The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1920-02-26

ment by Marconi, the wizard OF the
wireless, that mysterious undecipher-
able signals, (which come from some
where outside the earth,' have been
noted at wireless stations at intervals
both before and since the war, comes
from the press of New York pub
fishing house (Boni & Livingston) a
strange book-a sort of an aerolite
in the biographical world-contain-
ing a remarkable assemblage of au-
thenticated data of unexplained
things that have happened on this
earth-not physical, but real physi-
cal Observation-Disclosures things
that science has either side stepped
or but lamely accounted for and that
seem to point to the possibility that
other worlds have been not merely
trying to signal us, but literally to
lombard US with communications Of
one sort of another.
The author of the book, Charles
Fort, who has travelled 10000 miles
and ransacked the scientific reports,
magazines and journals of the world
for his data, does not undertake to
prove this theory of conscious or un-
conscious inter-planetary communica-
tiGn-from the very nature of the
phenomena, he says, nothing can be
proved; in fact nothing in the world
is susceptible of absolute and final
proof. His book is a cento of mysteri-
Gus and amazing facts that science
has not been able to classify or ex-
plain in a satisfactory manner and so
it has simply set them aside as
<tfreaks of nature" relegated them
to the scientific purgatories. Hence
the weird title under which the vol
ume has been aunched-"The Book
OF the Damned"
Startling Missiles.
Startling things have come down
out of the skies upon the earth-de-
1uges of blood, curiously carved
stones, matches, globular and pyra-
midal projectives, living animals,
huge chunks of ice, strange showers
of animal matter, frogs, fish, snails,
gelatinous matter Of seemingly sup
erterrestrial origin. Curious nebular
structures, as of venturing voyagers
from other planets, have been seen
lowering in the far atmospheric
spaces-these and thousand other
things that have at one time and an
other been set forth in more or less
scientific records as strange phe-
nomena of nature and then forgot
ten, have been marshaled and corre-
lated by Mr. Fort, to whom they sug-
gest many wonderful conjectures.
For instance: Is there somewhere
up in the interstellar spaces ''sup-
er-Sargasso sea" of cosmic debris into
which we crash occasionally and pick
up some fragments? Have some of
the bold crusaders of other planets
penetrated our atmospheric limits
and been turned back for some reas-
on or another? Have they occasion
ally hurled down a few things at us
to let us know how near they were?
Have there been great aerial battles
fought up there between planetary
air sailing armies that have at times
drizzled their bloody fragments upon
the earth? Science -dogmatic sci
ence-of course, says not. What
ever comes down on this earth any
where must have gone up from it
somewhere else. But this "up and
down" theory does not always ex-
plain and the facts adduced in this
wonderful book" as Theodore
Dresser calls it, gives wide field for
curious conjecture. For all of the
facts given, the author cites his au
thority, volume, date and page, and
for the most part they are taken from
scientific publications.
Red Sunsets, Blue Moons.
To demonstrate the scientific meth
cd Of explanation, take, for instance,
those red sunsets and blue moons
that occurred in 1888 and for several
years afterwards. Four hundred and
ninety-two pages of report of the
Royal society were given to demon
strate that they were caused by the
eruption of the volcano of Kratoa,
in the Straits of Sunda, which occur
red August %, 1888. But the red
sunsets and blue moons occurred sew
en- years after that and within that
seven years there was an interval of
several years in which they disappear
ed. What became of the volcanic
dust in those years? And then the
Annual Register and knowledge are