BOOK OF THE DAMNED 97 



is "bright ball of fire and light in a hurricane in England, Sept. 2, 

 1786." The remarkable datum here is that this phenomenon was 

 visible forty minutes. That's about 800 times the duration that the 

 orthodox give to meteors and meteorites. 



See the Annual Register many instances. 



In Nature, Oct. 25, 1877, and the London Times, Oct. 15, 1877, 

 something that fell in a gale of Oct. 14, 1877, is described as a 

 "huge ball of green fire." This phenomenon is described by anothef 

 correspondent, in Nature, 17-10, and an account of it by another 

 correspondent was forwarded to Nature by W. F. Denning. 



There are so many instances that some of us will revolt against 

 the insistence of the faithful that it is only coincidence, and accept 

 that there is connection of the kind called causal. If it is too dif- 

 ficult to think of stones and metallic masses swerved from their 

 courses by storms, if they move at high velocity, we think of low 

 velocity, or of things having no velocity at all, hovering a few 

 miles above this earth, dislodged by storms, and falling luminously. 



But the resistance is so great here, and "coincidence" so insisted 

 upon that we'd better have some more instances: 



Aerolite in a storm at St. Leonards-on-sea, England, Sept. 17, 

 1885 no trace of it found (Annual Register, 1885) ; meteorite in a 

 gale, March i, 1886, described in the Monthly Weather Review, 

 March, 1886; meteorite in a thunderstorm, off coast of Greece, 

 Nov. 19, 1899 (Nature, 61-111); fall of a meteorite in a storm, 

 July 7, 1883, near Lachine, Quebec (Monthly Weather Review, July, 

 1883); same phenomenon noted in Nature, 28-319; meteorite in a 

 whirlwind, Sweden, Sept. 24, 1883 (Nature, 29-15). 



London Roy. Soc. Proc., 6-276: 



A triangular cloud that appeared hi a storm, Dec. 17, 1852; a 

 red nucleus, about half the apparent diameter of the moon, and a long 

 tail; visible 13 minutes; explosion of the nucleus. 



Nevertheless, in Science Gossip, n.s., 6-65, it is said that, though 

 meteorites have fallen in storms, no connection is supposed to 

 exist between the two phenomena, except by the ignorant peasantry. 



But some of us peasants have gone through the Report of the 

 British Association, 1852. Upon page 239, Dr. Buist, who had never 

 heard of the Super-Sargasso Sea, says that, though it is difficult 

 to trace connection between the phenomena, three aerolites had fallen 

 in five months, in India, during thunderstorms, in 1851 (may have 

 been 1852). For accounts by witnesses, see page 229, of the 

 Report. 



