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375
The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
341
In
general
I
am
accounting
for
a
great
deal
of
this
earth's
isolation:
that
it
is
relatively
isolated
by
circumstances
that
are
similar
to
the
circumstances
that
make
for
relative
isolation
of
the
bottom
of
the
ocean--except
that
there
is
a
clumsiness
of
analogy
now.
To
call
ourselves
deep-sea
fishes
has
been
convenient,
but,
in
a
quasi-existence,
there
is
no
convenience
that
will
not
sooner
or
later
turn
awkward--so,
if
there
be
denser
regions
aloft,
these
regions
should
now
be
regarded
as
analogues
of
far-submerged
oceanic
regions,
and
things
coming
to
this
earth
would
be
like
things
rising
to
an
attenuated
medium--and
exploding--sometimes
incandescently,
sometimes
with
cold
light--sometimes
non-luminously,
like
deep-sea
fishes
brought
to
the
surface--altogether
conditions
of
inhospitality.
I
have
a
suspicion
that,
in
their
own
depths,
deep-sea
fishes
are
not
luminous.
If
they
are,
Darwinism
is
mere
jesuitism,
in
attempting
to
correlate
them.
Such
advertising
would
so
attract
attention
that
all
advantages
would
be
more
than
offset.
Darwinism
is
largely
a
doctrine
of
concealment:
here
we
have
brazen
proclamation--if
accepted.
Fishes
in
the
Mammoth
Cave
need
no
light
to
see
by.
We
might
have
an
expression
that
deep-sea
fishes
turn
luminous
upon
entering
a
less
dense
medium--but
models
in
the
American
Museum
of
Natural
History:
specialized
organs
of
luminosity
upon
these
models.
Of
course
we
do
remember
that
awfully
convincing
"dodo,"
and
some
of
our
sophistications
we
trace
to
him--at
any
rate
disruption
is
regarded
as
a
phenomenon
of
coming
from
a
dense
to
a
less
dense
medium.
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