78 BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



might be in one's parlor twenty years, virtually unseen but not 

 in an old cultivated field, where it interfered with plowing not 

 anywhere if it interfered. 



Dr. Hahn said that he had found fossils in meteorites. There is 

 a description of the corals, sponges, shells, and crinoids, all of them 

 microscopic, which he photographed, in Popular Science, 20-83. 



Dr. Hahn was a well-known scientist. He was better known 

 after that. 



Anybody may theorize upon other worlds and conditions upon 

 them that are similar to our own conditions: if his notions be pre- 

 sented undisguisedly as fiction, or only as an "interesting hypothe- 

 sis," he'll stir up no prude rages. 



But Dr. Hahn said definitely that he had found fossils in specified 

 meteorites: also he published photographs of them. His book is 

 in the New York Public Library. In the reproductions every fea- 

 ture of some of the little shells is plainly marked. If they're not 

 shells, neither are things under an oyster-counter. The striations 

 are very plain: one sees even the hinges where bivalves are joined. 



Prof. Lawrence Smith (Knowledge, 1-258): 



"Dr. Hahn is a kind of half-insane man, whose imagination has 

 run away with him." 



Conservation of Continuity. 



Then Dr. Weinland examined Dr. Hahn's specimens. He gave 

 his opinion that they are fossils and that they are not crystals of 

 enstatite, as asserted by Prof. Smith, who had never seen them. 



The damnation of denial and the damnation of disregard: 



After the publication of Dr. Weinland 's findings silence. 



