The Book of the Damned

In 1829 (Timb's Year Book, 1848-235) in Persia fell a substance that the people said they had never seen before. As to what it was, they had not a notion, but they saw that the sheep ate it. They ground it into flour and made bread, said to have been passable enough, though insipid. That was a chance that science did not neglect. Manna was placed upon a reasonable basis, or was assimilated and reconciled with the system that had ousted the older--and less nearly real--system. It was said that, likely enough, manna had fallen in ancient times--because it was still falling--but that there was no tutelary influence behind it--that it was a lichen from the steppes of Asia Minor--from one place in a whirlwind and down in another place. "In the American Almanac, 1833-71, it is said that this substance--to the inhabitants of the region"--was "immediately recognized" by scientists who examined it: and that "the chemical analysis also identified it as a lichen."