BOOK OF THE DAMNED 169 



it seems best to pay little attention here, and to find phenomena of 

 the Super-Sargasso Sea remote from the merger: 



To this requirement we have three adaptations: 



Pebbles that fell where no whirlwind to which to attribute them 

 could be learned of; 



Pebbles which fell in hail so large that incredibly could that hail 

 have been formed in this earth's atmosphere; 



Pebbles which fell and were, long afterward, followed by more 

 pebbles, as if from some aerial, stationary source, in the same place. 



In September, 1898, there was a story in a New York newspaper, 

 of lightning or an appearance of luminosity? in Jamaica some- 

 thing had struck a tree: near the tree were found some small pebbles. 

 It was said that the pebbles had fallen from the sky, with the 

 lightning. But the insult to orthodoxy was that they were not 

 angular fragments such as might have been broken from a stony 

 meteorite: that they were "water- worn pebbles." 



In the geographical vagueness of a mainland, the explanation "up 

 from one place and down in another" is always good, and is never 

 overworked, until the instances are massed as they are in this book: 

 but, upon this occasion, in the relatively small area of Jamaica, 

 there was no whirlwind findable however "there in the first place' 7 

 bobs up. 



Monthly Weather Review, Aug., 1898-363: 



That the government meteorologist had investigated: had reported 

 that a tree had been struck by lightning, and that small water-worn 

 pebbles had been found near the tree: but that similar pebbles could 

 be found all over Jamaica. 



Monthly Weather Review, Sept., 1915-446: 



Prof. Fassig gives an account of a fall of hail that occurred in 

 Maryland, June 22, 1915: hailstones the size of baseballs "not at 

 all uncommon." 



"An interesting, but unconfirmed, account stated that small 

 pebbles were found at the center of some of the larger hail gathered 

 at Annapolis. The young man who related the story offered to 

 produce the pebbles, but has not done so." 



A footnote: 



"Since writing this, the author states that he has received some 

 of the pebbles." 



When a young man "produces" pebbles, that's as convincing as 

 anything else I've ever heard of, though no more convincing than, 

 if having told of ham sandwiches falling from the sky, he should 



