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From: Jeroen Kumeling <ufonet@xs4all.nl>
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 02:14:17 +0100
Fwd Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 21:43:04 -0500
Subject: More Ice: Read Charles Fort

The renowned Charles Fort reported in 1919 in: his "Book of
the Damned" published in the year 1919!:

http://www.resologist.net/damn01.htm (chapter 13).


Lumps of ice, a foot in circumference, Derbyshire, England, May
12, 1811 (Annual Register, 1811-54); cuboidal mass, six inches
in diameter, that fell near Birmingham, 26 days later, June 8,
1811 (Thomson, "Intro. to Meteorology," p. 129); size of
pumpkins, Bungalore, India, May 22, 1851 (Rept. Brit. Assoc.,
1855-35); masses of ice of a pound and a half each, New
Hampshire, Aug. 13, 1851 (Lummis, "Meteorology," p. 129); masses
of ice, size of a man's head, in the Delphos tornado (Ferrel,
"Popular Treatise," p. 428); large as a man's hand, killing
thousands of sheep, Mason, Texas, May 3, 1877 (Monthly Weather
Review, May, 1877); "pieces of ice so large that they could not
be grasped in one hand," in a tornado, in Colorado, June 24,
1877 (Monthly Weather Review, June, 1877); lump of ice four and
a half inches long, Richmond, England, Aug. 2, 1879 (Symons'
Met. Mag., 14-100); mass of ice, 21 inches in circumference that
fell with hail, Iowa, June, 1881 (Monthly Weather Review, June,
1881); "pieces of ice" eight inches long, and an inch and a half
thick, Davenport, Iowa, Aug. 30, 1882 (Monthly Weather Review,
Aug., 1882); lump of ice size of a brick; weight two pounds,
Chicago, July 12, 1883, (Monthly Weather Review, July, 1883);
lumps of ice that weighed one pound and a half each, India, May
(?), 1888, (Nature, 37-42); lump of ice weighing four pounds,
Texas, Dec. 6, 1893 (Sc. Am., 68-58); lumps of ice one pound in
weight, Nov. 14, 1901, in a tornado, Victoria (Meteorology of
Australia, p. 34).(24)

Of course it is our acceptance that these masses not only
accompanied tornadoes, but were brought down to this earth by
tornadoes.

Flammarion, "The Atmosphere," p. 34:(25)

Block of ice, weighing four and a half pounds fell at Cazorta,
Spain, June 15, 1829; block of ice, weighing eleven pounds, at
Cette, France, Oct., 1844; mass of ice three feet long, three
feet wide, and more than two feet thick, that fell, in a storm,
in Hungary, May 8, 1802.

Scientific American, 47-119:(26)

That, according to the Salina Journal, a mass of ice weighing
about 80 pounds had fallen from the sky, near Salina, Kansas,
Aug., [176/177] 1882. We are told that Mr. W. J. Hagler, the
North Sante Fé merchant became possessor of it, and packed it in
sawdust in his store.

London Times, April 7, 1860:(27)

That, upon the 16th of March, 1860, in a snowstorm, in Upper
Wasdale, blocks of ice, so large that at a distance they looked
like a flock of sheep, had fallen.

Rept. Brit. Assoc., 1851-32:(28)

That a mass of ice about a cubic yard in size had fallen at
Candeish, India, 1828.

Against these data, though, so far as I know, so many of them
have never been assembled together before, there is a silence
upon the part of scientific men that is unusual. Our
Super-Sargasso Sea may not be an unavoidable conclusion, but
arrival upon this earth of ice from external regions does seem
to be -- except that there must be, be it ever so faint, a
merger. It is in the notion that these masses of ice are only
congealed hailstones. We have data against this notion, as
applied to all our instances, but the explanation has been
offered, and, it seems to me, may apply in some instances. In
the Bull. Soc. Astro. de France, 20-245, it is said of blocks of
ice the size of decanters that had fallen at Tunis that they
were only masses of congealed hailstones.(29)

London Times, Aug. 4, 1857:(30)

That a block of ice, described as "pure" ice, weighing 25
pounds, had been found in the meadow of Mr. Warner, of
Cricklewood. There had been a storm the day before. As in some
of our other instances, no one had seen this object fall from
the sky. It was found after the storm: that's all that can be
said about it.

Letter from Capt. Blakiston, communicated by Gen. Sabine, to the
Royal Society (London Roy. Soc. Proc., 10-468):(31)

That, Jan. 14, 1860, in a thunderstorm, pieces of ice had fallen
upon Capt. Blakiston's vessel -- that it was not hail. "It was
not hail, but irregular shaped pieces of solid ice of different
dimensions, up to the size of half a brick."

According to the Advertiser-Scotsman, quoted by the Edinburgh
New Philosophical Magazine, 47-371, an irregular-shaped mass of
ice fell at Ord, Scotland, Aug., 1849, after "an extraordinary
peal of thunder."(32)

It is said that this was homogeneous ice, except in a small
part, which looked like congealed hailstones.

The mass was about 20 feet in circumference. [177/178]

The story, as told in the London Times, Aug. 14, 1849, is that,
upon the evening of the 13th of August, 1849, after a loud peal
of thunder, a mass of ice said to have been 20 feet in
circumference, had fallen upon the estate of Mr. Moffat, of
Balvullich, Ross-shire.(33) It is said that this object fell
alone, or without hailstones.

Altogether, though it is not so strong for the Super-Sargasso
Sea, I think this is one of our best expressions upon external
origins. That large blocks of ice could form in the moisture of
this earth's atmosphere is about as likely as that blocks of
stone could form in a dust whirl. Of course, if ice or water
comes to this earth from external sources, we think of at least
minute organisms in it, and on, with our data, to frogs, fishes;
on to anything that's thinkable, coming from external sources.
It's of great importance to us to accept that large lumps of ice
have fallen from the sky, but what we desire most -- perhaps
because of our interest in its archæologic and paleontologic
treasures -- is now to be through with tentativeness and
probation, and to take the Super-Sargasso Sea into full
acceptance in our more advanced fold of the chosen of this
twentieth century.

In the Report of the British Association, 1855-37, it is said
that, at Poorhundur, India, Dec. 11, 1854, flat pieces of ice,
many of them weighing several pounds -- each, I suppose -- had
fallen from the sky.(34) They are described as "large
ice-flakes."

Vast fields of ice in the Super-Arctic regions, or strata, of
the Super-Sargasso Sea. When they break up, their fragments are
flake-like. In our acceptance, there are aerial ice-fields that
are remote from this earth; that break up, fragments grinding
against one another, rolling in vapor and water, of different
constituency in different regions, forming slowly as stratified
hailstones -- but that there are ice-fields near this earth,
that break up into just flat pieces of ice as cover any pond or
river when ice of a pond or river is broken, and are sometimes
soon precipitated to the earth, in this familiar flat formation.

Symons' Met. Mag., 43-154:(35)

A correspondent writes that, at Braemar, July 2, 1908, when the
sky was clear overhead, and the sun shining, pieces of ice fell
-- from somewhere. The sun was shining, but something was going
on somewhere: thunder was heard.

Until I saw the reproduction of a photograph in the Scientific
American, Feb. 21, 1914, I had supposed that these ice-fields
must be, say, at least ten to twenty miles away from this earth,
and [178/179] invisible, to terrestrial observers, except as the
blurs that have so often been reported by astronomers and
meteorologists.(36) The photograph published by the Scientific
American is of an aggregation supposed to be clouds, presumably
not very high, so clearly detailed they are. The writer says
that they looked to him like "a field of broken ice." Beneath is
a picture of a conventional field of ice, floating ordinarily in
the water. The resemblance between the two pictures is striking
-- nevertheless, it seems to me incredible that the first of the
photographs could be of an aerial ice-field, or that gravitation
could cease to act at only a mile or so from this earth's
surface --

Unless:

The exceptional: the flux and vagary of all things.

Or that normally this earth's gravitation extends, say, ten or
fifteen miles outward -- but that gravitation must be rhythmic.

Of course, in the pseudo-formulas of astronomers, gravitation as
a fixed quantity is essential. Accept that gravitation is a
variable force, and astronomers deflate, with a perceptible
hissing sound, into the punctured condition of economists,
biologists, meteorologists, and all others of the humbler
divinities, who can admittedly offer only insecure
approximations.

We refer all who would not like to hear the hiss of escaping
arrogance, to Herbert Spencer's chapters upon the rhythm of all
phenomena.

If everything else -- light from the stars, heat from the sun,
the winds and the tides; forms and colors and sizes of animals;
demands and supplies and prices; political opinions and chemic
reactions and religious doctrines and magnetic intensities and
the ticking of clocks; and the arrival and departure of the
seasons -- if everything else is variable, we accept that the
notion of gravitation as fixed and formulable is only another
attempted positivism, doomed, like all other illusions of
realness in quasi-existence. So it is intermediatism to accept
that, though gravitation may approximate higher to invariability
than do the winds, for instance, it must be somewhere between
the Absolutes of Stability and Instability. Here then we are not
much impressed with the opposition of physicists and
astronomers, fearing, a little mournfully, that their language
is of expiring sibilations.

So then the fields of ice in the sky, and that, though usually
so far away as to be mere blurs, at times they come close enough
to be seen in detail. For description of what I call a "blur,"
see Pop. Sci. [179/180] News, Feb., 1884 -- sky, in general,
unusually clear, but, near the sun, "a white, slightly curdled
haze, which was dazzlingly bright."(37)

We accept that sometimes fields of ice pass between the sun and
the earth: that many strata of ice, or very thick fields of ice,
or superimposed fields would obscure the sun -- that there have
been occasions when the sun was eclipsed by fields of ice:

Flammarion, "The Atmosphere," p. 394:(38)

That a profound darkness came upon the city of Brussels, June
18, 1839:

There fell flat pieces of ice, an inch long.

Intense darkness at Aitkin, Minn., April 2, 1889; sand and
"solid chunks of ice" reported to have fallen (Science, April
19, 1889).(39)

In Symons' Meteorological Magazine, 32-172, are outlined
rough-edged by smooth-surfaced pieces of ice that fell at
Manassas, Virginia, Aug. 10, 1897.(40) They look as much like
the roughly broken fragments of a smooth sheet of ice -- as ever
have roughly broken fragments of a smooth sheet of ice looked.
About two inches across, and one inch thick. In Cosmos, 3-116,
it is said that, at Rouen, July 5, 1853, fell irregular-shaped
pieces of ice, about the size of a hand, described as looking as
if all had been broken from one enormous block of ice.(41) That
I think, was an aerial iceberg. In the awful density, or almost
absolute stupidity of the 19th century, it never occurred to
anybody to look for traces of polar bears or of seals upon these
fragments.

Of course, seeing what we want to see, having been able to
gather these data only because they are in agreement with
notions formed in advance, we are not so respectful to our own
notions as to a similar impression forced upon an observer who
had no theory or acceptance to support. In general, our
prejudices see and our prejudices investigate, but this should
not be taken as an absolute.

Monthly Weather Review, July, 1894:(42)

That, from the Weather Bureau, of Portland, Oregon, a tornado,
of June 3, 1894, was reported.

Fragments of ice fell from the sky.

They averaged three to four inches square, and about an inch
thick. In length and breadth they had the smooth surfaces
required by our acceptance: and, according to the writer in the
Review, "gave the impression of a vast field of ice suspended in
the [180/181] atmosphere and suddenly broken into fragments
about the size of the palm of the hand."

This datum, profoundly of what we used to call the "damned," or
before we could no longer accept judgment, or cut and dried
condemnation by infants, turtles, and lambs, was copied--but
without comment -- in the Scientific American, 71-371.(43)

Our theology is something like this:

Of course we ought to be damned -- but we revolt against
adjudication by infants, turtles, and lambs.

We now come to some remarkable data in a rather difficult
department of super-geography. Vast fields of aerial ice.
There's a lesson to me in the treachery of the imaginable. Most
of our opposition is in the clearness with which the
conventional, but impossible, becomes the imaginable, and then
the resistant to modifications. After it had become the
conventional with me, I conceived clearly of vast sheets of ice,
a few miles above this earth -- then the shining of the sun, and
the ice partly melting -- that note upon the ice that fell at
Derby -- water trickling and forming icicles upon the lower
surface of the ice sheet. I seemed to look up and so clearly
visualized those icicles hanging like stalactites from a
flat-roofed cave, in white calcite. Or I looked up at the under
side of an aerial ice-lump, and seemed to see a papillation
similar to that observed by a calf at times. But then -- but
then -- if icicles should form upon the under side of a sheet of
aerial ice, that would be by the falling of water toward this
earth; an icicle is of course an expression of gravitation --
and, if water melting from ice should fall toward this earth,
why not the ice itself fall before an icicle could have time to
form? Of course, in quasi-existence, where everything is a
paradox, one might argue that the water falls, but the ice does
not, because ice is heavier -- that is, in masses. That notion,
I think, belongs in a more advanced course than we are taking at
the present.

Our expression upon icicles:

A vast field of aerial ice -- it is inert to this earth's
gravitation -- but by universal flux and variation, part of it
sags closer to this earth, and is susceptible to gravitation --
by cohesion with the main mass, this part does not fall, but
water melting from it does fall, and forms icicles -- then, by
various disturbances, this part sometimes falls in fragments
that are protrusive with icicles.

Of the ice that fell, some of it enclosing living frogs, at
Dubuque, Iowa, June 16, 1882, it is said (Monthly Weather
Review, June, [181/182] 1882), that there were pieces from one
to seventeen inches in circumference, the largest weighing one
pound and three-quarters -- that upon some of them were icicles
half an inch in length.(44) We emphasize that these objects were
not hailstones.

The only merger is that of knobby hailstones, or of large
hailstones with protuberances wrought by crystallization: but
that is no merger with terrestrial phenomena, and such
formations are unaccountable to orthodoxy; or it is incredible
that hail could so crystallize -- not forming by accretion -- in
the fall of a few seconds. For an account of such hailstones,
see Nature, 61-594.(45) Note the size -- "some of them the size
of turkeys' eggs."

It is our expression that sometimes the icicles themselves have
fallen, as if by concussion, or as if something had swept
against the under side of an aerial ice floe, detaching its
papillations.

Monthly Weather Review, June, 1889:(46)

That, at Oswego, N. Y., June 9, 1889, according to the Turin (N.
Y.) Leader, there fell, in a thunderstorm, pieces of ice that
"resembled the fragments of icicles."

Monthly Weather Review, 29-506:(47)

That on Florence Island, St. Lawrence River, Aug. 8, 1901, with
ordinary hail, fell pieces of ice "formed like icicles, the size
and shape of lead pencils had been cut into section about
three-eighths of an inch in length.

So our data of the Super-Sargasso Sea, and its Arctic region:
and, for weeks at a time, an ice field may hang motionless over
a part of this earth's surface -- the sun has some effect upon
it, but not much until late in the afternoon, I should say --
part of it has sagged, but is held up by cohesion with the main
mass -- whereupon we have such an occurrence as would have been
a little uncanny to us once upon a time -- or fall of water from
a cloudless sky, day after day, in one small part of the earth's
surface, late in the afternoon, when the sun's rays had had time
for their effects:

Monthly Weather Review, Oct., 1886:(48)

That, according to the Charlotte Chronicle, Oct. 21, 1886, for
three weeks there had been a fall of water from the sky, in
Charlotte, N. C., localized in one particular spot, every
afternoon, about three o'clock; that, whether the sky was cloudy
or cloudless, the water or rain fell upon a small patch of land
between two trees and nowhere else.

This is the newspaper account, and, as such, it seems in the
depths of the unchosen, either by me or any other expression of
the [182/183] Salvation Army. The account by the Signal Service
observer, at Charlotte, published in the Review, follows:

"An unusual phenomenon was witnessed on the 21st; having been
informed that for some weeks prior to date rain had been falling
daily after 3 p. m., on a particular spot, near two trees,
corner of 9th and D streets, I visited the place, and saw
precipitation in the form of rain drops at 4:47 and 4:55 p. m.,
while the sun was shining brightly. On the 22nd, I again visited
the place, and from 4:05 to 4:25 p. m., a light shower of rain
fell from a cloudless sky....Sometimes the precipitation falls
over an area of half an acre, but always appears to centre at
these two trees, and when lightest occurs there only." [183]

<snip>

Jeroen Kumeling
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