objects of salt "came over the Mediterranean from some
part of Africa."

Or the hypnosis of the conventional--provided it be glib. One reads such
an assertion, and provided it be suave and brief and conventional, one
seldom questions--or thinks "very strange" and then forgets. One has an
impression from geography lessons: Mediterranean not more than three
inches wide, on the map; Switzerland only a few more inches away. These
sizable masses of salt are described in the _Amer. Jour. Sci._, 3-3-239,
as "essentially imperfect cubic crystals of common salt." As to
occurrence with hail--that can in one, or ten, or twenty, instances be
called a coincidence.

Another datum: extraordinary year 1883:

London _Times_, Dec. 25, 1883:

Translation from a Turkish newspaper; a substance that fell at Scutari,
Dec. 2, 1883; described as an unknown substance, in particles--or
flakes?--like snow. "It was found to be saltish to the taste, and to
dissolve readily in water."

Miscellaneous:

"Black, capillary matter" that fell, Nov. 16, 1857, at Charleston, S.C.
(_Amer. Jour. Sci._, 2-31-459).

Fall of small, friable, vesicular masses, from size of a pea to size of
a walnut, at Lobau, Jan. 18, 1835 (_Rept. Brit. Assoc._, 1860-85).

Objects that fell at Peshawur, India, June, 1893, during a storm:
substance that looked like crystallized niter, and that tasted like
sugar (_Nature_, July 13, 1893).

I suppose sometimes deep-sea fishes have their noses bumped by cinders.
If their regions be subjacent to Cunard or White Star routes, they're
especially likely to be bumped. I conceive of no inquiry: they're
deep-sea fishes.

Or the slag of Slains. That it was a furnace-product. The Rev. James
Rust seemed to feel bumped. He tried in vain to arouse inquiry.

As to a report, from Chicago, April 9, 1879, that slag had fallen from
the sky, Prof. E.S. Bastian (_Amer. Jour. Sci._, 3-18-78) says that the
slag "had been on the ground in the first place." It was furnace-slag.
"A chemical examination of the specimens has shown that they possess
none of the characteristics of true meteorites."

Over and over and over again, the universal delusion; hope and despair
of attempted positivism; that there can be real criteria, or distinct
characteristics of anything. If anybody can define--not merely suppose,
like Prof. Bastian, that he can define--the true characteristics of
anything, or so localize trueness anywhere, he makes the discovery for
wh