The Book of the Damned

Dr. Walter Flight (Eclectic Magazine, 89-71) says, of the substance that fell near Alais, France, March 15, 1806, that it "emits a faint bituminous substance" when heated, according to the observations of Bergelius and a commission appointed by the French Academy. This time we have not the reluctances expressed in such words as "like" and "resembling." We are told that this substance is "an earthy kind of coal." As to "minute quantities" we are told that the substance that fell at the Cape of Good Hope has in it a little more than a quarter of organic matter, which, in alcohol, gives the familiar reaction of yellow, resinous matter. Other instances given by Dr. Flight are: Carbonaceous matter that fell in 1840, in Tennessee; Cranbourne, Australia, 1861; Montauban, France, May 14, 1864 (twenty masses, some of them as large as a human head, of a substance that "resembled a dull-colored earthy lignite"); Goalpara, India, about 1867 (about 8 per cent of a hydrocarbon); at Ornans, France, July 11, 1868; substance with "an organic, combustible ingredient," at Hessle, Sweden, Jan. 1, 1860. Knowledge, 4-134: That, according to M. Daubree, the substance that had fallen in the Argentine Republic, "resembled certain kinds of lignite and boghead coal." In Comptes Rendus, 96-1764, it is said that this mass fell, June 30, 1880, in the province Entre Rios, Argentina: that it is "like" brown coal; that it resembles all the other carbonaceous masses that have fallen from the sky. Something that fell at Grazac, France, Aug. 10, 1885: when burned, it gave out a bituminous odor (Comptes Rendus, 104-1771).