no one within a hundred feet of the men. One witness had seen the flash before the explosion, but could not say whether it had been from something falling or not. In the Brooklyn Eagle, March 17, 1891, it is said that neither of the men had a weapon of any kind, and that there had been no disagreement between them. According to a witness, they had been under observation at the time of the explosion, her attention having been attracted by their rustic appearance.

There is an interesting merging here of the findable and the unfindable. I suppose that no one will suppose that someone threw a bomb at these men. But enough substance was found to exclude the notion of “lightning from a clear sky.” Something of a meteoritic nature seems excluded.

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Out from a round, red planet, a little white shaft—a fairy’s arrow shot into an apple. June 10, 1892—a light like a little searchlight, projecting from the limb of Mars. Upon July 11 and 13, it was seen again, by Campbell and Hussey (Nature, 50-500).

Aug. 3, 1892—climacteric opposition of Mars.

Upon August 12, 1892, flashes were seen by many persons, in the sky of England. See Eng. Mec., vol. 56. At Manchester, so like signals were they, or so unlike anything commonly known as “auroral” were they, that Albert Buss mistook them for flashes from a lighthouse. They were seen at Dewsbury; described by a correspondent to the English Mechanic, who wrote: “I have never seen such an appearance of an aurora.” “Rapid flashes” reported from Loughborough.

A shining triangle in a dark circle.

In L’Astronomie, 1888-75, Dr. Klein publishes an account of de Speissen’s observation of Nov. 23, 1887—a luminous triangle on the floor of Plato. Dr. Klein says it was an effect of sunlight.

In this period, there were in cities of the United States, some of the most astonishing effects at night, in the history of this earth. If Rigel should run for the Presidency of Orion, and if the stars in the great nebula should start to march, there would be a spectacle like those that Grover Cleveland called forth in the United States, in this period.

So then—at least conceivably—something similar upon the moon. Flakes of light moving toward Plato, this night of Nov. 23, 1887, from all the other craters of the moon; a blizzard of shining points gathering into light-drifts in Plato; then the denizens of Aristarchus and of Kepler, and dwellers from the lunar Alps, each raising his torch, marching upon a triangular path, 173making the triangle shine in the dark—conceivably. Other formations have been seen in Plato, but, according to my records, this symbol that shone in the dark had never been seen before, and has not been seen since.

About two years later—a demonstration of a more exclusive kind—assemblage of all the undertakers of the moon. They stood in a circular formation, surrounded by virgins in their nightgowns—and in nightgowns as nightgowns should be. An appearance in Plinius, Sept. 13, 1889, was reported by Prof. Thury, of Geneva—a black spot with an “intensely white” border.

March 30, 1889—a black spot that was seen for the first time, by Gaudibert, near the center of Copernicus (L’Astro., 1890-235). May 11, 1889—an object as black as ink upon a rampart of Gassendi (L’Astro., 1889-275). It had never been reported before; at the time of the next lunation, it was not seen again. March 30, 1889—a new black spot in Plinius (L’Astro., 1890-187).

The star-like light of Aristarchus—it is a long time since latest preceding appearance (May 7, 1867). Then it can not be attributed to commonplace lunar circumstances. The light was seen, Nov. 7, 1891, by M. d’Adjuda, of the Observatory of Lisbon—“a very distinct, luminous point” (L’Astro., 11-33).

Upon April 1, 1893, a shaft of light was seen projecting from the moon, by M. de Moraes, in the Azores. A similar appearance was seen, Sept. 25, 1893, at Paris, by Mr. Gaboreau (L’Astro., 13-34).

Another association like that of 1884—in the English Mechanic, 55-310, a correspondent writes that, upon May 6, 1892, he saw a shining point (not polar) upon Venus. Upon the 13th of August, 1892, the same object—conceivably—was seen at a short distance from Venus—an unknown, luminous object, like a star of the 7th magnitude that was seen close to Venus, by Prof. Barnard (Ast. Nach., no. 4106).

Upon August 24, 1895, in the period of primary maximum brilliance of Venus, a luminous object, it is said, was seen in the sky, in day time, by someone in Donegal, Ireland. Upon this day, according to the Scientific American, 73-374, a boy, Robert 174Alcorn, saw a large luminous object falling from the sky. It exploded near him. The boy’s experience was like Smith Morehouse’s. He put his hands over his face: there was a second explosion, shattering his fingers. According to Prof. George M. Minchin no substance of the object that had exploded could be found. Whether there be relation or not, something was seen in the sky of England a week later. In the London Times, Sept. 4, 1895, Dr. J. A. H. Murray writes that, at Oxford, a few minutes before 8 P. M., August 31, 1895, he saw in the sky a luminous object, considerably larger than Venus at greater brilliance, emerge from behind tree tops, and sail slowly eastward. It moved as if driven in a strong wind, and disappeared behind other trees. “The fact that it so perceptibly grew fainter as it receded seems to imply that it was not at a great elevation, and so favors a terrestrial origin, though I am unable to conceive how anything artificial could have presented the same appearance.” In the Times, of the 6th, someone who had read Dr. Murray’s letter says that, about the same time, same evening, he, in London, had seen the same object moving eastward so slowly that he had thought it might be a fire balloon from a neighboring park. Another correspondent, who had not read Dr. Murray’s letter, his own dated Sept. 3, writes from a place not stated that about 8.20 P. M., Aug. 31, he had seen a star-like object, moving eastward, remaining in sight four or five minutes. Then someone who, about 8 P. M., same evening, while driving to the Scarborough station, had seen “a large shooting star,” astonishing him, because of its leisurely rate, so different from the velocity of the ordinary “shooting star.” There are two other accounts of objects that were seen in the sky, at Bath and at Ramsgate, but not about this time, and I have looked them up in local newspapers, finding that they were probably meteors.

In the Oxford Times, Sept. 7, Dr. Murray’s letter to the London Times is reprinted, with this comment—“We would suggest to the learned doctor that the supposed meteor was one of the fire-balloons let off with the allotments show.”

Let it be that when allotments are shown, balloons are always sent up, and that this Editor did not merely have a notion to this effect. Our data are concerned with an object that was 175seen, at about the same time, at Oxford, about 50 miles south east of Oxford, and about 170 miles northeast of Oxford, with a fourth observation that we can not place.

And, in broader terms, our data are concerned with a general expression that objects like ships have been seen to sail close to this earth at times when the planet Venus is nearest this earth. Sept. 18, 1895—inferior conjunction of Venus.

Still in the same period, there were, in London, two occurrences perhaps like that at Donegal. London Morning Post, Nov. 16, 1895—that, at noon, Nov. 15, an “alarming explosion” occurred somewhere near Fenchurch Street, London. No damage was done; no trace could be found of anything that had exploded. An hour later, near the Mansion House, which is not far from Fenchurch Street, occurred a still more violent explosion. The streets filled with persons who had run from buildings, and there was investigation, but not a trace could be found of anything that had exploded. It is said that somebody saw “something falling.” However, the deadly explainers, usually astronomers, but this time policemen, haunt or arrest us. In the Daily News, though it is not said that a trace of anything that had exploded had been found, it is said that the explanation by the police was that somebody had mischievously placed in the streets fog-signals, which had been exploded by passing vehicles.

Observation by Müller, of Nymegen, Holland—an unknown luminous object that, about three weeks later, was seen near Venus (Monthly Notices, R. A. S., 52-276).

Upon the 28th of April, 1897, Venus was in inferior conjunction. In Popular Astronomy, 5-55, it is said that many persons had written to the Editor, telling of “airships” that had been seen, about this time. The Editor writes that some of the observations were probably upon the planet Venus, but that others probably related to toy balloons, “which were provided with various colored lights.”

The first group of our data, I take from dispatches to the New York Sun, April 2, 11, 16, 18. First of April—“the mysterious light” in the sky of Kansas City—something like a powerful searchlight. “It was directed toward the earth, travelling east at a rate of sixty miles an hour.” About a week later, something 176was seen in Chicago. “Chicago’s alleged airship is believed to be a myth, in spite of the fact that a great many persons say that they have seen the mysterious night-wanderer. A crowd gazed at strange lights, from the top of a downtown skyscraper, and Evanston students declare they saw the swaying red and green lights.” April 16—reported from Benton, Texas, but this time as a dark object that passed across the moon. Reports from other towns in Texas: Fort Worth, Dallas, Marshall, Ennis, and Beaumont—“It was shaped like a Mexican cigar, large in the middle, and small at both ends, with great wings, resembling those of an enormous butterfly. It was brilliantly illuminated by the rays of two great searchlights, and was sailing in a southeasterly direction, with the velocity of the wind, presenting a magnificent appearance.”

New York Herald, April 11—that, at Chicago, night of April 9-10, “until two o’clock in the morning, thousands of amazed spectators declared that the lights seen in the northwest were those of an airship, or some floating object, miles above the earth.... Some declare they saw two cigar-shaped objects and great wings.” It is said that a white light, a red light, and a green light had been seen.

There does seem to be an association between this object and the planet Venus, which upon this night was less than three weeks from nearest approach to this earth. Nevertheless this object could not have been Venus, which had set hours earlier. Prof. Hough, of the Northwestern University, is quoted—that the people had mistaken the star Alpha Orionis for an airship. Prof. Hough explains that astronomeric effects may have given a changing red and green appearance to this star. Alpha Orionis as a northern star is some more astronomy by the astronomers who teach astronomy daytimes and then relax when night comes. That atmospheric conditions could pick out this one star and not affect other brilliant stars in Orion is more astronomy. At any rate the standardized explanation that the thing was Venus disappears.

There were other explainers—someone who said that he knew of an airship (terrestrial one) that had sailed from San Francisco, and had reached Chicago.

Herald, April 12—said that the object had been photographed 177in Chicago: “a cigar-shaped, silken bag,” with a framework—other explanations and identifications, not one of them applying to this object, if it be accepted that it was seen in places as far apart as Illinois and Texas. It is said that, upon March 29th, the thing had been seen in Omaha, as a bright light sailing to the northwest, and that, for a few moments, upon the following night, it had been seen in Denver. It is said that, upon the night of the 9th, despatches had bombarded the newspaper offices of Chicago, from many places in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

“Prof. George Hough maintains that the object seen is Alpha Orionis.”

April 14—story, veritable observation, yarn, hoax—despatch from Carlensville, Ill.—that upon the afternoon of the 10th, the airship had alighted upon a farm, but had sailed away when approached—“cigar-shaped, with wings, and a canopy on top.”

April 15—shower of telegrams—development of jokers and explainers—thing identified as an airship invented by someone in Dodge City, Kansas; identified as an airship invented by someone in Brule, Wisconsin—stories of letters found on farms, purporting to have been dropped by the unknown aëronauts (terrestrial ones)—jokers in various towns, sending up balloons with lights attached—one laborious joker who rigged up something that looked like an airship and put it in a vacant lot and told that it had fallen there—yarn or observation, upon a “queer-looking boat” that had been seen to rise from the water in Lake Erie—continued reports upon a moving object in the sky, and its red and green lights.

Against such an alliance as this, between the jokers and the astronomers, I see small chance for our data. The chance is in the future. If, in April, 1897, extra-mundane voyagers did visit this earth, likely enough they will visit again, and then the alliance against the data may be guarded against.

New York Herald, April 20—that, upon the 19th, about 9 P. M., at Sistersville, W. Va., a luminous object had approached the town from the northwest, flashing brilliant red, white, and green lights. “An examination with strong glasses left an impression of a huge 178cone-shaped arrangement 180 feet long, with large fins on either side.”

My own general impression:

Night of October 12, 1492—if I have that right. Some night in October, 1492, and savages upon an island-beach are gazing out at lights that they had never seen before. The indications are that voyagers from some other world are nearby. But the wise men explain. One of the most nearly sure expressions in this book is upon how they explain. They explain in terms of the familiar. For instance, after all that is spiritual in a fish passes away, the rest of him begins to shine nights. So there are three big, old, dead things out in the water—

179

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

There have been published several observations upon a signal-like regularity of the Barisal Guns, which, because unaccompanied by phenomena that could be considered seismic, may have been detonations in the sky, and which, because, according to some hearers, they seemed to come from the sky, may have come from some region stationary in the local sky of Barisal. In Nature, 61-127, appears a report by Henry S. Schurr, who investigated the sounds in the years 1890-1891:

“These Guns are always heard in triplets, i. e., three guns are always heard, one after the other, at regular intervals, and, though several guns may be heard, the number is always three or a multiple of three. Then the interval between the three is always constant, i. e., the interval between the first and the second is the same as the interval between the second and the third, and this interval is usually three seconds, though I have heard it up to ten seconds. The interval, however, between the triplets varies, and varies largely, from a few seconds up to hours and days. Sometimes only one series of triplets is heard in a day; at others the triplets follow with great regularity, and I have counted as many as forty-five of them, one after the other, without pause.”

In vols. 16 and 17, Ciel et Terre, M. Van den Broeck published a series of papers upon the mysterious sounds that had been heard in Belgium.

July, 1892—heard near Brée, by Dr. Raemaekers, of Antwerp—detonations at regular intervals of about 12 seconds, repeated about 20 times.

Aug. 5, 1892—near Dunkirk, by Prof. Gérard, of Brussels—four reports like sounds of cannons.

Aug. 17, 1893—between Ostend and Ramsgate, by Prof. Gérard—a series of distinct explosions—state of the sky giving no reason to think that they were meteorological manifestations.

180Sept. 5, 1893—at Middelkirke—loud sounds of remarkable intensity.

Sept. 8, 1893—English Channel near Dover—by Prof. Gérard—an explosive sound.

In Ciel et Terre, 16-485, M. Van den Broeck records an experience of his own. Upon June 25, 1894, at Louvain, he had heard detonations like discharges of artillery: he tabulates the intervals in a series of sounds. If there were signalling from some unknown region over Belgium, and not far from the surface of this earth, or from extra-mundane vessels, and if there were something of the code-like, resembling the Morse alphabet, perhaps, in this series of sounds, there can be small hope of interpreting such limited material, but there may be suggestion to someone to record all sounds and their intervals and modulations, if, with greater duration, such phenomena should ever occur again. The intervals were four minutes and twenty-three minutes; then three minutes, four, three quarters, three and three quarters, three quarters.

Sept. 16, 1895—a triplet of detonations, heard by M. de Schryvere, of Brussels.

There were attempts to explain. Some of M. Van den Broeck’s correspondents thought that there had been firing from forts on the coast of England, and somebody thought that the phenomena should be attributed to gravitational effects of the moon. Upon Sept. 13, 1895, four shocks were felt and sounds heard at Southampton: a series of three and then another (Nature, 52-552); but I have no other notes upon sounds that were heard in England at this time, except the two explosions that were explained by the police of London. However, M. Van den Broeck says that Mr. Harmer, of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, had, about the first of November, heard booming sounds that had been attributed to cannonading at Harwich. Mr. Harmer had heard other sounds that had been attributed to cannonading somewhere else. He could not offer a definite opinion upon the first sounds, but had investigated the others, learning that the attribution was a mistake.

It was M. de Schryvere’s opinion that the triplet of detonations that he had heard was from vessels in the North Sea. But now, 181according to developments, the sounds of Belgium can not very well be attributed to terrestrial cannonading in or near Belgium: in Ciel et Terre, 16-614, are quoted two artillery officers who had heard the sounds, but could not so trace them: one of these officers had heard a series of detonations with intervals of about two minutes. A variety of explanations was attempted, but in conventional terms, and if these localized, repeating sounds did come from the sky, there’s nothing to it but a new variety of attempted explanations, and in most unconventional terms. There are recorded definite impressions that the sounds were in the sky: Prof. Peleseneer’s positivement aérien. In Ciel et Terre, 17-14, M. Van den Broeck announced that General Hennequin, of Brussels, had co-operated with him, and had sent enquiries to army officers and other persons, receiving thirty replies. Some of these correspondents had heard detonations at regular intervals. It is said that the sounds were like cannonading, but not in one instance were the sounds traced to terrestrial gunfire.

Jan. 24, 1896—a triplet of triplets—between 2.30 and 3.30, P. M.—by M. Overloop, of Middelkirke, Belgium—three series of detonations, each of three sounds.

The sounds went on, but, after this occurrence, there seems to me to be little inducement to me to continue upon the subject. This is indication that from somewhere there has been signalling: from extra-mundane vessels to one another, or from some unknown region to this earth, as nearly final as we can hope to find. There are persons who will see nothing but a susceptibility to the mysticism of numbers in a feeling that there is significance in threes of threes. But, if there be attempt in some other world to attract attention upon this earth, it would have to be addressed to some kind of a state of mind that would feel significances. Let our three threes be as mystic as the eleven horns on Daniel’s fourth animal; if throughout nature like human nature there be only superstition as to such serialization, that superstition, for want of something more nearly intelligent, would be a susceptibility to which to appeal, and from which response might be expected. I think that a sense of mystic significance in the number three may be universal, because upon this earth it is general, appearing in 182theologies, in the balanced compositions of all the arts, in logical demonstrations, and in the indefinite feelings that are supposed to be superstitious.

The sounds went on, as if there were experiments, or attempts to communicate by means of other regularizations and repetitions. Feb. 18, 1896—a series of more than 20 detonations, at intervals of 2 or 3 minutes, heard at Ostend, by M. Pulzeys, an engineer of Brussels. Four or five sounds were heard at Ostend by someone else: repeated upon the 21st of Feb. Heard by M. Overloop, at Ostend, April 6: detonations at 11.57.30 A. M., and at 12.1.32 P. M. Heard the next day, by M. Overloop, at Blankenberghe, at 2.35 and 2.51 P. M.

The last occurrence recorded by M. Van den Broeck was upon the English Channel, May 23, 1896: detonations at 3.20 and 3.40 P. M. I have no more data, as to this period, myself, but I have notes upon similar sounds, by no means so widely reported and commented upon, in France and Belgium about 15 years later. One notices that the old earthquake-explanation as to these sounds has not appeared.

But there were other phenomena in England, in this period, and to considerable degree they were conventionally explained. They were not of the type of the Belgian phenomena, and, because manifestations were seen and felt, as well as heard, they were explained in terms of meteors and earthquakes. But in this double explanation, we meet a divided opposition, and no longer are we held back by the uncompromising attempt by exclusionist science to attribute all disturbances of this earth’s surface to a subterranean origin. The admission by Symons and Fordham that we have recorded, as to occurrences of 1887-89, has survived.

The earliest of the accounts that I have read of the quakes in the general region of Worcester and Hereford (London Triangle) that associated with appearances in the sky, was published by two church wardens in the years 1661, as to occurrences of October, 1661, and is entitled, A True and Perfect Relation of the Terrible Earthquake. It is said that monstrous flaming things were seen in the sky, and that phenomena below were interesting. We are told, “truly and perfectly,” that Mrs. Margaret Petmore fell in labor and brought forth three male offsprings all of whom 183had teeth and spoke at birth. Inasmuch as it is not recorded what the infants said, and whether in plain English or not, it is not so much an extraordinary birth such as, in one way or another, occurs from time to time, that affronts our conventional notions, as it is the idea that there could be relation between the abnormal in obstetrics and the unusual in terrestrics. The conventional scientist has just this reluctance toward considering shocks of this earth and phenomena in the sky at the same time. If he could accept with us that there often has been relation, the seeming discord would turn into a commonplace, but with us he would never again want to hear of extraordinary detonating meteors exploding only by coincidence over a part of this earth where an earthquake was occurring, or of concussions of this earth, time after time, in one small region, from meteors that, only by coincidence, happened to explode in one little local sky, time after time. Give up the idea that this earth moves, however, and coincidences many times repeated do not have to be lugged in.

Our subject now is the supposed earthquake centering around Worcester and Hereford, Dec. 17, 1896; but there may have been related events, leading up to this climax, signifying long duration of something in the sky that occasionally manifested relatively to this corner of the London Triangle. Mrs. Margaret Petmore was too sensational a person for our liking, at least in our colder and more nearly scientific moments, so we shall not date so far back as the time of her performance; but the so-called earthquakes of Oct. 6, 1863, and of Oct. 30, 1868, were in this region, and we had data for thinking that they were said to be earthquakes only because they could not be traced to terrestrial explosions.

At 5.45 P. M., Nov. 2. 1893, a loud sound was heard at a place ten miles northeast of Worcester, and no shock was felt (Nature, 49-245); however at Worcester and in various parts of the west of England and in Wales a shock was felt.

According to James G. Wood, writing in Symons’ Met. Mag., 29-8, at 9.30 P. M., Jan. 25, 1894, at Llanthomas and Clifford, towns less than 20 miles west of Hereford, a brilliant light was seen in the sky, an explosion was heard, and a quake was felt. Half an hour later, something else occurred: according to Denning (Nature, 49-325) it was in several places, near Hereford and Worcester, 184supposed to be an earthquake. But, at Stokesay Vicarage, Shropshire (Symons’ Met. Mag., 29-8) was seen the same kind of an appearance as that which had been seen at Llanthomas and Clifford, half an hour before: an illumination so brilliant that for half a minute everything was almost as visible as by daylight.

In the English Mechanic, 74-155, David Packer calls attention to “a strange meteoric light” that was seen in the sky, at Worcester, during the quake of Dec. 17, 1896. I should say that this was the severest shock felt in the British Isles, in the 19th century, with the exception of the shock of April 22, 1884, in the eastern point of the London Triangle. There was something in the sky. In Nature, 55-179, J. Lloyd Bozward writes that, at Worcester, a great light was seen in the sky, at the time of the shock, and that, in another town, “a great blaze” had been seen in the sky. In Symons’ Met. Mag., 31-180, are recorded many observations upon lights that were seen in the sky. In an appendix to his book, The Hereford Earthquake of 1896, Dr. Charles Davison says that at the time of the quake (5.30 A. M.) there was a luminous object in the sky, and that it “traversed a large part of the disturbed area.” He says that it was a meteor, and an extraordinary meteor that lighted up the ground so that one could have picked up a pin. With the data so far considered, almost anyone would think that of course an object had exploded in the sky, shaking the earth underneath. Dr. Davison does not say this. He says that the meteor only happened to appear over a part of this earth where an earthquake was occurring, “by a strange coincidence.”

Suppose that, with ordinary common sense, he had not lugged in his “strange coincidence,” and had written that of course the shock was concussion from an explosion in the sky—

Shocks that had been felt before midnight, Dec. 17, and at 1.30 or 1.45, 2, 3, 3.30, 4, 5, and 5.20, and then others at 5.40 or 5.45 and at 6.15 o’clock—and were they, too, concussions, but fainter and from remoter explosions in the sky—and why not, if of course the great shock of 5.30 o’clock was from a great explosion in the sky—and by what multiplication of strangeness of coincidence 185could detonating meteors, or explosions of any other kind, so localize in the one little sky of Worcester, if this earth be a moving earth—and how could their origin be otherwise than a fixed region nearby?

In some minds it may be questionable that the earth could be so affected as it was at 5.30 A. M., Dec. 17, 1896, by an explosion in the sky. Upon Feb. 10, 1896, a tremendous explosion occurred in the sky of Madrid: throughout the city windows were smashed; a wall in the building occupied by the American Legation was thrown down. The people of Madrid rushed to the streets, and there was a panic in which many were injured. For five hours and a half a luminous cloud of débris hung over Madrid, and stones fell from the sky.

Suppose, just at present, we disregard all the Worcester-Hereford phenomena except those of Dec. 17, 1896. Draw a diagram, illustrating a stream of meteors pursuing this earth, now supposed to be rotating and revolving, for more than 400,000 miles in its orbit, and curving around gracefully and unerringly after the rotating earth, so as to explode precisely in this one little local sky and nowhere else. But we can’t think very reasonably even of a flock of birds flying after and so precisely pecking one spot on an apple thrown in the air by somebody. Another diagram—stationary earth—bombardment of any kind one chooses to think of—same point hit every time—thinkable.