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The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
136
"I
suppose
that
no
one
would
suggest
that
bricks
are
manufactured
in
the
atmosphere."
Sounds
a
little
unreasonable
to
us,
because
it
is
so
of
the
positivistic
spirit
of
former
times,
when
it
was
not
so
obvious
that
the
highest
incredibility
and
laughability
must
merge
away
with
the
"proper"--as
the
Sci.
Am.
Sup.
would
say.
The
preposterous
is
always
interpretable
in
terms
of
the
"proper,"
with
which
it
must
be
continuous--or--clay-like
masses
such
as
have
fallen
from
the
sky--tremendous
heat
generated
by
their
velocity--they
bake--bricks.
We
begin
to
suspect
that
Mr.
Symons
exhausted
himself
at
Notting
Hill.
It's
a
warning
to
efficiency-fanatics.
Then
the
instance
of
three
lumps
of
earthy
matter,
found
upon
a
well-frequented
path,
after
a
thunderstorm,
at
Reading,
July
3,
1883.
There
are
so
many
records
of
the
fall
of
earthy
matter
from
the
sky
that
it
would
seem
almost
uncanny
to
find
resistance
here,
were
we
not
so
accustomed
to
the
uncompromising
stands
of
orthodoxy--which,
in
our
metaphysics,
represent
good,
as
attempts,
but
evil
in
their
insufficiency.
If
I
thought
it
necessary,
I'd
list
one
hundred
and
fifty
instances
of
earthy
matter
said
to
have
fallen
from
the
sky.
It
is
his
antagonism
to
atmospheric
disturbance
associated
with
the
fall
of
things
from
the
sky
that
blinds
and
hypnotizes
a
Mr.
Symons
here.
This
especial
Mr.
Symons
rejects
the
Reading
substance
because
it
was
not
"of
true
meteoritic
material."
It's
uncanny--or
it's
not
uncanny
at
all,
but
universal--if
you
don't
take
something
for
a
standard
of
opinion,
you
can't
have
any
opinion
at
all:
but,
if
you
do
take
a
standard,
in
some
of
its
applications
it
must
be
preposterous.
The
carbonaceous
meteorites,
which
are
unquestioned--though
avoided,
as
we
have
seen--by
orthodoxy,
are
more
glaringly
of
untrue
meteoritic
material
than
was
this
substance
of
Reading.
Mr.
Symons
says
that
these
three
lumps
were
upon
the
ground
"in
the
first
place."
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