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375
The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
75
There
follows
an
extract
from
a
letter
by
the
Bishop
of
Cloyne,
upon
"a
very
odd
phenomenon,"
which
was
observed
in
Munster
and
Leinster:
that
for
a
good
part
of
the
spring
of
1695
there
fell
a
substance
which
the
country
people
called
"butter"--"soft,
clammy,
and
of
a
dark
yellow"--that
cattle
fed
"indifferently"
in
fields
where
this
substance
lay.
"It
fell
in
lumps
as
big
as
the
end
of
one's
finger."
It
had
a
"strong
ill
scent."
His
Grace
calls
it
a
"stinking
dew."
In
Mr.
Vans'
letter,
it
is
said
that
the
"butter"
was
supposed
to
have
medicinal
properties,
and
"was
gathered
in
pots
and
other
vessels
by
some
of
the
inhabitants
of
this
place."
And:
In
all
the
following
volumes
of
Philosophical
Transactions
there
is
no
speculation
upon
this
extraordinary
subject.
Ostracism.
The
fate
of
this
datum
is
a
good
instance
of
damnation,
not
by
denial,
and
not
by
explaining
away,
but
by
simple
disregard.
The
fall
is
listed
by
Chladni,
and
is
mentioned
in
other
catalogues,
but,
from
the
absence
of
all
inquiry,
and
of
all
but
formal
mention,
we
see
that
it
has
been
under
excommunication
as
much
as
was
ever
anything
by
the
preceding
system.
The
datum
has
been
buried
alive.
It
is
as
irreconcilable
with
the
modern
system
of
dogmas
as
ever
were
geologic
strata
and
vermiform
appendix
with
the
preceding
system--
If,
intermittently,
or
"for
a
good
part
of
the
spring,"
this
substance
fell
in
two
Irish
provinces,
and
nowhere
else,
we
have,
stronger
than
before,
a
sense
of
a
stationary
region
overhead,
or
a
region
that
receives
products
like
this
earth's
products,
but
from
external
sources,
a
region
in
which
this
earth's
gravitational
and
meteorological
forces
are
relatively
inert--if
for
many
weeks
a
good
part
of
this
substance
did
hover
before
finally
falling.
We
suppose
that,
in
1685,
Mr.
Vans
and
the
Bishop
of
Cloyne
could
describe
what
they
saw
as
well
as
could
witnesses
in
1885:
nevertheless,
it
is
going
far
back;
we
shall
have
to
have
many
modern
instances
before
we
can
accept.
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