The Book of the Damned

Monthly Weather Review, Jan. 15, 1877: That, in Memphis, Tenn., Jan. 15, 1877, rather strictly localized, or "in a space of two blocks," and after a violent storm in which the rain "fell in torrents," snakes were found. They were crawling on sidewalks, in yards, and in streets, and in masses--but "none were found on roofs or any other elevation above ground" and "none were seen to fall." If you prefer to believe that the snakes had always been there, or had been upon the ground in the first place, and that it was only that something occurred to call special attention to them, in the streets of Memphis, Jan. 15, 1877--why, that's sensible: that's the common sense that has been against us from the first. It is not said whether the snakes were of a known species or not, but that "when first seen, they were of a dark brown, almost black." Blacksnakes, I suppose. If we accept that these snakes did fall, even though not seen to fall by all the persons who were out sight-seeing in a violent storm, and had not been in the streets crawling loose or in thick tangled masses, in the first place: If we try to accept that these snakes had been raised from some other part of this earth's surface in a whirlwind: If we try to accept that a whirlwind could segregate them-- We accept the segregation of other objects raised in that whirlwind. Then, near the place of origin, there would have been a fall of heavier objects that had been snatched up with the snakes--stones, fence rails, limbs of trees. Say that the snakes occupied the next gradation, and would be the next to fall. Still farther would there have been separate falls of lightest objects: leaves, twigs, tufts of grass.