The Book of the Damned

An orthodox demonstration, in terms of which we shall have some heresies, is that if things found in coal could have got there only by falling there--they fell there. So, in the Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc. Mems., 2-9-306, it is argued that certain roundish stones that have been found in coal are "fossil aerolites": that they had fallen from the sky, ages ago, when the coal was soft, because the coal had closed around them, showing no sign of entrance. Proc. Soc. of Antiq. of Scotland, 1-1-121: That, in a lump of coal, from a mine in Scotland, an iron instrument had been found-- "The interest attaching to this singular relic arises from the fact of its having been found in the heart of a piece of coal, seven feet under the surface." If we accept that this object of iron was of workmanship beyond the means and skill of the primitive men who may have lived in Scotland when coal was forming there-- "The instrument was considered to be modern." That our expression has more of realness, or higher approximation to realness, than has the attempt to explain that is made in the Proceedings: That in modern times someone may have bored for coal, and that his drill may have broken off in the coal it had penetrated. Why he should have abandoned such easily accessible coal, I don't know. The important point is that there was no sign of boring: that this instrument was in a lump of coal that had closed around it so that its presence was not suspected, until the lump of coal was broken.