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The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
168
I'm
afraid
that
the
course
we're
taking
will
turn
out
like
every
other
development.
We
began
humbly,
admitting
that
we're
of
the
damned--
But
our
eyebrows--
Just
a
faint
flicker
in
them,
or
in
one
of
them,
every
time
we
hear
of
the
"triumphal
discovery
of
Neptune"--this
"monumental
achievement
of
theoretical
astronomy,"
as
the
text-books
call
it.
The
whole
trouble
is
that
we've
looked
it
up.
The
text-books
omit
this:
That,
instead
of
the
orbit
of
Neptune
agreeing
with
the
calculations
of
Adams
and
Leverrier,
it
was
so
different--that
Leverrier
said
that
it
was
not
the
planet
of
his
calculations.
Later
it
was
thought
best
to
say
no
more
upon
that
subject.
The
text-books
omit
this:
That,
in
1846,
everyone
who
knew
a
sine
from
a
cosine
was
out
sining
and
cosining
for
a
planet
beyond
Uranus.
Two
of
them
guessed
right.
To
some
minds,
even
after
Leverrier's
own
rejection
of
Neptune,
the
word
"guessed"
may
be
objectionable--but,
according
to
Prof.
Peirce,
of
Harvard,
the
calculations
of
Adams
and
Leverrier
would
have
applied
quite
as
well
to
positions
many
degrees
from
the
position
of
Neptune.
Or
for
Prof.
Peirce's
demonstration
that
the
discovery
of
Neptune
was
only
a
"happy
accident,"
see
Proc.
Amer.
Acad.
Sciences,
1-65.
For
references,
see
Lowell's
Evolution
of
Worlds.
Or
comets:
another
nebulous
resistance
to
our
own
notions.
As
to
eclipses,
I
have
notes
upon
several
of
them
that
did
not
occur
upon
scheduled
time,
though
with
differences
only
of
seconds--and
one
delightful
lost
soul,
deep-buried,
but
buried
in
the
ultra-respectable
records
of
the
Royal
Astronomical
Society,
upon
an
eclipse
that
did
not
occur
at
all.
That
delightful,
ultra-sponsored
thing
of
perdition
is
too
good
and
malicious
to
be
dismissed
with
passing
notice:
we'll
have
him
later.
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