228 BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



British Association are quoted: note that, after, say, 1885, they're 

 scarcely mentioned in these inspired but illicit pages as by hypno- 

 sis and inertia, we keep on saying. 



About 1880. 



Throttle and disregard. 



But the coercion could not be positive, and many of the excom- 

 municated continued to creep in; or, even to this day, some of the 

 strangled are faintly breathing. 



Some of our data have been hard to find. We could tell stories of 

 great labor and fruitless quests that would, though perhaps imper- 

 ceptibly, stir the sympathy of a Mr. Symons. But, in this matter 

 of concurrence of earthquakes with aerial phenomena, which are as 

 unassociable with earthquakes, if internally caused, as falls of sand 

 on convulsed small boys full of sour apples, the abundance of so- 

 called evidence is so great that we can only sketchily go over the 

 data, beginning with Robert Mallet's Catalogue (Kept. Brit. Assoc., 

 1852), omitting some extraordinary instances, because they oc- 

 curred before the eighteenth century: 



Earthquake "preceded" by a violent tempest, England, Jan. 8, 

 1704 "preceded" by a brilliant meteor, Switzerland, Nov. 4, 1704 

 "luminous cloud, moving at high velocity, disappearing behind 

 the horizon," Florence, Dec. 9, 1731 "thick mists in the air, 

 through which a dim light was seen: several weeks before the 

 shock, globes of light had been seen in the air," Swabia, May 22, 

 1732 rain of earth, Carpentras, France, Oct. 18, 1737 a black 

 cloud, London, March 19, 1750 violent storm and a strange star 

 of octagonal shape, Slavange, Norway, April 15, 1752 balls of fire 

 from a streak in the sky, Augermannland, 1752 numerous meteor- 

 ites, Lisbon, Oct. 15, 1755 "terrible tempests" over and over 

 "falls of hail" and "brilliant meteors," instance after instance "an 

 immense globe," Switzerland, Nov. 2, 1761 oblong, sulphurous 

 cloud, Germany, April, 1767 extraordinary mass of vapor, Bo- 

 logne, April, 1780 heavens obscured by a dark mist, Grenada, 

 Aug. 7, 1804 "strange, howling noises in the air, and large spots 

 obscuring the sun," Palermo, Italy, April 16, 1817 "luminous 

 meteor moving in the same direction as the shock," Naples, Nov. 

 22, 1821 fire ball appearing in the sky: apparent size of the moon, 

 Thuringerwald, Nov. 29, 1831. 



And, unless you be polarized by the New Dominant, which is 

 calling for recognition of multiplicities of external things, as a Dom- 

 inant, dawning new over Europe in 1492, called for recognition of 



