io8 BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



We begin to suspect that Mr. Symons exhausted himself at 

 Netting Hill. It's a warning to efficiency-fanatics. 



Then the instance of three lumps of earthy matter, found upon a 

 well-frequented path, after a thunderstorm, at Reading, July 3, 1883. 

 There are so many records of the fall of earthy matter from the 

 sky that it would seem almost uncanny to find resistance here, 

 were we not so accustomed to the uncompromising stands of ortho- 

 doxy which, in our metaphysics, represent good, as attempts, but 

 evil in their insufficiency. If I thought it necessary, I'd list one 

 hundred and fifty instances of earthy matter said to have fallen from 

 the sky. It is his antagonism to atmospheric disturbance associated 

 with the fall of things from the sky that blinds and hypnotizes a 

 Mr. Symons here. This especial Mr. Symons rejects the Reading 

 substance because it was not "of true meteoritic material." It's 

 uncanny or it's not uncanny at all, but universal if you don't 

 take something for a standard of opinion, you can't have any opinion 

 at all: but, if you do take a standard, in some of its applications 

 it must be preposterous. The carbonaceous meteorites, which are 

 unquestioned though avoided, as we have seen by orthodoxy, are 

 more glaringly of untrue meteoritic material than was this sub- 

 stance of Reading. Mr. Symons says that these three lumps were 

 upon the ground "in the first place." 



Whether these data are worth preserving or not, I think that the 

 appeal that this especial Mr. Symons makes is worthy of a place 

 in the museum we're writing. He argues against belief in all 

 external origins "for our credit as Englishmen." He is a patriot, 

 but I think that these foreigners had a small chance "in the first 

 place" for hospitality from him. 



Then comes a "small lump of iron (two inches in diameter)" 

 said to have fallen, during a thunderstorm, at Brixton, Aug. 17, 

 1887. Mr. Symons says: "At present I can not trace it." 



He was at his best at Netting Hill: there's been a marked falling 

 off in his later manner: 



In the London Times, Feb. i, 1888, it is said that a roundish 

 object of iron had been found, "after a violent thunderstorm," in a 

 garden at Brixton, Aug. 17, 1887. It was analyzed by a chemist, 

 who could not identify it as true meteoritic material. Whether a 

 product of workmanship like human workmanship or not, this 

 object is described as an oblate spheroid, about two inches across 

 its major diameter. The chemist's name and address are given: 

 Mr. J. James Morgan: Ebbw Vale. 



