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The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
20
Inertia
and
its
inhospitality.
Or
raw
meat
should
not
be
fed
to
babies.
We
shall
have
a
few
data
initiatorily.
I
fear
me
that
the
horse
and
the
barn
were
a
little
extreme
for
our
budding
liberalities.
The
outrageous
is
the
reasonable,
if
introduced
politely.
Hailstones,
for
instance.
One
reads
in
the
newspapers
of
hailstones
the
size
of
hens'
eggs.
One
smiles.
Nevertheless
I
will
engage
to
list
one
hundred
instances,
from
the
Monthly
Weather
Review,
of
hailstones
the
size
of
hens'
eggs.
There
is
an
account
in
Nature,
Nov.
1,
1894,
of
hailstones
that
weighed
almost
two
pounds
each.
See
Chambers'
Encyclopedia
for
three-pounders.
Report
of
the
Smithsonian
Institution,
1870-479--two-pounders
authenticated,
and
six-pounders
reported.
At
Seringapatam,
India,
about
the
year
1800,
fell
a
hailstone--
I
fear
me,
I
fear
me:
this
is
one
of
the
profoundly
damned.
I
blurt
out
something
that
should,
perhaps,
be
withheld
for
several
hundred
pages--but
that
damned
thing
was
the
size
of
an
elephant.
We
laugh.
Or
snowflakes.
Size
of
saucers.
Said
to
have
fallen
at
Nashville,
Tenn.,
Jan.
24,
1891.
One
smiles.
"In
Montana,
in
the
winter
of
1887,
fell
snowflakes
15
inches
across,
and
8
inches
thick."
(Monthly
Weather
Review,
1915-73.)
In
the
topography
of
intellection,
I
should
say
that
what
we
call
knowledge
is
ignorance
surrounded
by
laughter.
Black
rains--red
rains--the
fall
of
a
thousand
tons
of
butter.
Jet-black
snow--pink
snow--blue
hailstones--hailstones
flavored
like
oranges.
Punk
and
silk
and
charcoal.
About
one
hundred
years
ago,
if
anyone
was
so
credulous
as
to
think
that
stones
had
ever
fallen
from
the
sky,
he
was
reasoned
with:
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
