Page:The Book of the Damned (Fort, 1919).djvu/177

Rh The crux here, and the limit beyond which we may not go—very much—is:

Acceptance that there is a region that we call the Super-Sargasso Sea—not yet fully accepted, but a provisional position that has received a great deal of support But is it a part of this earth, and does it revolve with and over this earth Or does it flatly overlie this earth, not revolving with and over this earth That this earth does not revolve, and is not round, or roundish, at all, but is continuous with the rest of its system, so that, if one could break away from the traditions of the geographers, one might walk and walk, and come to Mars, and then find Mars continuous with Jupiter?

I suppose some day such queries will sound absurd—the thing will be so obvious Because it is very difficult to me to conceive of little metallic objects hanging precisely over a small town in Russia, for four months, if revolving, unattached, with a revolving earth

It may be that something aimed at that town, and then later took another shot.

These are speculations that seem to me to be evil relatively to these early years in the twentieth century Just now, I accept that this earth is—not round, of course: that is very old-fashioned—but roundish, or, at least, that it has what is called form of its own, and does revolve upon its axis, and in an orbit around the sun. I only accept these old traditional notions

And that above it are regions of suspension that revolve with it: from which objects fall, by disturbances of various kinds, and then, later, fall again, in the same place:

Monthly Weather Review, May, 1884-134:

Report from the Signal Service observer, at Bismarck, Dakota:

That, at 9 o'clock, in the evening of May 22, 1884, sharp sounds were heard throughout the city, caused by a fall of flinty stones striking against windows.

Fifteen hours later another fall of flinty stones occurred at Bismarck.

There is no report of stones having fallen anywhere else.

This is a thing of the ultra-damned. All Editors of scientific publications read the Monthly Weather Review and frequently copy from it. The noise made by the stones of Bismarck, rattling against