124 BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



superstitious and credulous than any logician, savage, curator, or 

 rustic. 



An orthodox demonstration, in terms of which we shall have some 

 heresies is that if things found in coal could have got there only 

 by falling there they fell there. 



So, in the Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc. Mems., 2-9-306, it 

 is argued that certain roundish stones that have been found in coal 

 are "fossil aerolites": that they had fallen from the sky, ages ago, 

 when the coal was soft, because the coal had closed around them, 

 showing no sign of entrance. 



Proc. Soc. of Antiq. of Scotland, 1-1-121: 



That, in a lump of coal, from a mine in Scotland, an iron instru- 

 ment had been found 



"The interest attaching to this singular relic arises from the 

 fact of its having been found in the heart of a piece of coal, seven 

 feet under the surface." 



If we accept that this object of iron was of workmanship be- 

 yond the means and skill of the primitive men who may have lived 

 in Scotland when coal was forming there 



"The instrument was considered to be modern." 



That our expression has more of realness, or higher approxima- 

 tion to realness, than has the attempt to explain that is made in 

 the Proceedings: 



That in modern times some one may have bored for coal, and 

 that his drill may have broken off in the coal it had penetrated. 



Why he should have abandoned such easily accessible coal, I don't 

 know. The important point is that there was no sign of boring: 

 that this instrument was in a lump of coal that had closed around 

 it so that its presence was not suspected, until the lump of coal 

 was broken. 



No mention can I find of this damned thing in any other publica- 

 tion. Of course there is an alternative here: the thing may not 

 have fallen from the sky: if in coal-forming times, in Scotland, there 

 were, indigenous to this earth, no men capable of making such an 

 iron instrument, it may have been left behind by visitors from other 

 worlds. 



In an extraordinary approximation to fairness and justice, which 

 is permitted to us, because we are quite as desirous to make ac- 

 ceptable that nothing can be proved as we are to sustain our own ex- 

 pressions, we note: 



That in Notes and Queries, 11-1-408, there is an account of 



