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375
The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
63
This
was
back
in
the
days
when
Chemical
Analysis
was
a
god.
Since
then
his
devotees
have
been
shocked
and
disillusioned.
Just
how
a
chemical
analysis
could
so
botanize,
I
don't
know--but
it
was
Chemical
Analysis
who
spoke,
and
spoke
dogmatically.
It
seems
to
me
that
the
ignorance
of
inhabitants,
contrasting
with
the
local
knowledge
of
foreign
scientists,
is
overdone:
if
there's
anything
good
to
eat,
within
any
distance
conveniently
covered
by
a
whirlwind--inhabitants
know
it.
I
have
data
of
other
falls,
in
Persia
and
Asiatic
Turkey,
of
edible
substances.
They
are
all
dogmatically
said
to
be
"manna";
and
"manna"
is
dogmatically
said
to
be
a
species
of
lichens
from
the
steppes
of
Asia
Minor.
The
position
that
I
take
is
that
this
explanation
was
evolved
in
ignorance
of
the
fall
of
vegetable
substances,
or
edible
substances,
in
other
parts
of
the
world:
that
it
is
the
familiar
attempt
to
explain
the
general
in
terms
of
the
local;
that,
if
we
shall
have
data
of
falls
of
vegetable
substance,
in,
say,
Canada
or
India,
they
were
not
of
lichens
from
the
steppes
of
Asia
Minor;
that,
though
all
falls
in
Asiatic
Turkey
and
Persia
are
sweepingly
and
conveniently
called
showers
of
"manna,"
they
have
not
been
even
all
of
the
same
substance.
In
one
instance
the
particles
are
said
to
have
been
"seeds."
Though,
in
Comptes
Rendus,
the
substance
that
fell
in
1841
and
1846
is
said
to
have
been
gelatinous,
in
the
Bull.
Sci.
Nat.
de
Neuchatel,
it
is
said
to
have
been
of
something,
in
lumps
the
size
of
a
filbert,
that
had
been
ground
into
flour;
that
of
this
flour
had
been
made
bread,
very
attractive-looking,
but
flavorless.
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