Authors: Charles Fort
Choruses broke into moans that were rows of weeping willows. A prayer crossed a field of murmurs, and was gored by a blasphemy. Tellers of beads told ladders, up which ran profanities. Then came submergence again, in a chorus.
In earthquake lands, it is the belief of the people that there is a godness that, at times of catastrophes, directs them to flock to churches. My own theology is in agreement. It is by such concentrations that the elimination of surplusages is facilitated. But, if Virgin Marys were replaced by images of Mrs. Sanger, there would be no such useful murders.
It is said, in the
Bull. Soc. Astro. de France,
October, 1905, that luminous phenomena had preceded this catastrophe, in Calabria. Observations upon appearances in the sky were gathered by Prof. Alfani, and were recorded by him, in the
Revista di Fisca.
But it was Prof. Agamennone’s decision upon reported phenomena in the sky that was awaited by the scientific world. From time to time, in scientific periodicals, there was something to the effect that he was investigating.
Not only meteors were told of. There was a fall of dust, from the sky, at Tiriolo.
Explained.
There had been an eruption of Stromboli.
Comptes Rendus,
141-576—report by M. Lacroix, who had been living near Stromboli, at the time—that, at this time of the fall of dust, there had been no more than normal activity of Stromboli.
Long afterward, the result of Prof. Agamennone’s investigation was published. He could find only one witness.
It is not easy to think of an organic control that would beguile its human supernumeraries into manageable concentrations, for eliminative purposes, and also permit a Prof. Agamennone to conceive of warnings for them. But, if in super-metabolism, there is, as in sub-organisms, the catabolism of destructions, also there are restorations. Anabolic vibrations, known to the people of this earth, as “sympathy” and “charity,” shook from pockets as far away as California, money that rebuilt the mutilated tissues of Italy.
Something else that every conventionalist will explain as “mere coincidence” is that down from the sky came deluges upon the quaking land of Calabria. There was widespread need for water, at this time.
India—“pitiable, as described in accounts of one of the severest of droughts. The wilt of a province—the ebb of its life is at the rate of 2,000 of its starving inhabitants, a day, into the town of Sind. Its people shrivel, and its fields, burned brown, wrinkle with trains of dark-skinned refugees. A band of natives in a desolate copse—trunks and limbs of leafless, little trees, and shrunken arms and legs merge in one jungle of emaciation. A starving native, flat in a field—he has crawled away from the long, white cloud of dust of a trampled road. It might be hell anywhere, but there are glimpses of the especial hell that is India. Breech-clout of the starving native—pinned to it, a string of jewels, which, though dying, he had stolen. Long, wide cloud of dust that is a landscape girdle—and it is emblazoned with a rajah’s elephants.
There was intense suffering at Lahore. All the gods were prayed to for rain.
Upon the 9th of September, there was an earthquake at Lahore. All the gods answered at once, combining their deliveries, with an efficiency that smashed houses. Allahabad
Pioneer Mail,
September 15—“houses collapsing in great numbers, and the occupants wandering homeless.” “Such an occurrence at this season is most unprecedented, and has taken everybody by surprise”
(Times of India,
September 16).
Main Street—any good-sized American city—a dull afternoon—the barbershop and the cigar store on the corner—much dullness—
A sudden frenzy—Main Street rushes out of the town.
Or a human mind in a monotonous state of smugness—there’s a temptation, or the smash of a conviction, and something that it has taken for a principle rushes out of it, in a torrent of broken beliefs—
That delirium, or frenzy—or anything else mental or human—is not exclusively mental or human—but just what are my data for thinking that the principal street of an American city ever did rush out of the town?
Well, something similar. It was at the time of the deluges in India. There was a monstrous fall of water in Kashmir.
Many of the inhabitants of the city of Srinagar, Kashmir, lived in rows of houseboats, upon the river Jhelum, a sluggish, muddy stream, with so little visible motion that, between the rows, it looked like a smooth pavement. It suddenly went up seventeen feet. The two long rows of houseboats rushed away.
Another river in Kashmir smashed a village. On its banks it left parallel confusions.
Notch a butterfly’s wings—this is mutilation. But correspondingly notch the other wing, and there is balance. Two mutilations may be harmony. The doubly hideous may be beautiful. If, on both sides of the river that was a subsiding axis, mothers simultaneously screamed over the bodies of children, this correspondence was the soul of design. Two anguishes, neatly balanced in parallel lines of wreckage, satisfy the requirements of those who worship godness as only harmony.
A quaking zone of Europe and Asia was deluged. Drought in Turkey—earthquakes—plentiful rain
(Levant Herald,
September 11, 18). Tremendous falls of water and shocks were continuing in Calabria. Spain was flooded.
September 27th—another severe shock at Lahore; and, this day, again dust, of unknown origin, fell from the sky, in Calabria. A current of hot air came with it. According to the
Levant Herald,
October 9, many persons were asphyxiated. According to description, it was a volcanic blast that cannot be traced to origin upon this earth. If it came from somewhere beyond this earth, such a repetition in Calabria is a coincidence, or is an indication that this earth is stationary. It is easier to call it a coincidence.
There was a new star.
Upon the night of August 18th, an “auroral” beam, such as has often been seen in the sky, at times of volcanic eruptions upon this earth, and at times of new stars, was seen in England
(English Mechanic,
82-88). Upon the 31st of August, Mrs. Fleming, at Harvard University Observatory, looking over photographic plates, saw that a new star had been recorded, on and after the 18th. The new star, diminishing, continued to shine during September.
Our expression upon “auroral” beams is that vast beams of light have often been seen in the sky, at times when terrestrial volcanoes were active; that similar appearances have been seen at times of new stars, and may be considered light-effects of volcanoes, not terrestrial. For records of several of these beams, one while Stromboli was violent, Sept. 1, 1891, and one, July 16, 1892, while one of the greatest eruptions of Etna was occurring, see
Nature,
vols. 44 and 45, and
Popular Astronomy,
10-249. For one of the latest instances, see newspapers, April 16, 1926: while Mauna Loa, Hawaii, was in eruption, a beam of light was seen in Nebraska.
There’s a new light in the heavens, and there’s a disturbance upon this earth, as if an interaction that could not occur, if trillions of miles intervene.
“Mere coincidence.”
There’s a quake in Formosa, and there’s a quake in California.
“Only coincidence,” say the conventionalists, who are committed to local explanations.
April 18, 1906—the destruction of San Francisco. The Governor of California appointed a commission of eight professors to investigate the catastrophe. The eight professors ignored, as coincidence, everything else that had occurred at the time, and explained in the usual, local, geological terms. In
Nature,
73-608, is published Dr. Charles Davison’s explanation, which is in terms of a local subsidence. Dr. Davison mentions nothing else that occurred at the time.
At the time—a disastrous quake in Formosa, and the most violent eruption of Vesuvius since April, 1872; activity in a long-dormant volcano in the Canary Islands; quake in Alberta, Canada; sudden rise and fall of Lake Geneva, Switzerland; eruption of Mt. Asama, Japan.
See back to the occurrence of St. Pierre, Martinique. May, 1902—30,000 persons, who perished properly—blackened into cinders, with academic sanction. They turned into ashes, but the principles of an orthodoxy were upheld.
January, 1907—and the ignoramuses of Jamaica. They saved their own lives, because they did not know better.
About three o’clock, afternoon of Jan. 14, 1907, there was sudden darkness, at Kingston, Jamaica. People cried to one another that an earthquake was coming, and many of them ran to parks and other open spaces. The earthquake came. The people who ran to the open spaces lived, but a thousand of the others were killed by falling houses.
A web that was spun of dogmas caught a thousand victims. After the quake, the ruins of Kingston sprawled like a spider, stretching out long, black lines that were trains of hearses. But all who ran to the parks, believing that appearances in the sky did mean that catastrophe upon earth was coming, lived. I have given data for thinking that a De Ballore, or any other conventionalist, would ridicule these people for so interpreting “a mere coincidence.”
October, 1907, and March, 1908—falls, from the sky, of substances like soot and ashes—catastrophes upon this earth and new stars that were discovered by amateurs. See the
English Mechanic,
86-237, 260, and the
Observatory,
31-215.
Dec. 30, 1910—new star—disastrous earthquakes—an enormous fall, from the sky, of a substance like ashes. The new star,
Nova Lacertae,
was discovered by Dr. Espin, a professional astronomer. Photographic records were looked up. Almost six weeks this star had been shining, unobserved at this earth’s Observatories. It was visible without a telescope (fifth magnitude).
For almost six weeks, a new star had shone over the Observatories of this earth, and no milkman had reported it. However, without chagrin, we note this remissness, because it is no purpose of this book to spout eulogies to the amateur in science. It is only in astronomy that the humiliation of professionals by amateurs is common. I have no records of little boys running into laboratories, startling professors of chemistry, or physics, with important discoveries. The achievements of amateurs in astronomy rank about with a giving of information, upon current events, to a Rip Van Winkle. I’ll not apologize, because no night watchman hammered for several hours upon the front door of an observatory, rudely disturbing the spiders.
29
Why don’t they see, when sometimes magnificently there is something to see?
The answer is the same as the answer to another question:
Why, sometimes, do they see when there is nothing to see?
In the year 1899, Campbell, the astronomer, “announced” that the star Capella is a spectroscopic binary, or has a companion-star, as determined by the spectroscope. Astronomers of Greenwich Observatory investigated. One of them looked through the telescope, and he said, or rather, announced, that he saw it. Another of the astronomers looked for the companion. He announced that he saw it. Eight other astronomers followed. Each announced that he saw it. But now the astronomers say that this alleged companion cannot be seen in any telescope. See Duncan,
Astronomy,
p. 335.
The Andromeda nebula is said to be so far away that, though a description of a nearby view of its parts would read like divorce statistics in the United States, no dissolving motion can be seen by observers on this earth. In astronomical books, published in the past, appeared reproductions of photographs of this nebula, which were as artfully touched up, I should say, as any life of a saint ever was by any theologian. It was given a most definitely spiral appearance, to convey an impression of whirlpool-motion. But the nebula-theory of existence has passed away. In astronomical books of recent date we see no such definite look of a whirlpool in pictures of the Andromeda nebula, but more of a stratified appearance. The astronomers see whatever they want to see—when they do see—and then see to it that we see as they see. So, though according to our records, one would think otherwise, there is considerable seeing by astronomers.
If I look at a distant house, and see faces appearing at windows, something seems to tell me that the stoop of the house is not flying in one direction, the roof of it scooting some other way, and every brick upon a jamboree of its own. Of course, minutely, there are motions. But, if the house is not so far away as to prevent the seeing of new faces looking out, I argue that other changes, such as the roof in a frenzy to get away from the stoop, would, if there were such incompatibilities, be visible. Of course this is only argument. If we can have neat little expressions, that’s mentality’s profoundest.
The Andromeda nebula is said to be so far away that tremendous motions of its parts cannot be seen.
But more than fifty new stars in it have been seen, looking out.
So we are realizing how numerous new stars are, if in one little celestial formation more than fifty have been seen. If amateur astronomers were as numerous as amateur golf players, for instance, we’d realize much more.
Pronounced changes, such as appearances and disappearances of stars, have been watched, but no change in relative positions of stars has ever been watched occurring. There are parts of the sky that are dusty with little stars. If they were not such good-looking little things, the heavens would be filthy with them. But no grain of these shining sands has ever been watched changing its position relatively to other grains. All recorded changes of positions are so slight that some of them may be attributed to inaccuracies in charting, in earlier times, and some to various stresses that have nothing to do with independent motions. Just here we are not discussing the alleged phenomena of “companion stars.” But our own expressions require that there be small changes in positions of stars, just as terrestrial volcanoes change slightly. Not a star has ever been seen to cross another star, but observations upon other changes in the stars are frequent.
For records of five new stars in five months, see
Popular Astronomy,
March, 1920.
Many of the so-called new stars have been sudden flares of faint old stars. Upon this earth there have been sudden flares in volcanic craters that were dormant, or that were supposed to be extinct. And it was not by collision. Nothing came along and knocked against them.
Apart from our expressions upon organic suppressions, it is easy enough to understand one aspect of the origin of the present astronomical doctrine. It was in a time of mathematicians, to whom astronomical observations were secondary. The only one of these earlier ones who was an industrious observer (Tycho Brahé) gave his opinion that this earth is stationary. The rest of them did little observing, and spent their time calculating. Nowadays new stars are seen often, but, for 178 years, the calculators saw not one of them. In their time it was considered crude, or vulgar, to see. Mentality always has been bullied by snobbery. In the times of the founders of astronomical dogmas, observations were sneered at, and were called
empiricism.
Any way that is not the easiest way always is held in contempt, until competition forces harder methods. The easiest of all affectations is the aristocratic pose, if by aristocracy we mean minimization of doing anything. There’s a coarseness to anybody who works. Give this a thought—he might sweat. Amateurs, out in their backyards, see, with their little spyglasses, much that the professionals miss, but they catch colds. When a backyard amateur, like W.F. Denning, reports something that represents patience and snuffling. Denning blew his nose, and kept his eyes open. The inmates of observatories, when not asleep, are calculating. It’s easier on brains, and it’s easier on noses. Back in times when little boys were playing hop-scotch and marbles, and had not yet taken up the new sport of giving astronomers astronomical information, or in those times when only astronomers were attending somewhat to astronomical matters, and when therefore changes in stars were unheard of, arose the explanation of vast distances, to account for unobserved changes.
The look is that stars do not change positions relatively to one another for the same reason that Vesuvius and Etna do not. Or there are very slight changes of position, just as relatively to each other Vesuvius and Etna change: but no star has ever been seen to pass over any other star, any more than has Vesuvius ever been seen sailing in the sky over Etna.
Other changes of stars that are said to be so far away that changes of position cannot be seen, have been noted. For a discussion of stars that have disappeared, see
Nature,
99-159. For a list of about forty missing stars, see
Monthly Notices, R.A.S., 77-56.
This list is only supplementary to other lists.
Upon March 14, 1912, the newspapers told that the discovery of a new star had been “announced” by the Kiel Observatory, Germany. No reader of newspapers, of that time, would suppose otherwise than that vigilant astronomers, at least worth their keep, knew when a new star appeared.
Early in the morning of March 11th, earthquakes of unusual intensity were recorded at many places in the United States. At Harvard University, the calculators announced that the center of the quake was in the West Indies, or Mexico. Newspaper readers, if they paid any attention, were properly impressed with this ability of intellectuals in Massachusetts to know what was going on in the West Indies, or Mexico. But newspapers the next day told of a quake, upon the 11th, of Triangle Island, off Vancouver, B.C, and of nothing in either the West Indies or Mexico. At Victoria, B.C, it was calculated that the center of the quake was in the Pacific Ocean, 400 miles westward. The same readers, forgetting just where the calculators of Harvard had placed the quake, thought it marvelous how the scientists can know these things.
Sometimes distant skies turn black with the shadows of disasters. Had this quake centered in a densely populated region, we’d have another datum of a distant fall of probably volcanic material, about the time of a catastrophe. Upon the day of the quake, black water fell from the sky, near Colmer, about thirty miles from London
(Jour. Roy. Met. Soc.,
38-275). The rain was not muddy, but was like diluted ink. Somebody thought that it was soot from London. Somebody else thought not, pointing out that, if this were so, ink, not much diluted, would often fall in London.
The night of the 12th, the astronomers of this earth’s observatories were calculating. Wherever the town of Dombass, Norway, is, the astronomers of Kiel, Germany, were disturbed by a telegram. It was from an amateur, named Enebo, telling that there was a new star in the constellation Gemini, and that it was visible without a telescope. Astronomers in other parts of this earth were notified. They looked up from what they considered astronomical matters, and saw what the amateur had discovered.
In November, 1913, an astronomer photographed a part of the constellation Sagittarius. I don’t know what his idea was. Perhaps simply and somnambulically he photographed, and had no ideas. Six years later, somebody found out that he had photographed a new star. Then other photographs were examined. Astronomers are pretty keen at detecting something that has been pointed out to them, and they learned that they had photographed this star, rising from tenth to seventh magnitude, between the 21st and the 22nd of November.
Wanted—something by way of data for us.
Like every other theorist, we find just that—
Nature,
94-372—that, seven days after the maximum of this new star, an afterglow, which can be attributed to no known volcanic eruption upon this earth, was seen in the sky, in Italy, France, Belgium, and England.
April 25, 1917—a professional astronomer photographed a new star (magnitude 6.5) in the constellation Hercules. The next day there was a disastrous earthquake in Italy. Upon May 1st, a great quake—perhaps in the constellation Hercules—whereabouts unknown to this earth’s scientists—was registered by this earth’s seismographs
(Nature,
99-472).
Domes of Observatories look like big snail shells. Architectural symbolism. It took the astronomers about three years to learn that they had photographed the new star in Hercules
(Pop. Astro.,
March, 1920). If newspaper editors were like astronomers, they’d send out photographers, rather busily, and, perhaps years later, if they could condescend from journalism into doing some newspaper work, they’d examine plates. They’d tell of a fire that had occurred long before. They’d write up some fashion notes upon the modes in their readers’ childhood. Like dealers in stale stars, they’d wonder at a lack of public interest.
Upon March 6, 1918, black rain fell from the sky, in Ireland
(Symons’ Met. Mag.,
53-29). If our preconceptions so direct, we relate this occurrence with smoky discharges from factory chimneys of South Wales, or somewhere else in Great Britain—and it is better that we do not ask why black rains are not common near Pittsburgh. Or we note that the next night there was in the sky a crimson appearance that worried many communities in Europe and North America. For a week there were, in the newspapers of New York and London, descriptions of this glare, and comments upon it. People thought that there was a great fire somewhere. I give data for thinking that there may have been a volcanic eruption somewhere.
March 6th—the fall of black rain. March 7th—the glare in the sky. March 9th—down upon this earth fell dusts in volumes that were proportional to the glare. See
Amer. Jour. Sci., Monthly Weather Review,
and
Sci. Amer.,
of this period. There was a fall of dust in Wisconsin, and in Michigan; and there was a fall of dust in Vermont. These falls, so far apart—in Ireland, in Western States, and in Vermont—look like what is called indication of an origin somewhere beyond this earth. There is no findable record of any disturbance upon this earth, by which to explain. No new star was reported, but there may have been a stellar eruption in a part of the daytime sky, reflecting in a glare, at night. There may have been relation with an occurrence in June. In the meantime, there were several remarkable glares in the sky.
Early in the evening of June 8th of this year 1918, two men, one of them in Madras, India, and the other in South Africa, looked up at the sky, and saw a brilliant new star in the constellation Aquila. Each of them notified an Observatory, which had not been observing. Evening of the 8th—Harvard University Observatory notified by an amateur. The astronomers of Harvard had seen nothing new, but telegram after telegram came to them from other amateurs. Whatever else the astronomers of Lick Observatory were doing, I don’t know. They were probably calculating. But they, too, were receiving telegrams, and when told, by amateurs, to look up at the sky, and see a new star, they looked up at the sky, and saw the new star. See
Pubs. Astro. Soc. Pacific,
August, 1918. Besides the amateur in Madras, an amateur in Northern India notified the Observatories
(Nature,
102-105).
English Mechanic,
August 9—professionals of New Zealand notified by an amateur. In
Nature,
101-285, is published a list of amateurs, who, in England, had reported this new star to official centers of unobservation. There is only one record of a professional astronomer, who, without information from amateurs, saw this new star. One of the astronomers of Greenwich Observatory had looked up at the sky, and had seen this new star.
Nature,
101-285—that he had seen it, but had not recognized that it was a new star. One of the amateurs who saw it, and recognized it, was a schoolboy named Wragge (London
Times,
June 21). The Lisbon Observatory was notified by a boy, aged fourteen
(Observatory,
41-292).