62 BOOK OF JHE DAMNED 



'identified" as anything. He can say only that the cloud in ques- 

 tion must have been an extraordinary conglomeration. 



Annual Register, 1832-447: 



That, March, 1832, there fell, in the fields of Kourianof, Russia, 

 a combustible yellowish substance, covering, at least two inches 

 thick, an area of 600 or 700 square feet. It was resinous and 

 yellowish: so one inclines to the conventional explanation that it 

 was pollen from pine trees but, when torn, it had the tenacity 

 of cotton. When placed in water, it had the consistency of resin. 

 "This resin had the color of amber, was elastic, like India rubber, 

 and smelled like prepared oil mixed with wax." 



So in general our notion of cargoes and our notion of cargoes of 

 food supplies: 



In Philosophical Transactions, 19-224, is an extract from a 

 letter by Mr. Robert Vans, of Kilkenny, Ireland, dated Nov. 15, 

 1695: that there had been "of late," in the counties of Limerick 

 and Tipperary, showers of a sort of matter like butter or grease . . . 

 having "a very stinking smell." 



There follows an extract from a letter by the Bishop of Cloyne, 

 upon "a very odd phenomenon," which was observed in Munster 

 and Leinster: that for a good part of the spring of 1695 there fell 

 a substance which the country people called "butter" "soft, clammy, 

 and of a dark yellow" that cattle fed "indifferently" in fields where 

 this substance lay. 



"It fell in lumps as big as the end of one's finger." It had a 

 "strong ill scent." His Grace calls it a "stinking dew." 



In Mr. Van's letter, it is said that the "butter" was supposed 

 to have medicinal properties, and "was gathered in pots and other 

 vessels by some of the inhabitants of this place." 



And: 



In all the following volumes of Philosophical Transactions 

 there is no speculation upon this extraordinary subject. Ostracism. 

 The fate of this datum is a good instance of damnation, not by 

 denial, and not by explaining away, but by simple disregard. The 

 fall is listed by Chladni, and is mentioned in other catalogs, but, 

 from the absence of all inquiry, and of all but formal mention, we 

 see that it has been under excommunication as much as was ever 

 anything by the preceding system. The datum has been buried 

 alive. It is as irreconcilable with the modern system of dogmas as 

 ever were geologic strata and vermiform appendix with the preceding 

 system 



