226 BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



caught in suspension, to this earth's gravitation, and surface- 

 materials falling from that part 



Explain or express or accept, and what does it matter? Our 

 attitude is: 



Here are the data. 



See for yourself. 



What does it matter what my notions may be? 



Here are the data. 



But think for yourself, or think for myself, all mixed up we must 

 be. A long time must go by before we can know Florida from 

 Long Island. So we've had data of fishes that have fallen from 

 our now established and respectabilized Super-Sargasso Sea which 

 we've almost forgotten, it's now so respectable but we shall have 

 data of fishes that have fallen during earthquakes. These we ac- 

 cept were dragged down from ponds or other worlds that have been 

 quaked, when only a few miles away, by this earth, some other 

 world also quaking this earth. 



In a way, or in its principle, our subject is orthodox enough. 

 Only grant proximity of other worlds which, however, will not be 

 a matter of granting, but will be a matter of data and one conven- 

 tionally conceives of their surfaces quaked even of a whole lake 

 full of fishes being quaked and dragged down from one of them. 

 The lake full of fishes may cause a little pain to some minds, but 

 the fall of sand and stones is pleasantly enough thought of. More 

 scientific persons, or more faithful hypnotics than we, have taken 

 up this subject, unpainfully, relatively to the moon. For instance, 

 Perrey has gone over 15,000 records of earthquakes, and he has 

 correlated many with proximities of the moon, or has attributed 

 many to the pull of the moon when nearest this earth. Also there 

 is a paper upon this subject in the Proc. Roy. Soc. of Cornwall, 

 1845. O r > theoretically, when at its closest to this earth, the moon 

 quakes the face of this earth, and is itself quaked but does not 

 itself fall to this earth. As to showers of matter that may have 

 come from the moon at such times one can go over old records 

 and find what one pleases. 



That is what we now shall do. 



Our expressions are for acceptance only. 



Our data: 



We take them from four classes of phenomena that have pre- 

 ceded or accompanied earthquakes: 



Unusual clouds, darkness profound, luminous appearances in the 



