48 BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



to accept connection or that there are at least vast gelatinous areas 

 aloft, and that meteorites tear through, carrying down some of the 

 substance. 



Comptes Rendus, 3-554* 



That, in 1836, M. Vallot, member of the French Academy, placed 

 before the Academy some fragments of a gelatinous substance, said 

 to have fallen from the sky, and asked that they be analyzed. There 

 is no further allusion to this subject. 



Comptes Rendus, 23-542: 



That, in Wilna, Lithuania, April 4, 1846, in a rainstorm, fell nut- 

 sized masses of a substance that is described as both resinous and 

 gelatinous. It was odorless until burned: then it spread a very 

 pronounced sweetish odor. It is described as like gelatine, but 

 much firmer: but, having been in water 24 hours, it swelled out, 

 and looked altogether gelatinous 



It was grayish. 



We are told that, in 1841 and 1846, a similar substance had 

 fallen in Asia Minor. 



In Notes and Queries, 8-6-190, it is said that, early in August, 

 1894, thousands of jelly fish, about the size of a shilling, had fallen 

 at Bath, England. I think it is not acceptable that they were 

 jelly fish: but it does look as if this time frog spawn did fall from 

 the sky, and may have been translated by a whirlwind because, at 

 the same time, small frogs fell at Wigan, England. 



Nature, 87-10: 



That, June 24, 1911, at Eton, Bucks, England, the ground was 

 found covered with masses of jelly, the size of peas, after a heavy 

 rainfall. We are not told of nostoc, this time: it is said that the 

 object contained numerous eggs of "some species of Chironomus, 

 from which larvae soon emerged." 



I incline, then, to think that the objects that fell at Bath were 

 neither jelly fish nor masses of frog spawn, but something of a 

 larval kind 



This is what had occurred at Bath, England, 23 years before. 



London Times, April 24, 1871: 



That, upon the 22nd of April, 1871, a storm of glutinous drops 

 neither jelly fish nor masses of frog spawn, but something of a 

 railroad station, at Bath. "Many soon developed into a worm- 

 like chrysalis, about an inch in length." The account of this occur- 

 rence in the Zoologist, 2-6-2686, is more like the Eton-datum: of 



