30 BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



Loud noises were heard in the sky. 



Stones fell from the sky. 



According to Chladni, these concomitants occurred, and to me 

 they seem rather brutal? or not associable with something so 

 soft and gentle as a fall of pollen? 



Black rains and black snows rains as black as a deluge of ink 

 jet-black snowflakes. 



Such a rain as that which fell in Ireland, May 14, 1849, described 

 in the Annals of Scientific Discovery, 1850, and the Annual Register, 

 1849. It fell upon a district of 400 square miles, and was the color 

 of ink, and of a fetid odor and very disagreeable taste. 



The rain at Castlecommon, Ireland, April 30, 1887 "thick, black 

 ram." (Amer. Met. Jour., 4-193.) 



A black rain fell in Ireland, Oct. 8 and 9, 1907. (Symons' Met. 

 Mag. 43-2.) "It left a most peculiar and disagreeable smell in 

 the air." 



The orthodox explanation of this rain occurs in Nature, March 

 2, 1908 cloud of soot that had come from South Wales, crossing 

 the Irish Channel and all of Ireland. 



So the black rain of Ireland, of March, 1898: ascribed in Symons' 

 Met. Mag. 33-40, to clouds of soot from the manufacturing towns 

 of North England and South Scotland. 



Our Intermediatist principle of pseudo-logic, or our principle of 

 Continuity is, of course, that nothing is unique, or individual: that 

 all phenomena merge away into all other phenomena: that, for 

 instance suppose there should be vast celestial super-oceanic, or 

 inter-planetary vessels that come near this earth and discharge 

 volumes of smoke at times. We're only supposing such a thing as 

 that now, because, conventionally, we are beginning modestly and 

 tentatively. But if it were so, there would necessarily be some phe- 

 nomenon upon this earth, with which that phenomenon would merge. 

 Extra-mundane smoke and smoke from cities merge, or both would 

 manifest in black precipitations in rain. 



In Continuity, it is impossible to distinguish phenomena at their 

 merging-points, so we look for them at their extremes. Impossible 

 to distinguish between animal and vegetable in some infusoria but 

 hippopotamus and violet. For all practical purposes they're distin- 

 guishable enough. No one but a Barnum or a Bailey would send 

 one a bunch of hippopotami as a token of regard. 



So away from the great manufacturing centers: 



