observation by
Rankin, upon luminous points seen on the shaded part of the moon,
during an eclipse. They seemed to this observer like reflections of
stars. That's not very reasonable: however, we have, in the _Annual
Register_, 1821-687, a light not referable to a star--because it moved
with the moon: was seen three nights in succession; reported by Capt.
Kater. See _Quart. Jour. Roy. Inst._, 12-133.

_Phil. Trans._, 112-237:

Report from the Cape Town Observatory: a whitish spot on the dark part
of the moon's limb. Three smaller lights were seen.

The call of positiveness, in its aspects of singleness, or homogeneity,
or oneness, or completeness. In data now coming, I feel it myself. A
Leverrier studies more than twenty observations. The inclination is
irresistible to think that they all relate to one phenomenon. It is an
expression of cosmic inclination. Most of the observations are so
irreconcilable with any acceptance other than of orbitless, dirigible
worlds that he shuts his eyes to more than two-thirds of them; he picks
out six that can give him the illusion of completeness, or of all
relating to one planet.

Or let it be that we have data of many dark bodies--still do we incline
almost irresistibly to think of one of them as the dark-body-in-chief.
Dark bodies, floating, or navigating, in inter-planetary space--and I
conceive of one that's the Prince of Dark Bodies:

Melanicus.

Vast dark thing with the wings of a super-bat, or jet-black
super-construction; most likely one of the spores of the Evil One.

The extraordinary year, 1883:

London _Times_, Dec. 17, 1883:

Extract from a letter by Hicks Pashaw: that, in Egypt, Sept. 24, 1883,
he had seen, through glasses, "an immense black spot upon the lower part
of the sun."

Sun spot, maybe.

One night an astronomer was looking up at the sky, when something
obscured a star, for three and a half seconds. A meteor had been seen
nearby, but its train had been only momentarily visible. Dr. Wolf was
the astronomer (_Nature_, 86-528).

The next datum is one of the most sensational we have, except that there
is very little to it. A dark object that was seen by Prof. Heis, for
eleven degrees of arc, moving slowly across the Milky Way. (Greg's
Catalogue, _Rept. Brit. Assoc._, 1867-426.)

One of our quasi-reasons for accepting that orbitless worlds are
dirigible is the almost complete absence of data of collisions: of
course, though in defiance of gravitatio