Page:The Book of the Damned (Fort, 1919).djvu/134

128 nail lay upon the surface of the stone, to within an inch of the head—that inch of it was embedded in the stone.

Although its caste is high, this is a thing profoundly of the damned—sort of a Brahmin as regarded by a Baptist. Its case was stated fairly; Brewster related all circumstances available to him—but there was no discussion at the meeting of the British Association: no explanation was offered

Nevertheless the thing can be nullified But the nullification that we find is as much against orthodoxy, in one respect as it is against our own expression that inclusion in quartz or sandstone indicates antiquity—or there would have to be a revision of prevailing dogmas upon quartz and sandstone and age indicated by them, if the opposing data should be accepted. Of course it may be contended by both the orthodox and us heretics that the opposition is only a yarn from a newspaper. By an odd combination, we find our two lost souls that have tried to emerge, chucked back to perdition by one blow:

''Pop. Sci. News'', 1884-41:

That, according to the Carson Appeal, there had been found in a mine, quartz crystals that could have had only 15 years in which to form: that, where a mill had been built, sandstone had been found, when the mill was torn down, that had hardened in 12 years: that in this sandstone was a piece of wood, "with a nail in it."

Annals of Scientific Discovery, 1853-71:

That, at the meeting of the British Association, 1853, Sir David Brewster had announced that he had to bring before the meeting, an object "of so incredible a nature that nothing short of the strongest evidence was necessary to render the statement at all probable."

A crystal lens had been found in the treasure-house at Ninevah.

In many of the temples and treasure houses of old civilizations upon this earth have been preserved things that have fallen from the sky—or meteorites.

Again we have a Brahmin. This thing is buried alive in the heart of propriety: it is in the British Museum.

Carpenter, in The Microscope and Its Revelations, gives two drawings of it. Carpenter argues that it is impossible to accept that optical lenses had ever been made by the ancients. Never occurred to him—some one a million miles or so up in the air—looking through his telescope—lens drops out.