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375
The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
205
The
extraordinary
datum,
which
has
especially
made
mystery
here:
That
the
coffins
had
been
deposited
singly,
in
the
little
cave,
and
at
intervals
of
many
years.
In
the
first
tier,
the
coffins
were
quite
decayed,
and
the
wrappings
had
moldered
away.
In
the
second
tier,
the
effects
of
age
had
not
advanced
so
far.
And
the
top
coffin
was
quite
recent-looking.
In
the
Proceedings
of
the
Society
of
Antiquarians
of
Scotland,
3-12-460,
there
is
a
full
account
of
this
find.
Three
of
the
coffins
and
three
of
the
figures
are
pictured.
So
Elvera
with
its
downy
forests
and
its
microscopic
oyster
shells--and
if
the
Elvereans
be
not
very
far-advanced,
they
take
baths--with
sponges
the
size
of
pin
heads--
Or
that
catastrophes
have
occurred:
that
fragments
of
Elvera
have
fallen
to
this
earth:
In
Popular
Science,
20-83,
Francis
Bingham,
writing
of
the
corals
and
sponges
and
shells
and
crinoids
that
Dr.
Hahn
had
asserted
that
he
had
found
in
meteorites,
says,
judging
by
the
photographs
of
them,
that
their
"notable
peculiarity"
is
their
"extreme
smallness."
The
corals,
for
instance,
are
about
one-twentieth
the
size
of
terrestrial
corals.
"They
represent
a
veritable
pygmy
animal
world,"
says
Bingham.
The
inhabitants
of
Monstrator
and
Elvera
were
primitives,
I
think,
at
the
time
of
their
occasional
visits
to
this
earth--though,
of
course,
in
a
quasi-existence,
anything
that
we
semi-phantoms
call
evidence
of
anything
may
be
just
as
good
evidence
of
anything
else.
Logicians
and
detectives
and
jurymen
and
suspicious
wives
and
members
of
the
Royal
Astronomic
Society
recognize
this
indeterminateness,
but
have
the
delusion
that
in
the
method
of
agreement
there
is
final,
or
real
evidence.
The
method
is
good
enough
for
an
"existence"
that
is
only
semi-real,
but
also
it
is
the
method
of
reasoning
by
which
witches
were
burned,
and
by
which
ghosts
have
been
feared.
I'd
not
like
to
be
so
unadvanced
as
to
deny
witches
and
ghosts,
but
I
do
think
that
there
never
have
been
witches
and
ghosts
like
those
of
popular
supposition.
But
stories
of
them
have
been
supported
by
astonishing
fabrications
of
details
and
of
different
accounts
in
agreement.
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