i 3 8 BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



reasons, sometimes this earth has been visited by explorers. I 

 think that the notion that there have been extra-mundane visitors to 

 China, within what we call the historic period, will be only or- 

 dinarily absurd, when we come to that datum. 



I accept that some of the other worlds are of conditions very 

 similar to our own. I think of others that are very different so that 

 visitors from them could not live here without artificial adapta- 

 tions. 



How some of them could breathe our attenuated air, if they came 

 from a gelatinous atmosphere 



Masks. 



The masks that have been found in ancient deposits. 



Most of them are of stone, and are said to have been ceremonial 

 regalia of savages 



But the mask that was found in Sullivan County, Missouri, in 

 1879 (American Antiquarian, 3-336). 



It is made of iron and silver. 



