from north to south. The numbers were tremendous. They were
observed for six hours.

Editor's note:

"May not these appearances be attributed to an abnormal state of the
optic nerves of the observer?"

In _Monthly Notices_, 12-38, Mr. Read answers that he had been a
diligent observer, with instruments of a superior order, for about 28
years--"but I have never witnessed such an appearance before." As to
illusion he says that two other members of his family had seen the
objects.

The Editor withdraws his suggestion.

We know what to expect. Almost absolutely--in an existence that is
essentially Hibernian--we can predict the past--that is, look over
something of this kind, written in 1851, and know what to expect from
the Exclusionists later. If Mr. Read saw a migration of dissatisfied
angels, numbering millions, they must merge away, at least subjectively,
with commonplace terrestrial phenomena--of course disregarding Mr.
Read's probable familiarity, of 28 years' duration, with the
commonplaces of terrestrial phenomena.

_Monthly Notices_, 12-183:

Letter from Rev. W.R. Dawes:

That he had seen similar objects--and in the month of September--that
they were nothing but seeds floating in the air.

In the _Report of the British Association_, 1852-235, there is a
communication from Mr. Read to Prof. Baden-Powell:

That the objects that had been seen by him and by Mr. Dawes were not
similar. He denies that he had seen seeds floating in the air. There had
been little wind, and that had come from the sea, where seeds would not
be likely to have origin. The objects that he had seen were round and
sharply defined, and with none of the feathery appearance of
thistledown. He then quotes from a letter from C.B. Chalmers, F.R.A.S.,
who had seen a similar stream, a procession, or migration, except that
some of the bodies were more elongated--or lean and hungry--than
globular.

He might have argued for sixty-five years. He'd have impressed
nobody--of importance. The super-motif, or dominant, of his era, was
Exclusionism, and the notion of seeds in the air assimilates--with due
disregards--with that dominant.

Or pageantries here upon our earth, and things looking down upon us--and
the Crusades were only dust clouds, and glints of the sun on shining
armor were only particles of mica in dust clouds. I think it was a
Crusade that Read saw--but that it was right, relatively to the year
1851, to say that it was only seeds i