BOOK OF THE DAMNED 59 



In the Annals of Philosophy, n.s., 12-93, there is mention of 

 a fibrous substance like blue silk that fell near Naumberg, March 23, 

 1665. According to Chladni (Annales de Chimie, 2-31-264), 

 the quantity was great. He places a question mark before the 

 date. 



One of the advantages of Intermediatism is that, in the oneness 

 of quasiness, there can be no mixed metaphors. Whatever is ac- 

 ceptable of anything, is, in some degree or aspect, acceptable of 

 everything. So it is quite proper to speak, for instance, of some- 

 thing that is as firm as a rock and that sails in a majestic march. 

 The Irish are good monists: they have of course been laughed at 

 for their keener perceptions. So it's a book we're writing, or it's 

 a procession, or it's a museum, with the Chamber of Horrors rather 

 over-emphasized. A rather horrible correlation occurs in the Scien- 

 tific American, 1859-178. What interests us is that a correspon- 

 dent saw a silky substance fall from the sky there was an aurora 

 borealis at the time he attributes the substance to the aurora. 



Since the time of Darwin, the classic explanation has been that 

 all silky substances that fall from the sky are spider webs. In 

 1832, aboard the Beagle, at the mouth of La Plata River, 60 miles 

 from land, Darwin saw an enormous number of spiders, of the 

 kind usually known as "gossamer" spiders, little aeronauts that cast 

 out filaments by which the wind carries them. 



It's difficult to express that silky substances that have fallen to 

 this earth were not spider webs. My own acceptance is that spider 

 webs are the merger; that there have been falls of an externally 

 derived silky substance, and also of the webs, or strands, rather, of 

 aeronautic spiders indigen6us to this earth ; that in some instances if? 

 is impossible to distinguish one from the other. Of course, our ex- 

 pression upon silky substances will merge away into expressions 

 upon other seeming textile substances, and I don't know how much 

 better off we'll be 



Except that, if fabricable materials have fallen from the sky 



Simply to establish acceptance of that may be doing well enough 

 in this book of first and tentative explorations. 



In All the Year Round, 8-254, is described a fall that took place 

 in England, Sept. 21, 1741, in the towns of Bradly, Selbourae, and 

 Alresford, and in a triangular space included by these three towns. 

 The substance is described as "cobwebs" but it fell in flake-forma- 

 tion, or in "flakes or rags about one inch broad and five or six inches 

 long." Also these flakes were of a relatively heavy substance 



