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The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
66
It
looks
like
greenish
felt.
The
substance
of
Memel:
Damp,
coal-black,
leafy
mass.
But,
if
broken
up,
the
marsh-substance
is
flake-like,
and
it
tears
fibrously.
An
elephant
can
be
identified
as
a
sunflower--both
have
long
stems.
A
camel
is
indistinguishable
from
a
peanut--if
only
their
humps
be
considered.
Trouble
with
this
book
is
that
we'll
end
up
a
lot
of
intellectual
roues:
we'll
be
incapable
of
being
astonished
with
anything.
We
knew,
to
start
with,
that
science
and
imbecility
are
continuous;
nevertheless
so
many
expressions
of
the
merging-point
are
at
first
startling.
We
did
think
that
Prof.
Hitchcock's
performance
in
identifying
the
Amherst
phenomenon
as
a
fungus
was
rather
notable
as
scientific
vaudeville,
if
we
acquit
him
of
the
charge
of
seriousness--or
that,
in
a
place
where
fungi
were
so
common
that,
before
a
given
evening
two
of
them
sprang
up,
only
he,
a
stranger
in
this
very
fungiferous
place,
knew
a
fungus
when
he
saw
something
like
a
fungus--if
we
disregard
its
quick
liquefaction,
for
instance.
It
was
only
a
monologue,
however:
now
we
have
an
all-star
cast:
and
they're
not
only
Irish;
they're
royal
Irish.
The
royal
Irishmen
excluded
"coal-blackness"
and
included
fibrousness:
so
then
that
this
substance
was
"marsh
paper,"
which
"had
been
raised
into
the
air
by
storms
of
wind,
and
had
again
fallen."
Second
act:
It
was
said
that,
according
to
M.
Ehrenberg,
"the
meteor-paper
was
found
to
consist
partly
of
vegetable
matter,
chiefly
of
conifervae."
Third
act:
Meeting
of
the
royal
Irishmen:
chairs,
tables,
Irishmen:
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