The Book of the Damned

The wood around this sandstone pebble was black, as if charred. Dr. Farrington, for instance, in his books, does not even mention sandstone. However, the British Association, though reluctant, is less exclusive: Report of 1860, p. 197: substance about the size of a duck's egg, that fell at Raphoe, Ireland, June 9, 1860--date questioned. It is not definitely said that this substance was sandstone, but that it "resembled" friable sandstone. Falls of salt have occurred often. They have been avoided by scientific writers, because of the dictum that only water and not substances held in solution, can be raised by evaporation. However, falls of salty water have received attention from Dalton and others, and have been attributed to whirlwinds from the sea. This is so reasonably contested--quasi-reasonably--as to places not far from the sea-- But the fall of salt that occurred high in the mountains of Switzerland-- We could have predicted that that datum could be found somewhere. Let anything be explained in local terms of the coast of England--but also has it occurred high in the mountains of Switzerland. Large crystals of salt fell--in a hailstorm--Aug. 20, 1870, in Switzerland. The orthodox explanation is a crime: whoever made it, should have had his finger-prints taken. We are told (An. Rec. Sci., 1872) that these objects of salt "came over the Mediterranean from some part of Africa." Or the hypnosis of the conventional--provided it be glib. One reads such an assertion, and provided it be suave and brief and conventional, one seldom questions--or thinks "very strange" and then forgets. One has an impression from geography lessons: Mediterranean not more than three inches wide, on the map; Switzerland only a few more inches away. These sizable masses of salt are described in the Amer. Jour. Sci., 3-3-239, as "essentially imperfect cubic crystals of common salt." As to occurrence with hail--that can in one, or ten, or twenty, instances be called a coincidence.