We see conventionally. It is not only that we think and act and speak and dress alike, because of our surrender to social attempt at Entity, in which we are only super-cellular. We see what it is "proper" that we should see. It is orthodox enough to say that a horse is not a horse, to an infant—any more than is an orange an orange to the unsophisticated. It's interesting to walk along a street sometimes and look at things and wonder what they'd look like, if we hadn't been taught to see horses and trees and houses as horses and trees and houses. I think that to super-sight they are local stresses merging indistinguishably into one another, in an all-inclusive nexus.
I think that it would be credible enough to say that many times have Monstrator and Elvera and Azuria crossed telescopic fields of vision, and were not even seen—because it wouldn't be proper to see them; it wouldn't be respectable, and it wouldn't be respectful: it would be insulting to old bones to see them: it would bring on evil influences from the relics of St. Isaac to see them.
But our data:
Of vast worlds that are orbitless, or that are navigable, or that are adrift in inter-planetary tides and currents: the data that we shall have of their approach, in modern times, within five or six miles of this earth—
But then their visits, or approaches, to other planets, or to other of the few regularized bodies that have surrendered to the attempted Entity of this solar system as a whole—
The question that we can't very well evade:
Have these other worlds, or super-constructions, ever been seen by astronomers?
I think there would not be much approximation to realness in taking refuge in the notion of astronomers who stare and squint and see only that which it is respectable and respectful to see. It is all very well to say that astronomers are hypnotics, and that an astronomer looking at the moon is hypnotized by the moon, but our acceptance is that the bodies of this present expression often visit the moon, or cross it, or are held in temporary suspension near it—then some of them must often have been within the diameter of an astronomer's hypnosis.
Our general expression:
That, upon the oceans of this earth, there are regularized vessels, but also that there are tramp vessels:
That, upon the super-ocean, there are regularized planets, but also that there are tramp worlds:
That astronomers are like mercantile purists who would deny commercial vagabondage.
Our acceptance is that vast celestial vagabonds have been excluded by astronomers, primarily because their irresponsibilities are an affront to the pure and the precise, or to attempted positivism; and secondarily because they have not been seen so very often. The planets steadily reflect the light of the sun: upon this uniformity a system that we call Primary Astronomy has been built up; but now the subject-matter of Advanced Astronomy is data of celestial phenomena that are sometimes light and sometimes dark, varying like some of the satellites of Jupiter, but with a wider range. However, light or dark, they have been seen and reported so often that the only important reason for their exclusion is—that they don't fit in.
With dark bodies that are probably external to our own solar system, I have, in the provincialism that no one can escape, not much concern. Dark bodies afloat in outer space would have been damned a few years ago, but now they're sanctioned by Prof. Barnard—and, if he says they're all right, you may think of them without the fear of doing something wrong or ridiculous—the close kinship we note so often between the evil and the absurd—I suppose by the ridiculous I mean the froth of evil. The dark companion of Algol, for instance. Though that's a clear case of celestial miscegenation, the purists, or positivists, admit that's so. In theProceedings of the National Academy of Science, 1915-394, Prof. Barnard writes of an object—he calls it an "object"—in Cephus. His idea is that there are dark, opaque bodies outside this solar system. But in theAstrophysical Journal, 1916-1, he modifies into regarding them as "dark nebulæ." That's not so interesting.
We accept that Venus, for instance, has often been visited by other worlds, or by super-constructions, from which come ciders and coke and coal; that sometimes these things have reflected light and have been seen from this earth—by professional astronomers. It will be noted that throughout this chapter our data are accursed Brahmins—as, by hypnosis and inertia, we keep on and keep on saying, just as a good many of the scientists of the 19th century kept on and kept on admitting the power of the system that preceded them—or Continuity would be smashed. There's a big chance here for us to be instantaneously translated to the Positive Absolute—oh, well—
What I emphasize here is that our damned data are observations by astronomers of the highest standing, excommunicated by astronomers of similar standing—but backed up by the dominant spirit of their era—to which all minds had to equilibrate or be negligible, unheard, submerged. It would seem sometimes, in this book, as if our revolts were against the dogmatisms and pontifications of single scientists of eminence. This is only a convenience, because it seems necessary to personify. If we look overPhilosophical Transactions, or the publications of the Royal Astronomical Society, for instance, we see that Herschel, for instance, was as powerless as any boy stargazer, to enforce acceptance of any observation of his that did not harmonize with the system that was growing up as independently of him and all other astronomers, as a phase in the development of an embryo compels all cells to take on appearances concordantly with the design and the predetermined progress and schedule of the whole.
Visitors to Venus:
Evans,Ways of the Planets, p. 140:
That, in 1645, a body large enough to look like a satellite was seen near Venus. Four times in the first half of the 18th century, a similar observation was reported. The last report occurred in 1767.
A large body has been seen—seven times, according toScience Gossip, 1886-178—near Venus. At least one astronomer, Houzeau, accepted these observations and named the—world, planet, super-construction—"Neith." His views are mentioned "in passing, but without endorsement," in theTrans. N.Y. Acad., 5-249.
Houzeau or someone writing for the magazine-section of a Sunday newspaper—outer darkness for both alike. A new satellite in this solar system might be a little disturbing—though the formulas of Laplace, which were considered final in his day, have survived the admittance of five or six hundred bodies not included in those formulas—a satellite to Venus might be a little disturbing, but would be explained—but a large body approaching a planet—staying awhile—going away—coming back some other time—anchoring, as it were—
Azuria is pretty bad, but Azuria is no worse than Neith.
Astrophysical Journal, 1-127:
A light-reflecting body, or a bright spot near Mars: seen Nov. 25, 1894, by Prof. Pickering and others, at the Lowell Observatory, above an unilluminated part of Mars—self-luminous, it would seem—thought to have been a cloud—but estimated to have been about twenty miles away from the planet.
Luminous spot seen moving across the disk of Mercury, in 1799, by Harding and Schroeter. (Monthly Notices of the R.A.S., 38-338.)
In the first Bulletin issued by the Lowell Observatory, in 1903, Prof. Lowell describes a body that was seen on the terminator of Mars, May 20, 1903. On May 27, it was "suspected." If still there, it had moved, we are told, about 300 miles—"probably a dust cloud."
Very conspicuous and brilliant spots seen on the disk of Mars, October and November, 1911. (Popular Astronomy, Vol. 19, No. 10.)
So one of them accepted six or seven observations that were in agreement, except that they could not be regularized, upon a world—planet—satellite—and he gave it a name. He named it "Neith."
Monstrator and Elvera and Azuria and Super-Romanimus—
Or heresy and orthodoxy and the oneness of all quasiness, and our ways and means and methods are the very same. Or, if we name things that may not be, we are not of lonely guilt in the nomenclature of absences—
But now Leverrier and "Vulcan."
Leverrier again.
Or to demonstrate the collapsibility of a froth, stick a pin in the largest bubble of it. Astronomy and inflation: and by inflation we mean expansion of the attenuated. Or that the science of Astronomy is a phantom-film distended with myth-stuff—but always our acceptance that it approximates higher to substantiality than did the system that preceded it.
So Leverrier and the "planet Vulcan."
And we repeat, and it will do us small good to repeat. If you be of the masses that the astronomers have hypnotized—being themselves hypnotized, or they could not hypnotize others—or that the hypnotist's control is not the masterful power that it is popularly supposed to be, but only transference of state from one hypnotic to another—
If you be of the masses that the astronomers have hypnotized, you will not be able even to remember. Ten pages from here, and Leverrier and the "planet Vulcan" will have fallen from your mind, like beans from a magnet, or like data of cold meteorites from the mind of a Thomson.
Leverrier and the "planet Vulcan."
And much the good it will do us to repeat.
But at least temporarily we shall have an impression of a historic fiasco, such as, in our acceptance, could occur only in a quasi-existence.
In 1859, Dr. Lescarbault, an amateur astronomer, of Orgères, France, announced that, upon March 26, of that year, he had seen a body of planetary size cross the sun. We are in a subject that is now as unholy to the present system as ever were its own subjects to the system that preceded it, or as ever were slanders against miracles to the preceding system. Nevertheless few text-books go so far as quite to disregard this tragedy. The method of the systematists is slightingly to give a few instances of the unholy, and dispose of the few. If it were desirable to them to deny that there are mountains upon this earth, they would record a few observations upon some slight eminences near Orange, N.J., but say that commuters, though estimable persons in several ways, are likely to have their observations mixed. The text-books casually mention a few of the "supposed" observations upon "Vulcan," and then pass on.
Dr. Lescarbault wrote to Leverrier, who hastened to Orgères—
Because this announcement assimilated with his own calculations upon a planet between Mercury and the sun—
Because this solar system itself has never attained positiveness in the aspect of Regularity: there are to Mercury, as there are to Neptune, phenomena irreconcilable with the formulas, or motions that betray influence by something else.
We are told that Leverrier "satisfied himself as to the substantial accuracy of the reported observation." The story of this investigation is told inMonthly Notices, 20-98. It seems too bad to threaten the naïve little thing with our rude sophistications, but it is amusingly of the ingenuousness of the age from which present dogmas have survived. Lescarbault wrote to Leverrier. Leverrier hastened to Orgères. But he was careful not to tell Lescarbault who he was. Went right in and "subjected Dr. Lescarbault to a very severe cross-examination"—just the way you or I may feel at liberty to go into anybody's home and be severe with people—"pressing him hard step by step"—just as anyone might go into someone else's house and press him hard, though unknown to the hard-pressed one. Not until he was satisfied, did Leverrier reveal his identity. I suppose Dr. Lescarbault expressed astonishment. I think there's something utopian about this: it's so unlike the stand-offishness of New York life.
Leverrier gave the name "Vulcan" to the object that Dr. Lescarbault had reported.
By the same means by which he is, even to this day, supposed—by the faithful—to have discovered Neptune, he had already announced the probable existence of an Intra-Mercurial body, or group of bodies. He had five observations besides Lescarbault's upon something that had been seen to cross the sun. In accordance with the mathematical hypnoses of his era, he studied these six transits. Out of them he computed elements giving "Vulcan" a period of about 20 days, or a formula for heliocentric longitude at any time.
But he placed the time of best observation away up in 1877.
But even so, or considering that he still had probably a good many years to live, it may strike one that he was a little rash—that is if one has not gone very deep into the study of hypnoses—that, having "discovered" Neptune by a method which, in our acceptance, had no more to recommend it than had once equally well-thought-of methods of witch-finding, he should not have taken such chances: that if he was right as to Neptune, but should be wrong as to "Vulcan," his average would be away below that of most fortune-tellers, who could scarcely hope to do business upon a fifty per cent. basis—all that the reasoning of a tyro in hypnoses.
The date:
March 22, 1877.
The scientific world was up on its hind legs nosing the sky. The thing had been done so authoritatively. Never a pope had said a thing with more of the seeming of finality. If six observations correlated, what more could be asked? The Editor ofNature, a week before the predicted event, though cautious, said that it is difficult to explain how six observers, unknown to one another, could have data that could be formulated, if they were not related phenomena.
In a way, at this point occurs the crisis of our whole book.
Formulas are against us.
But can astronomic formulas, backed up by observations in agreement, taken many years apart, calculated by a Leverrier, be as meaningless, 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 observers at Madras, Melbourne, Sydney, and New Zealand, and arranged 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 anyone 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 theAnnual 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 important 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 invisibility 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 theRegistersays: "In a word, we know of nothing to have recourse to, in the heavens, by which to explain this phenomenon." I suppose he was not a hopeless addict to explaining. Extraordinary—we fear he must have been a man of loose habits in some other respects.
As to us—
Monstrator.
In theMonthly Notices of the R.A.S., February, 1877, Leverrier, who never lost faith, up to the last day, gives the six observations upon an unknown body of planetary size, that he had formulated:
Fritsche, Oct. 10, 1802; Stark, Oct. 9, 1819; De Cuppis, Oct. 30, 1839; Sidebotham, Nov. 12, 1849; Lescarbault, March 26, 1859; Lummis, March 20, 1862.
If we weren't so accustomed to Science in its essential aspect of Disregard, we'd be mystified and impressed, like the Editor ofNature, with the formulation of these data: agreement of so many instances would seem incredible as a coincidence: but our acceptance is that, with just enough disregard, astronomers and fortune-tellers can formulate anything—or we'd engage, ourselves, to formulate periodicities in the crowds in Broadway—say that every Wednesday morning, a tall man, with one leg and a black eye, carrying a rubber plant, passes the Singer Building, at quarter past ten o'clock. Of course it couldn't really be done, unless such a man did have such periodicity, but if some Wednesday mornings it should be a small child lugging a barrel, or a fat negress with a week's wash, by ordinary disregard that would be prediction good enough for the kind of quasi-existence we're in.
So whether we accuse, or whether we think that the word "accuse" over-dignifies an attitude toward a quasi-astronomer, or mere figment in a super-dream, our acceptance is that Leverrier never did formulate observations—
That he picked out observations that could be formulated—
That of this type are all formulas—
That, if Leverrier had not been himself helplessly hypnotized, or if he had had in him more than a tincture of realness, never could he have been beguiled by such a quasi-process: but that he was hypnotized, and so extended, or transferred, his condition to others, that upon March 22, 1877, he had this earth bristling with telescopes, with the rigid and almost inanimate forms of astronomers behind them—
And not a blessed thing of any unusuality was seen upon that day or succeeding days.
But that the science of Astronomy suffered the slightest in prestige?
It couldn't. The spirit of 1877 was behind it. If, in an embryo, some cells should not live up to the phenomena of their era, the others will sustain the scheduled appearances. Not until an embryo enters the mammalian stage are cells of the reptilian stage false cells.
It is our acceptance that there were many equally authentic reports upon large planetary bodies that had been seen near the sun; that, of many, Leverrier picked out six; not then deciding that all the other observations related to still other large, planetary bodies, but arbitrarily, or hypnotically, disregarding—or heroically disregarding—every one of them—that to formulate at all he had to exclude falsely. The dénouement killed him, I think. I'm not at all inclined to place him with the Grays and Hitchcocks and Symonses. I'm not, because, though it was rather unsportsmanlike to put the date so far ahead, he did give a date, and he did stick to it with such a high approximation—
I think Leverrier was translated to the Positive Absolute.
The disregarded:
Observation, of July 26, 1819, by Gruthinson—but that was of two bodies that crossed the sun together—
Nature, 14-469:
That, according to the astronomer, J.R. Hind, Benjamin Scott, City Chamberlain of London, and Mr. Wray, had, in 1847, seen a body similar to "Vulcan" cross the sun.
Similar observation by Hind and Lowe, March 12, 1849 (L'Année Scientifique, 1876-9).
Nature, 14-505:
Body of apparent size of Mercury, seen, Jan. 29, 1860, by F.A.R. Russell and four other observers, crossing the sun.
De Vico's observation of July 12, 1837 (Observatory, 2-424).
L'Année Scientifique, 1865-16:
That another amateur astronomer, M. Coumbray, of Constantinople, had written to Leverrier, that, upon the 8th of March, 1865, he had seen a black point, sharply outlined, traverse the disk of the sun. It detached itself from a group of sun spots near the limb of the sun, and took 48 minutes to reach the other limb. Figuring upon the diagram sent by M. Coumbray, a central passage would have taken a little more than an hour. This observation was disregarded by Leverrier, because his formula required about four times that velocity. The point here is that these other observations are as authentic as those that Leverrier included; that, then, upon data as good as the data of "Vulcan," there must be other "Vulcans"—the heroic and defiant disregard, then, of trying to formulate one, omitting the others, which, by orthodox doctrine, must have influenced it greatly, if all were in the relatively narrow space between Mercury and the sun.
Observation upon another such body, of April 4, 1876, by M. Weber, of Berlin. As to this observation, Leverrier was informed by Wolf, in August, 1876 (L'Année Scientifique, 1876-7). It made no difference, so far as can be known, to this notable positivist.
Two other observations noted by Hind and Denning—LondonTimes, Nov. 3, 1871, and March 26, 1873.
Monthly Notices of the R.A.S., 20-100:
Standacher, February, 1762; Lichtenberg, Nov. 19, 1762; Hoffman, May, 1764; Dangos, Jan. 18, 1798; Stark, Feb. 12, 1820. An observation by Schmidt, Oct. 11, 1847, is said to be doubtful: but, upon page 192, it is said that this doubt had arisen because of a mistaken translation, and two other observations by Schmidt are given: Oct. 14, 1849, and Feb. 18, 1850—also an observation by Lofft, Jan. 6, 1818. Observation by Steinheibel, at Vienna, April 27, 1820 (Monthly Notices, 1862).
Haase had collected reports of twenty observations like Lescarbault's. The list was published in 1872, by Wolf. Also there are other instances like Gruthinsen's:
Amer. Jour. Sci., 2-28-446:
Report by Pastorff that he had seen twice in 1836, and once in 1837, two round spots of unequal size moving across the sun, changing position relatively to each other, and taking a different course, if not orbit, each time: that, in 1834, he had seen similar bodies pass six times across the disk of the sun, looking very much like Mercury in his transits.
March 22, 1876—
But to point out Leverrier's poverty-stricken average—or discovering planets upon a fifty per cent. basis—would be to point out the low percentage of realness in the quasi-myth-stuff of which the whole system is composed. We do not accuse the text-books of omitting this fiasco, but we do note that theirs is the conventional adaptation here of all beguilers who are in difficulties—
The diverting of attention.
It wouldn't be possible in a real existence, with real mentality, to deal with, but I suppose it's good enough for the quasi-intellects that stupefy themselves with text-books. The trick here is to gloss over Leverrier's mistake, and blame Lescarbault—he was only an amateur—had delusions. The reader's attention is led against Lescarbault by a report from M. Lias, director of the Brazilian Coast Survey, who, at the time of Lescarbault's "supposed" observation had been watching the sun in Brazil, and, instead of seeing even ordinary sun spots, had noted that the region of the "supposed transit" was of "uniform intensity."
But the meaninglessness of all utterances in quasi-existence—
"Uniform intensity" turns our way as much as against us—or some day some brain will conceive a way of beating Newton's third law—if every reaction, or resistance, is, or can be, interpretable as stimulus instead of resistance—if this could be done in mechanics, there's a way open here for someone to own the world—specifically in this matter, "uniform intensity" means that Lescarbault saw no ordinary sun spot, just as much as it means that no spot at all was seen upon the sun. Continuing the interpretation of a resistance as an assistance, which can always be done with mental forces—making us wonder what applications could be made with steam and electric forces—we point out that invisibility in Brazil means parallax quite as truly as it means absence, and, inasmuch as "Vulcan" was supposed to be distant from the sun, we interpret denial as corroboration—method of course of every scientist, politician, theologian, high-school debater.
So the text-books, with no especial cleverness, because no especial cleverness is needed, lead the reader into contempt for the amateur of Orgères, and forgetfulness of Leverrier—and some other subject is taken up.
But our own acceptance:
That these data are as good as ever they were;
That, if someone of eminence should predict an earthquake, and if there should be no earthquake at the predicted time, that would discredit the prophet, but data of past earthquakes would remain as good as ever they had been. It is easy enough to smile at the illusion of a single amateur—
The mass-formation:
Fritsche, Stark, De Cuppis, Sidebotham, Lescarbault, Lummis, Gruthinson, De Vico, Scott, Wray, Russell, Hind, Lowe, Coumbray, Weber, Standacher, Lichtenberg, Dangos, Hoffman, Schmidt, Lofft, Steinheibel, Pastorff—
These are only the observations conventionally listed relatively to an Intra-Mercurial planet. They are formidable enough to prevent our being diverted, as if it were all the dream of a lonely amateur—but they're a mere advance-guard. From now on other data of large celestial bodies, some dark and some reflecting light, will pass and pass and keep on passing—
So that some of us will remember a thing or two, after the procession's over—possibly.
Taking up only one of the listed observations—
Or our impression that the discrediting of Leverrier has nothing to do with the acceptability of these data:
In the LondonTimes, Jan. 10, 1860, is Benjamin Scott's account of his observation:
That, in the summer of 1847, he had seen a body that had seemed to be the size of Venus, crossing the sun. He says that, hardly believing the evidence of his sense of sight, he had looked for someone, whose hopes or ambitions would not make him so subject to illusion. He had told his little son, aged five years, to look through the telescope. The child had exclaimed that he had seen "a little balloon" crossing the sun. Scott says that he had not had sufficient self-reliance to make public announcement of his remarkable observation at the time, but that, in the evening of the same day, he had told Dr. Dick, F.R.A.S., who had cited other instances. In theTimes, Jan. 12, 1860, is published a letter from Richard Abbott, F.R.A.S.: that he remembered Mr. Scott's letter to him upon this observation, at the time of the occurrence.
I suppose that, at the beginning of this chapter, one had the notion that, by hard scratching through musty old records we might rake up vague, more than doubtful data, distortable into what's called evidence of unrecognized worlds or constructions of planetary size—
But the high authenticity and the support and the modernity of these of the accursed that we are now considering—
And our acceptance that ours is a quasi-existence, in which above all other things, hopes, ambitions, emotions, motivations, stands Attempt to Positivize: that we are here considering an attempt to systematize that is sheer fanaticism in its disregard of the unsystematizable—that it represented the highest good in the 19th century—that it is mono-mania, but heroic mono-mania that was quasi-divine in the 19th century—
But that this isn't the 19th century.
As a doubly sponsored Brahmin—in the regard of Baptists—the objects of July 29, 1878, stand out and proclaim themselves so that nothing but disregard of the intensity of mono-mania can account for their reception by the system:
Or the total eclipse of July 29, 1878, and the reports by Prof. Watson, from Rawlins, Wyoming, and by Prof. Swift, from Denver, Colorado: that they had seen two shining objects at a considerable distance from the sun.
It's quite in accord with our general expression: not that there is an Intra-Mercurial planet, but that there are different bodies, many vast things; near this earth sometimes, near the sun sometimes; orbitless worlds, which, because of scarcely any data of collisions, we think of as under navigable control—or dirigible super-constructions.
Prof. Watson and Prof. Swift published their observations.
Then the disregard that we cannot think of in terms of ordinary, sane exclusions.
The text-book systematists begin by telling us that the trouble with these observations is that they disagree widely: there is considerable respectfulness, especially for Prof. Swift, but we are told that by coincidence these two astronomers, hundreds of miles apart, were illuded: their observations were so different—
Prof. Swift (Nature, Sept. 19, 1878):
That his own observation was "in close approximation to that given by Prof. Watson."
In theObservatory, 2-161, Swift says that his observations and Watson's were "confirmatory of each other."
The faithful try again:
That Watson and Swift mistook stars for other bodies.
In theObservatory, 2-193, Prof. Watson says that he had previously committed to memory all stars near the sun, down to the seventh magnitude—
And he's damned anyway.
How such exclusions work out is shown by Lockyer (Nature, Aug. 20, 1878). He says: "There is little doubt that an Intra-Mercurial planet has been discovered by Prof. Watson."
That was before excommunication was pronounced.
He says:
"If it will fit one of Leverrier's orbits"—
It didn't fit.
InNature, 21-301, Prof. Swift says:
"I have never made a more valid observation, nor one more free from doubt."
He's damned anyway.
We shall have some data that will not live up to most rigorous requirements, but, if anyone would like to read how carefully and minutely these two sets of observations were made, see Prof. Swift's detailed description in theAm. Jour. Sci., 116-313; and the technicalities of Prof. Watson's observations inMonthly Notices, 38-525.
Our own acceptance upon dirigible worlds, which is assuredly enough, more nearly real than attempted concepts of large planets relatively near this earth, moving in orbits, but visible only occasionally; which more nearly approximates to reasonableness than does wholesale slaughter of Swift and Watson and Fritsche and Stark and De Cuppis—but our own acceptance is so painful to so many minds that, in another of the charitable moments that we have now and then for the sake of contrast, we offer relief:
The things seen high in the sky by Swift and Watson—
Well, only two months before—the horse and the barn—
We go on with more observations by astronomers, recognizing that it is the very thing that has given them life, sustained them, held them together, that has crushed all but the quasi-gleam of independent life out of them. Were they not systematized, they could not be at all, except sporadically and without sustenance. They are systematized: they must not vary from the conditions of the system: they must not break away for themselves.
The two great commandments:
Thou shalt not break Continuity;
Thou shalt try.
We go on with these disregarded data, some of which, many of which, are of the highest degree of acceptability. It is the System that pulls back its variations, as this earth is pulling back the Matterhorn. It is the System that nourishes and rewards, and also freezes out life with the chill of disregard. We do note that, before excommunication is pronounced, orthodox journals do liberally enough record unassimilable observations.
All things merge away into everything else.
That is Continuity.
So the System merges away and evades us when we try to focus against it.
We have complained a great deal. At least we are not so dull as to have the delusion that we know just exactly what it is that we are complaining about. We speak seemingly definitely enough of "the System," but we're building upon observations by members of that very system. Or what we are doing—gathering up the loose heresies of the orthodox. Of course "the System" fringes and ravels away, having no real outline. A Swift will antagonize "the System," and a Lockyer will call him back; but, then, a Lockyer will vary with a "meteoric hypothesis," and a Swift will, in turn, represent "the System." This state is to us typical of all intermediatist phenomena; or that not conceivably is anything really anything, if its parts are likely to be their own opposites at any time. We speak of astronomers—as if there were real astronomers—but who have lost their identity in a System—as if it were a real System—but behind that System is plainly a rapport, or loss of identity in the Spirit of an Era.
Bodies that have looked like dark bodies, and lights that may have been sunlight reflected from inter-planetary—objects, masses, constructions—
Lights that have been seen upon—or near?—the moon:
InPhilosophical Transactions, 82-27, is Herschel's report upon many luminous points, which he saw upon—or near?—the moon, during an eclipse. Why they should be luminous, whereas the moon itself was dark, would get us into a lot of trouble—except that later we shall, or we sha'n't, accept that many times have luminous objects been seen close to this earth—at night.
But numerousness is a new factor, or new disturbance, to our explorations—
A new aspect of inter-planetary inhabitancy or occupancy—
Worlds in hordes—or beings—winged beings perhaps—wouldn't astonish me if we should end up by discovering angels—or beings in machines—argosies of celestial voyagers—
In 1783 and 1787, Herschel reported more lights on or near the moon, which he supposed were volcanic.
The word of a Herschel has had no more weight, in divergences from the orthodox, than has had the word of a Lescarbault. These observations are of the disregarded.
Bright spots seen on the moon, November, 1821 (Proc. London Roy. Soc., 2-167).
For four other instances, see Loomis (Treatise on Astronomy, p. 174).
A moving light is reported inPhil. Trans., 84-429. To the writer, it looked like a star passing over the moon—"which, on the next moment's consideration I knew to be impossible." "It was a fixed, steady light upon the dark part of the moon." I suppose "fixed" applies to luster.
In theReport of the Brit. Assoc., 1847-18, there is an observation by Rankin, upon luminous points seen on the shaded part of the moon, during an eclipse. They seemed to this observer like reflections of stars. That's not very reasonable: however, we have, in theAnnual Register, 1821-687, a light not referable to a star—because it moved with the moon: was seen three nights in succession; reported by Capt. Kater. SeeQuart. Jour. Roy. Inst., 12-133.
Phil. Trans., 112-237:
Report from the Cape Town Observatory: a whitish spot on the dark part of the moon's limb. Three smaller lights were seen.
The call of positiveness, in its aspects of singleness, or homogeneity, or oneness, or completeness. In data now coming, I feel it myself. A Leverrier studies more than twenty observations. The inclination is irresistible to think that they all relate to one phenomenon. It is an expression of cosmic inclination. Most of the observations are so irreconcilable with any acceptance other than of orbitless, dirigible worlds that he shuts his eyes to more than two-thirds of them; he picks out six that can give him the illusion of completeness, or of all relating to one planet.
Or let it be that we have data of many dark bodies—still do we incline almost irresistibly to think of one of them as the dark-body-in-chief. Dark bodies, floating, or navigating, in inter-planetary space—and I conceive of one that's the Prince of Dark Bodies:
Melanicus.
Vast dark thing with the wings of a super-bat, or jet-black super-construction; most likely one of the spores of the Evil One.
The extraordinary year, 1883:
LondonTimes, Dec. 17, 1883:
Extract from a letter by Hicks Pashaw: that, in Egypt, Sept. 24, 1883, he had seen, through glasses, "an immense black spot upon the lower part of the sun."
Sun spot, maybe.
One night an astronomer was looking up at the sky, when something obscured a star, for three and a half seconds. A meteor had been seen nearby, but its train had been only momentarily visible. Dr. Wolf was the astronomer (Nature, 86-528).
The next datum is one of the most sensational we have, except that there is very little to it. A dark object that was seen by Prof. Heis, for eleven degrees of arc, moving slowly across the Milky Way. (Greg's Catalogue,Rept. Brit. Assoc., 1867-426.)
One of our quasi-reasons for accepting that orbitless worlds are dirigible is the almost complete absence of data of collisions: of course, though in defiance of gravitation, they may, without direction like human direction, adjust to one another in the way of vortex rings of smoke—a very human-like way, that is. But inKnowledge, February, 1894, are two photographs of Brooks' comet that are shown as evidence of its seeming collision with a dark object, October, 1893. Our own wording is that it "struck against something": Prof. Barnard's is that it had "entered some dense medium, which shattered it." For all I know it had knocked against merely a field of ice.
Melanicus.
That upon the wings of a super-bat, he broods over this earth and over other worlds, perhaps deriving something from them: hovers on wings, or wing-like appendages, or planes that are hundreds of miles from tip to tip—a super-evil thing that is exploiting us. By Evil I mean that which makes us useful.
He obscures a star. He shoves a comet. I think he's a vast, black, brooding vampire.
Science, July 31, 1896:
That, according to a newspaper account, Mr. W.R. Brooks, director of the Smith Observatory, had seen a dark round object pass rather slowly across the moon, in a horizontal direction. In Mr. Brooks' opinion it was a dark meteor. InScience, Sept. 14, 1896, a correspondent writes that, in his opinion, it may have been a bird. We shall have no trouble with the meteor and bird mergers, if we have observations of long duration and estimates of size up to hundreds of miles. As to the body that was seen by Brooks, there is a note from the Dutch astronomer, Muller, in theScientific American, 75-251, that, upon April 4, 1892, he had seen a similar phenomenon. InScience Gossip, n.s., 3-135, are more details of the Brooks object—apparent diameter about one-thirtieth of the moon's—moon's disk crossed in three or four seconds. The writer, inScience Gossip, says that, on June 27, 1896, at one o'clock in the morning, he was looking at the moon with a 2-inch achromatic, power 44, when a long black object sailed past, from west to east, the transit occupying 3 or 4 seconds. He believed this object to be a bird—there was, however, no fluttering motion observable in it.
In theAstronomische Nachrichten, No. 3477, Dr. Brendel, of Griefswald, Pomerania, writes that Postmaster Ziegler and other observers had seen a body about 6 feet in diameter crossing the sun's disk. The duration here indicates something far from the earth, and also far from the sun. This thing was seen a quarter of an hour before it reached the sun. Time in crossing the sun was about an hour. After leaving the sun it was visible an hour.
I think he's a vast, black vampire that sometimes broods over this earth and other bodies.
Communication from Dr. F.B. Harris (Popular Astronomy, 20-398):
That, upon the evening of Jan. 27, 1912, Dr. Harris saw, upon the moon, "an intensely black object." He estimated it to be 250 miles long and 50 miles wide. "The object resembled a crow poised, as near as anything." Clouds then cut off observation.
Dr. Harris writes:
"I cannot but think that a very interesting and curious phenomenon happened."
Short chapter coming now, and it's the worst of them all. I think it's speculative. It's a lapse from our usual pseudo-standards. I think it must mean that the preceding chapter was very efficiently done, and that now by the rhythm of all quasi-things—which can't be real things, if they're rhythms, because a rhythm is an appearance that turns into its own opposite and then back again—but now, to pay up, we're what we weren't. Short chapter, and I think we'll fill in with several points in Intermediatism.
A puzzle:
If it is our acceptance that, out of the Negative Absolute, the Positive Absolute is generating itself, recruiting, or maintaining, itself, via a third state, or our own quasi-state, it would seem that we're trying to conceive of Universalness manufacturing more Universalness from Nothingness. Take that up yourself, if you're willing to run the risk of disappearing with such velocity that you'll leave an incandescent train behind, and risk being infinitely happy forever, whereas you probably don't want to be happy—I'll sidestep that myself, and try to be intelligible by regarding the Positive Absolute from the aspect of Realness instead of Universalness, recalling that by both Realness and Universalness we mean the same state, or that which does not merge away into something else, because there is nothing else. So the idea is that out of Unrealness, instead of Nothingness, Realness, instead of Universalness, is, via our own quasi-state, manufacturing more Realness. Just so, but in relative terms, of course, all imaginings that materialize into machines or statues, buildings, dollars, paintings or books in paper and ink are graduations from unrealness to realness—in relative terms. It would seem then that Intermediateness is a relation between the Positive Absolute and the Negative Absolute. But the absolute cannot be the related—of course a confession that we can't really think of it at all, if here we think of a limit to the unlimited. Doing the best we can, and encouraged by the reflection that we can't do worse than has been done by metaphysicians in the past, we accept that the absolute can't be the related. So then that our quasi-state is not a real relation, if nothing in it is real. On the other hand, it is not an unreal relation, if nothing in it is unreal. It seems thinkable that the Positive Absolute can, by means of Intermediateness, have a quasi-relation, or be only quasi-related, or be the unrelated, in final terms, or, at least, not be the related, in final terms.
As to free will and Intermediatism—same answer as to everything else. By free will we mean Independence—or that which does not merge away into something else—so, in Intermediateness, neither free-will nor slave-will—but a different approximation for every so-called person toward one or the other of the extremes. The hackneyed way of expressing this seems to me to be the acceptable way, if in Intermediateness, there is only the paradoxical: that we're free to do what we have to do.
I am not convinced that we make a fetish of the preposterous. I think our feeling is that in first gropings there's no knowing what will afterward be the acceptable. I think that if an early biologist heard of birds that grow on trees, he should record that he had heard of birds that grow on trees: then let sorting over of data occur afterward. The one thing that we try to tone down but that is to a great degree unavoidable is having our data all mixed up like Long Island and Florida in the minds of early American explorers. My own notion is that this whole book is very much like a map of North America in which the Hudson River is set down as a passage leading to Siberia. We think of Monstrator and Melanicus and of a world that is now in communication with this earth: if so, secretly, with certain esoteric ones upon this earth. Whether that world's Monstrator and Monstrator's Melanicus—must be the subject of later inquiry. It would be a gross thing to do: solve up everything now and leave nothing to our disciples.
I have been very much struck with phenomena of "cup marks."
They look to me like symbols of communication.
But they do not look to me like means of communication between some of the inhabitants of this earth and other inhabitants of this earth.
My own impression is that some external force has marked, with symbols, rocks of this earth, from far away.
I do not think that cup marks are inscribed communications among different inhabitants of this earth, because it seems too unacceptable that inhabitants of China, Scotland, and America should all have conceived of the same system.
Cup marks are strings of cup-like impressions in rocks. Sometimes there are rings around them, and sometimes they have only semi-circles. Great Britain, America, France, Algeria, Circassia, Palestine: they're virtually everywhere—except in the far north, I think. In China, cliffs are dotted with them. Upon a cliff near Lake Como, there is a maze of these markings. In Italy and Spain and India they occur in enormous numbers.
Given that a force, say, like electric force, could, from a distance, mark such a substance as rocks, as, from a distance of hundreds of miles, selenium can be marked by telephotographers—but I am of two minds—
The Lost Explorers from Somewhere, and an attempt, from Somewhere, to communicate with them: so a frenzy of showering of messages toward this earth, in the hope that some of them would mark rocks near the lost explorers—
Or that somewhere upon this earth, there is an especial rocky surface, or receptor, or polar construction, or a steep, conical hill, upon which for ages have been received messages from some other world; but that at times messages go astray and mark substances perhaps thousands of miles from the receptor:
That perhaps forces behind the history of this earth have left upon the rocks of Palestine and England and India and China records that may some day be deciphered, of their misdirected instructions to certain esoteric ones—Order of the Freemasons—the Jesuits—
I emphasize the row-formation of cup marks:
Prof. Douglas (Saturday Review, Nov. 24, 1883):
"Whatever may have been their motive, the cup-markers showed a decided liking for arranging their sculpturings in regularly spaced rows."
That cup marks are an archaic form of inscription was first suggested by Canon Greenwell many years ago. But more specifically adumbratory to our own expression are the observations of Rivett-Carnac (Jour. Roy. Asiatic Soc., 1903-515):
That the Braille system of raised dots is an inverted arrangement of cup marks: also that there are strong resemblances to the Morse code. But no tame and systematized archaeologist can do more than casually point out resemblances, and merely suggest that strings of cup marks look like messages, because—China, Switzerland, Algeria, America—if messages they be, there seems to be no escape from attributing one origin to them—then, if messages they be, I accept one external origin, to which the whole surface of this earth was accessible, for them.
Something else that we emphasize:
That rows of cup marks have often been likened to footprints.
But, in this similitude, their unilinear arrangement must be disregarded—of course often they're mixed up in every way, but arrangement in single lines is very common. It is odd that they should so often be likened to footprints: I suppose there are exceptional cases, but unless it's something that hops on one foot, or a cat going along a narrow fence-top, I don't think of anything that makes footprints one directly ahead of another—Cop, in a station house, walking a chalk line, perhaps.
Upon the Witch's Stone, near Ratho, Scotland, there are twenty-four cups, varying in size from one and a half to three inches in diameter, arranged in approximately straight lines. Locally it is explained that these are tracks of dogs' feet (Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland, 2-4-79). Similar marks are scattered bewilderingly all around the Witch's Stone—like a frenzy of telegraphing, or like messages repeating and repeating, trying to localize differently.
In Inverness-shire, cup marks are called "fairies' footmarks." At Valna's church, Norway, and St. Peter's, Ambleteuse, there are such marks, said to be horses' hoofprints. The rocks of Clare, Ireland, are marked with prints supposed to have been made by a mythical cow (Folklore, 21-184).
We now have such a ghost of a thing that I'd not like to be interpreted as offering it as a datum: it simply illustrates what I mean by the notion of symbols, like cups, or like footprints, which, if like those of horses or cows, are the reverse of, or the negatives of, cups—of symbols that are regularly received somewhere upon this earth—steep, conical hill, somewhere, I think—but that have often alighted in wrong places—considerably to the mystification of persons waking up some morning to find them upon formerly blank spaces.
An ancient record—still worse, an ancient Chinese record—of a courtyard of a palace—dwellers of the palace waking up one morning, finding the courtyard marked with tracks like the footprints of an ox—supposed that the devil did it. (Notes and Queries, 9-6-225.)
Angels.
Hordes upon hordes of them.
Beings massed like the clouds of souls, or the commingling whiffs of spirituality, or the exhalations of souls that Doré pictured so often.
It may be that the Milky Way is a composition of stiff, frozen, finally-static, absolute angels. We shall have data of little Milky Ways, moving swiftly; or data of hosts of angels, not absolute, or still dynamic. I suspect, myself, that the fixed stars are really fixed, and that the minute motions said to have been detected in them are illusions. I think that the fixed stars are absolutes. Their twinkling is only the interpretation by an intermediatist state of them. I think that soon after Leverrier died, a new fixed star was discovered—that, if Dr. Gray had stuck to his story of the thousands of fishes from one pail of water, had written upon it, lectured upon it, taken to street corners, to convince the world that, whether conceivable or not, his explanation was the only true explanation: had thought of nothing but this last thing at night and first thing in the morning—his obituary—another "nova" reported inMonthly Notices.
I think that Milky Ways, of an inferior, or dynamic, order, have often been seen by astronomers. Of course it may be that the phenomena that we shall now consider are not angels at all. We are simply feeling around, trying to find out what we can accept. Some of our data indicate hosts of rotund and complacent tourists in inter-planetary space—but then data of long, lean, hungry ones. I think that there are, out in inter-planetary space, Super Tamerlanes at the head of hosts of celestial ravagers—which have come here and pounced upon civilizations of the past, cleaning them up all but their bones, or temples and monuments—for which later historians have invented exclusionist histories. But if something now has a legal right to us, and can enforce its proprietorship, they've been warned off. It's the way of all exploitation. I should say that we're now under cultivation: that we're conscious of it, but have the impertinence to attribute it all to our own nobler and higher instincts.
Against these notions is the same sense of finality that opposes all advance. It's why we rate acceptance as a better adaptation than belief. Opposing us is the strong belief that, as to inter-planetary phenomena, virtually everything has been found out. Sense of finality and illusion of homogeneity. But that what is called advancing knowledge is violation of the sense of blankness.
A drop of water. Once upon a time water was considered so homogeneous that it was thought of as an element. The microscope—and not only that the supposititiously elementary was seen to be of infinite diversity, but that in its protoplasmic life there were new orders of beings.
Or the year 1491—and a European looking westward over the ocean—his feeling that that suave western droop was unbreakable; that gods of regularity would not permit that smooth horizon to be disturbed by coasts or spotted with islands. The unpleasantness of even contemplating such a state—wide, smooth west, so clean against the sky—spotted with islands—geographic leprosy.
But coasts and islands and Indians and bison, in the seemingly vacant west: lakes, mountains, rivers—
One looks up at the sky: the relative homogeneity of the relatively unexplored: one thinks of only a few kinds of phenomena. But the acceptance is forced upon me that there are modes and modes and modes of inter-planetary existence: things as different from planets and comets and meteors as Indians are from bison and prairie dogs: a super-geography—or celestiography—of vast stagnant regions, but also of Super-Niagaras and Ultra-Mississippis: and a super-sociology—voyagers and tourists and ravagers: the hunted and the hunting: the super-mercantile, the super-piratic, the super-evangelical.
Sense of homogeneity, or our positivist illusion of the unknown—and the fate of all positivism.
Astronomy and the academic.
Ethics and the abstract.
The universal attempt to formulate or to regularize—an attempt that can be made only by disregarding or denying.
Or all things disregard or deny that which will eventually invade and destroy them—
Until comes the day when some one thing shall say, and enforce upon Infinitude:
"Thus far shalt thou go: here is absolute demarcation."
The final utterance:
"There is only I."
In theMonthly Notices of the R.A.S., 11-48, there is a letter from the Rev. W. Read:
That, upon the 4th of September, 1851, at 9:30A.M., he had seen a host of self-luminous bodies, passing the field of his telescope, some slowly and some rapidly. They appeared to occupy a zone several degrees in breadth. The direction of most of them was due east to west, but some moved from north to south. The numbers were tremendous. They were observed for six hours.
Editor's note:
"May not these appearances be attributed to an abnormal state of the optic nerves of the observer?"
InMonthly Notices, 12-38, Mr. Read answers that he had been a diligent observer, with instruments of a superior order, for about 28 years—"but I have never witnessed such an appearance before." As to illusion he says that two other members of his family had seen the objects.
The Editor withdraws his suggestion.
We know what to expect. Almost absolutely—in an existence that is essentially Hibernian—we can predict the past—that is, look over something of this kind, written in 1851, and know what to expect from the Exclusionists later. If Mr. Read saw a migration of dissatisfied angels, numbering millions, they must merge away, at least subjectively, with commonplace terrestrial phenomena—of course disregarding Mr. Read's probable familiarity, of 28 years' duration, with the commonplaces of terrestrial phenomena.
Monthly Notices, 12-183:
Letter from Rev. W.R. Dawes:
That he had seen similar objects—and in the month of September—that they were nothing but seeds floating in the air.
In theReport of the British Association, 1852-235, there is a communication from Mr. Read to Prof. Baden-Powell:
That the objects that had been seen by him and by Mr. Dawes were not similar. He denies that he had seen seeds floating in the air. There had been little wind, and that had come from the sea, where seeds would not be likely to have origin. The objects that he had seen were round and sharply defined, and with none of the feathery appearance of thistledown. He then quotes from a letter from C.B. Chalmers, F.R.A.S., who had seen a similar stream, a procession, or migration, except that some of the bodies were more elongated—or lean and hungry—than globular.
He might have argued for sixty-five years. He'd have impressed nobody—of importance. The super-motif, or dominant, of his era, was Exclusionism, and the notion of seeds in the air assimilates—with due disregards—with that dominant.
Or pageantries here upon our earth, and things looking down upon us—and the Crusades were only dust clouds, and glints of the sun on shining armor were only particles of mica in dust clouds. I think it was a Crusade that Read saw—but that it was right, relatively to the year 1851, to say that it was only seeds in the wind, whether the wind blew from the sea or not. I think of things that were luminous with religious zeal, mixed up, like everything else in Intermediateness, with black marauders and from gray to brown beings of little personal ambitions. There may have been a Richard Cœur de Lion, on his way to right wrongs in Jupiter. It was right, relatively to 1851, to say that he was a seed of a cabbage.
Prof. Coffin, U.S.N. (Jour. Frank. Inst., 88-151):
That, during the eclipse of August, 1869, he had noted the passage, across his telescope, of several bright flakes resembling thistleblows, floating in the sunlight. But the telescope was so focused that, if these things were distinct, they must have been so far away from this earth that the difficulties of orthodoxy remain as great, one way or another, no matter what we think they were—
They were "well-defined," says Prof. Coffin.
Henry Waldner (Nature, 5-304):
That, April 27, 1863, he had seen great numbers of small, shining bodies passing from west to east. He had notified Dr. Wolf, of the Observatory of Zurich, who "had convinced himself of this strange phenomenon." Dr. Wolf had told him that similar bodies had been seen by Sig. Capocci, of the Capodimonte Observatory, at Naples, May 11, 1845.
The shapes were of great diversity—or different aspects of similar shapes?
Appendages were seen upon some of them.
We are told that some were star-shaped, with transparent appendages.
I think, myself, it was a Mohammed and his Hegira. May have been only his harem. Astonishing sensation: afloat in space with ten million wives around one. Anyway, it would seem that we have considerable advantage here, inasmuch as seeds are not in season in April—but the pulling back to earth, the bedraggling by those sincere but dull ones of some time ago. We have the same stupidity—necessary, functioning stupidity—of attribution of something that was so rare that an astronomer notes only one instance between 1845 and 1863, to an every-day occurrence—
Or Mr. Waldner's assimilative opinion that he had seen only ice crystals.
Whether they were not very exclusive veils of a super-harem, or planes of a very light material, we have an impression of star-shaped things with transparent appendages that have been seen in the sky.
Hosts of small bodies—black, this time—that were seen by the astronomers Herrick, Buys-Ballot, and De Cuppis (L'Année Scientifique, 1860-25); vast numbers of bodies that were seen by M. Lamey, to cross the moon (L'Année Scientifique, 1874-62); another instance of dark ones; prodigious number of dark, spherical bodies reported by Messier, June 17, 1777 (Arago,Œuvres, 9-38); considerable number of luminous bodies which appeared to move out from the sun, in diverse directions; seen at Havana, during eclipse of the sun, May 15, 1836, by Prof. Auber (Poey); M. Poey cites a similar instance, of Aug. 3, 1886; M. Lotard's opinion that they were birds (L'Astronomie, 1886-391); large number of small bodies crossing disk of the sun, some swiftly, some slowly; most of them globular, but some seemingly triangular, and some of more complicated structure; seen by M. Trouvelet, who, whether seeds, insects, birds, or other commonplace things, had never seen anything resembling these forms (L'Année Scientifique, 1885-8); report from the Rio de Janeiro Observatory, of vast numbers of bodies crossing the sun, some of them luminous and some of them dark, from some time in December, 1875, until Jan. 22, 1876 (La Nature, 1876-384).
Of course, at a distance, any form is likely to look round or roundish: but we point out that we have notes upon the seeming of more complex forms. InL'Astronomie, 1886-70, is recorded M. Briguiere's observation, at Marseilles, April 15 and April 25, 1883, upon the crossing of the sun by bodies that were irregular in form. Some of them moved as if in alignment.
Letter from Sir Robert Inglis to Col. Sabine (Rept. Brit. Assoc., 1849-17):
That, at 3P.M., Aug. 8, 1849, at Gais, Switzerland, Inglis had seen thousands and thousands of brilliant white objects, like snowflakes in a cloudless sky. Though this display lasted about twenty-five minutes, not one of these seeming snowflakes was seen to fall. Inglis says that his servant "fancied" that he had seen something like wings on these—whatever they were. Upon page 18, of theReport, Sir John Herschel says that, in 1845 or 1846, his attention had been attracted by objects of considerable size, in the air, seemingly not far away. He had looked at them through a telescope. He says that they were masses of hay, not less than a yard or two in diameter. Still there are some circumstances that interest me. He says that, though no less than a whirlwind could have sustained these masses, the air about him was calm. "No doubt wind prevailed at the spot, but there was no roaring noise." None of these masses fell within his observation or knowledge. To walk a few fields away and find out more would seem not much to expect from a man of science, but it is one of our superstitions, that such a seeming trifle is just what—by the Spirit of an Era, we'll call it—one is not permitted to do. If those things were not masses of hay, and if Herschel had walked a little and found out, and had reported that he had seen strange objects in the air—that report, in 1846, would have been as misplaced as the appearance of a tail upon an embryo still in its gastrula era. I have noticed this inhibition in my own case many times. Looking back—why didn't I do this or that little thing that would have cost so little and have meant so much? Didn't belong to that era of my own development.
Nature, 22-64:
That, at Kattenau, Germany, about half an hour before sunrise, March 22, 1880, "an enormous number of luminous bodies rose from the horizon, and passed in a horizontal direction from east to west." They are described as having appeared in a zone or belt. "They shone with a remarkably brilliant light."
So they've thrown lassos over our data to bring them back to earth. But they're lassos that cannot tighten. We can't pull out of them: we may step out of them, or lift them off. Some of us used to have an impression of Science sitting in calm, just judgment: some of us now feel that a good many of our data have been lynched. If a Crusade, perhaps from Mars to Jupiter, occur in the autumn—"seeds." If a Crusade or outpouring of celestial vandals is seen from this earth in the spring—"ice crystals." If we have record of a race of aerial beings, perhaps with no substantial habitat, seen by someone in India—"locusts."
This will be disregarded:
If locusts fly high, they freeze and fall in thousands.
Nature, 47-581:
Locusts that were seen in the mountains of India, at a height of 12,750 feet—"in swarms and dying by thousands."
But no matter whether they fly high or fly low, no one ever wonders what's in the air when locusts are passing overhead, because of the falling of stragglers. I have especially looked this matter up—no mystery when locusts are flying overhead—constant falling of stragglers.
Monthly Notices, 30-135:
"An unusual phenomenon noticed by Lieut. Herschel, Oct. 17 and 18, 1870, while observing the sun, at Bangalore, India."
Lieut. Herschel had noticed dark shadows crossing the sun—but away from the sun there were luminous, moving images. For two days bodies passed in a continuous stream, varying in size and velocity.
The Lieutenant tries to explain, as we shall see, but he says:
"As it was, the continuous flight, for two whole days, in such numbers, in the upper regions of the air, of beasts that left no stragglers, is a wonder of natural history, if not of astronomy."
He tried different focusing—he saw wings—perhaps he saw planes. He says that he saw upon the objects either wings or phantom-like appendages.
Then he saw something that was so bizarre that, in the fullness of his nineteenth-centuriness, he writes:
"There was no longer doubt: they were locusts or flies of some sort."
One of them had paused.
It had hovered.
Then it had whisked off.
The Editor says that at that time "countless locusts had descended upon certain parts of India."
We now have an instance that is extraordinary in several respects—super-voyagers or super-ravagers; angels, ragamuffins, crusaders, emigrants, aeronauts, or aerial elephants, or bison or dinosaurs—except that I think the thing had planes or wings—one of them has been photographed. It may be that in the history of photography no more extraordinary picture than this has ever been taken.
L'Astronomie, 1885-347:
That, at the Observatory of Zacatecas, Mexico, Aug. 12, 1883, about 2,500 meters above sea level, were seen a large number of small luminous bodies, entering upon the disk of the sun. M. Bonilla telegraphed to the Observatories of the City of Mexico and of Puebla. Word came back that the bodies were not visible there. Because of this parallax, M. Bonilla placed the bodies "relatively near the earth." But when we find out what he called "relatively near the earth"—birds or bugs or hosts of a Super-Tamerlane or army of a celestial Richard Cœur de Lion—our heresies rejoice anyway. His estimate is "less distance than the moon."
One of them was photographed. SeeL'Astronomie, 1885-349. The photograph shows a long body surrounded by indefinite structures, or by the haze of wings or planes in motion.
L'Astronomie, 1887-66;
Signer Ricco, of the Observatory of Palermo, writes that, Nov. 30, 1880, at 8:30 o'clock in the morning, he was watching the sun, when he saw, slowly traversing its disk, bodies in two long, parallel lines, and a shorter, parallel line. The bodies looked winged to him. But so large were they that he had to think of large birds. He thought of cranes.
He consulted ornithologists, and learned that the configuration of parallel lines agrees with the flight-formation of cranes. This was in 1880: anybody now living in New York City, for instance, would tell him that also it is a familiar formation of aeroplanes. But, because of data of focus and subtended angles, these beings or objects must have been high.
Sig. Ricco argues that condors have been known to fly three or four miles high, and that heights reached by other birds have been estimated at two or three miles. He says that cranes have been known to fly so high that they have been lost to view.
Our own acceptance, in conventional terms, is that there is not a bird of this earth that would not freeze to death at a height of more than four miles: that if condors fly three or four miles high, they are birds that are especially adapted to such altitudes.
Sig. Ricco's estimate is that these objects or beings or cranes must have been at least five and a half miles high.