BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



Formulas are against us. 



But can astronomic formulas, backed up by observations in agree- 

 ment, taken many years apart, calculated by a Leverrier, be as mean- 

 ingless, in a positive sense, as all other quasi-things that we have 

 encountered so far? 



The preparations they made, before March 22, 1877. In England, 

 the Astronomer Royal made it the expectation of his life: notified ob- 

 servers at Madras, Melbourne, Sydney, and New Zealand, and ar- 

 ranged with observers in Chili and the United States. M. Struve had 

 prepared for observations in Siberia and Japan 



March 22, 1877 



Not absolutely hypocritically, I think it's pathetic, myself. If 

 any one should doubt the sincerity of Leverrier, in this matter, we 

 note, whether it has meaning or not, that a few months later he died. 



I think we'll take up Monstrator, though there's so much to this 

 subject that we'll have to come back. 



According to the Annual Register, 9-120, upon the 9th of August, 

 1762, M. de Rostan, of Basle, France, was taking altitudes of the 

 sun, at Lausanne. He saw a vast, spindle-shaped body, about three 

 of the sun's digits in breadth and nine in length, advancing slowly 

 across the disk of the sun, or "at no more than half the velocity with 

 which the ordinary solar spots move." It did not disappear until the 

 7th of September, when it reached the sun's limb. Because of the 

 spindle-like form, I incline to think of a super-Zeppelin, but another 

 observation, which seems to indicate that it was a world, is that, 

 though it was opaque, and "eclipsed the sun," it had around it a kind 

 of nebulosity or atmosphere? A penumbra would ordinarily be a 

 datum of a sun spot, but there are observations that indicate that 

 this object was at a considerable distance from the sun: 



It is recorded that another observer, at Paris, watching the sun, at 

 this time, had not seen this object; 



But that M. Croste, at Sole, about forty-five German leagues 

 northward from Lausanne, had seen it, describing the same spindle- 

 form, but disagreeing a little as to breadth. Then comes the im- 

 portant point: that he and M. de Rostan did not see it upon the same 

 part of the sun. This, then, is parallax, and, compounded with in- 

 visibility at Paris, is great parallax or that, in the course of a 

 month, in the summer of 1762, a large, opaque, spindle-shaped body 

 traversed the disk of the sun, but at a great distance from the sun. 

 The writer in the Register says: "In a word, we know of nothing to 

 have recourse to, in the heavens, by which to explain this phenome- 



