BOOK OF THE DAMNED in 



standards to judge by, I'm afraid we'd have to be a little severe 

 with some of these Mr. Symonses. As it is, of course, seriousness 

 seems out of place. 



We note an amusing little touch in the indefinite allusion to "a, 

 man," who with his un-named family, had "considered" that he had 

 seen a stone fall. The "man" was the Rev. W. Carus-Wilson, who 

 was well-known in his day. 



The next instance was reported by W. B. Tripp, F. R. M. S. 

 that, during a thunderstorm, a farmer had seen the ground in front 

 of him plowed up by something that was luminous. 



Dug. 



Bronze ax. 



My own notion is that an expedition to the north pole could not 

 be so urgent as that representative scientists should have gone to 

 that farmer and there spend a summer studying this one reported 

 occurrence. As it is un-named farmer somewhere no date. The 

 thing must stay damned. 



Another specimen for our museum is a comment in Nature, 

 upon these objects: that they are "of an amusing character, thus 

 clearly showing that they were of terrestrial, and not a celestial, 

 character." Just why celestiality, or that of it which, too, is only 

 of Intermediateness should not be quite as amusing as terrestriality 

 is beyond our reasoning powers, which we have agreed are not or- 

 dinary. Of course there is nothing amusing about wedges and 

 spheres at all or Archimedes and Euclid are humorists. It is 

 that they were described derisively. If you'd like a little speci- 

 men of the standardization of orthodox opinion 



Amer. Met. Jour., 4-589: 



"They are of an amusing character, thus clearly showing that 

 they were of a terrestrial and not a celestial character." 



I'm sure not positively, of course that we've tried to be as 

 easy-going and lenient with Mr. Symons, as his obviously scientific 

 performance would permit. Of course it may be that sub-con- 

 sciously we were prejudiced against him, instinctively classing him 

 with St. Augustine, Darwin, St. Jerome, and Lyell. As to the 

 "thunderstones," I think that he investigated them mostly "for 

 the credit of Englishmen," or in the spirit of the Royal Krakatoa 

 Committee, or about as the commission from the French Academy 

 investigated meteorites. According to a writer in Knowledge, 5-418, 

 the Krakatoa Committee attempted not in the least to prove what 



