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375
The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
90
And,
if
over
and
over,
we
shall
learn
of
masses
of
soft
coal
that
have
fallen
upon
this
earth,
if
in
no
instance
has
it
been
asserted
that
the
masses
did
not
fall,
but
were
upon
the
ground
in
the
first
place;
if
we
have
many
instances,
this
time
we
turn
down
good
and
hard
the
mechanical
reflex
that
these
masses
were
carried
from
one
place
to
another
in
whirlwinds,
because
we
find
it
too
difficult
to
accept
that
whirlwinds
could
so
select,
or
so
specialize
in
a
peculiar
substance.
Among
writers
of
books,
the
only
one
I
know
of
who
makes
more
than
brief
mention
is
Sir
Robert
Ball.
He
represents
a
still
more
antique
orthodoxy,
or
is
an
exclusionist
of
the
old
type,
still
holding
out
against
even
meteorites.
He
cites
several
falls
of
carbonaceous
matter,
but
with
disregards
that
make
for
reasonableness
that
earthy
matter
may
have
been
caught
up
by
whirlwinds
and
flung
down
somewhere
else.
If
he
had
given
a
full
list,
he
would
be
called
upon
to
explain
the
special
affinity
of
whirlwinds
for
a
special
kind
of
coal.
He
does
not
give
a
full
list.
We
shall
have
all
that's
findable,
and
we
shall
see
that
against
this
disease
we're
writing,
the
homeopathist's
prescription
availeth
not.
Another
exclusionist
was
Prof.
Lawrence
Smith.
His
psycho-tropism
was
to
respond
to
all
reports
of
carbonaceous
matter
falling
from
the
sky,
by
saying
that
this
damned
matter
had
been
deposited
upon
things
of
the
chosen
by
impact
with
this
earth.
Most
of
our
data
antedate
him,
or
were
contemporaneous
with
him,
or
were
as
accessible
to
him
as
to
us.
In
his
attempted
positivism
it
is
simply--and
beautifully--disregarded
that,
according
to
Berthelot,
Berzelius,
Cloez,
Wohler
and
others
these
masses
are
not
merely
coated
with
carbonaceous
matter,
but
are
carbonaceous
throughout,
or
are
permeated
throughout.
How
anyone
could
so
resolutely
and
dogmatically
and
beautifully
and
blindly
hold
out
would
puzzle
us
were
it
not
for
our
acceptance
that
only
to
think
is
to
exclude
and
include;
and
to
exclude
some
things
that
have
as
much
right
to
come
in
as
have
the
included--that
to
have
an
opinion
upon
any
subject
is
to
be
a
Lawrence
Smith--because
there
is
no
definite
subject.
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