ioo BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



or savage who thinks he is not to be classed with other peasants or 

 savages, I am not very much impressed with what natives think. 

 It would be hard to tell why. If the word of a Lord Kelvin carries 

 no more weight, upon scientific subjects, than the word of a Sitting 

 Bull, unless it be in agreement with conventional opinion I think 

 it must be because savages have bad table manners. However, my 

 snobbishness, in this respect, loosens up somewhat before very 

 widespread belief by savages and peasants. And the notion of 

 "thunderstones" is as wide as geography itself. 



The natives of Burmah, China, Japan, according to Blinkenberg 

 (Thunder Weapons, p. ioo) not, of course, that Blinkenberg ac- 

 cepts one word of it think that carved stone objects have fallen 

 from the sky, because they think they have seen such objects fall 

 from the sky. Such objects are called "thunderbolts" in these coun- 

 tries. They are called "thunderstones" in Moravia, Holland, Bel- 

 gium, France, Cambodia, Sumatra, and Siberia. They're called 

 "storm stones" in Lausitz; "sky arrows" in Slavonia; "thunder 

 axes" in England and Scotland; "lightning stones" in Spain and 

 Portugal; "sky axes" in Greece; "lightning flashes" in Brazil; "thun- 

 der teeth" in Amboina. 



The belief is as widespread as is belief in ghosts and witches, 

 which only the superstitious deny to-day. 



As to beliefs by North American Indians, Tyler gives a list of 

 references (Primitive Culture, 2-237). As to South American In- 

 dians "Certain stone hatchets are said to have fallen from the 

 heavens. (Jour. Amer. Folk Lore, 17-203.) 



If you, too, revolt against coincidence after coincidence after coin- 

 cidence, but find our interpretation of "thunderstones" just a little 

 too strong or rich for digestion, we recommend the explanation of 

 one, Tallius, written in 1649: 



"The naturalists say they are generated in the sky by fulgurous 

 exhalation conglobed in a cloud by the circumfused humor." 



Of course the paper in the Cornhttl Magazine was written with 

 no intention of trying really to investigate this subject, but to deride 

 the notion that worked-stone objects have ever fallen from the sky. 

 A writer in the Amer. Jour. Set., 1-21-325, read this paper and 

 thinks it remarkable "that any man of ordinary reasoning powers 

 should write a paper to prove that thunderbolts do not exist." 



I confess that we're a little flattered by that. 



Over and over: 



