BOOK OF THE DAMNED 21 



think of a good-sized turtle hanging, for three or four months, upheld 

 only by the air, over the town of Vicksburg. When it comes to the 

 horse and the barn I think that they'll be classics some day, but 

 I can never accept that a horse and a barn could float several 

 months in this earth's atmosphere. 



The orthodox explanation: 



See the Report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal So- 

 ciety. It comes out absolutely for the orthodox explanation 

 absolutely and beautifully, also expensively. There are 492 pages 

 in the "Report," and 40 plates, some of them marvellously colored. 

 It was issued after an investigation that took five years. You 

 couldn't think of anything done more efficiently, artistically, author- 

 itatively. The mathematical parts are especially impressive: dis- 

 tribution of the dust of Krakatoa; velocity of translation and rates 

 of subsidence; altitudes and persistences 



Annual Register, 1883-105: 



That the atmospheric effects that have been attributed to Kraka- 

 toa were seen in Trinidad before the eruption occurred ; 



Knowledge, 5-418: 



That they were seen in Natal, South Africa, six months before 

 the eruption. 



Inertia and its inhospitality. 



Or raw meat should not be fed to babies. 



We shall have a few data initiatorily. 



I fear me that the horse and the barn were a little extreme for 

 our budding liberalities. 



The outrageous is the reasonable, if introduced politely. 



Hailstones, for instance. One reads in the newspapers of hail- 

 stones the size of hens' eggs. One smiles. Nevertheless I will engage 

 to list one hundred instances, from the Monthly Weather Review, 

 of hailstones the size of hens' eggs. There is an account in Nature, 

 Nov. i, 1894, of hailstones that weighed almost two pounds each. 

 See Chambers' Encyclopedia for three-pounders. Report of the 

 Smithsonian Institute, 1870-479 two-pounders authenticated, and 

 six-pounders reported. At Seringapatam, India, about the year 

 1800, fell a hailstone 



I fear me, I fear me: this is one of the profoundly damned. I 

 blurt out something that should, perhaps, be withheld for several 

 hundred pages but that damned thing was the size of an elephant. 



We laugh. 



