CHAPTER XXVII 



VAST and black. The thing that was poised, like a crow over 

 the moon. 



Round and smooth. Cannon balls. Things that have fallen from 

 the sky to this earth. 



Our slippery brains. 



Things like cannon balls have fallen, in storms, upon this earth. 

 Like cannon balls are things that, in storms, have fallen to this 

 earth. 



Showers of blood. 



Showers of blood. 



Showers of blood. 



Whatever it may have been, something like red-brick dust, or a 

 red substance in a dried state, fell at Piedmont, Italy, Oct. 27, 1814 

 (Electric Magazine, 68-437). A re d powder fell, in Switzerland, 

 winter of 1867 (Pop. Sci. Rev., 10-112) 



That something, far from this earth had bled super-dragon that 

 had rammed a comet 



Or that there are oceans of blood somewhere in the sky sub- 

 stance that dries, and falls in a powder wafts for ages in pow- 

 dered form that there is a vast area that will some day be known 

 to aviators as the Desert of Blood. We attempt little of super- 

 topography, at present, but Ocean of Blood, or Desert of Blood 

 or both Italy is nearest to it or to them. 



I suspect that there were corpuscles in the substance that fell 

 in Switzerland, but all that could be published in 1867 was that 

 in this substance there was a high proportion of "variously shaped 

 organic matter." 



At Giessen, Germany, in 1821, according to the Report of the 

 British Association, 5-2, fell a rain of a peach-red color. In this 

 rain were flakes of a hyacinthine tint. It is said that this sub- 

 stance was organic: we are told that it was pyrrhine. 



But distinctly enough, we are told of one red rain that it was 

 of corpuscular composition red snow, rather. It fell, March 12, 

 1876, near the Crystal Palace, London (Year Book of Facts, 



2*7 



