ar
system.

Our position:

That the things have been seen:

Also that their shadows have been seen.

Vast black thing poised like a crow over the moon. So far it is a single
instance. By a single instance, we mean the negligible.

In _Popular Science_, 34-158, Serviss tells of a shadow that Schroeter
saw, in 1788, in the lunar Alps. First he saw a light. But then, when
this region was illuminated, he saw a round shadow where the light had
been.

Our own expression:

That he saw a luminous object near the moon: that that part of the moon
became illuminated, and the object was lost to view; but that then its
shadow underneath was seen.

Serviss explains, of course. Otherwise he'd not be Prof. Serviss. It's a
little contest in relative approximations to realness. Prof. Serviss
thinks that what Schroeter saw was the "round" shadow of a mountain--in
the region that had become lighted. He assumes that Schroeter never
looked again to see whether the shadow could be attributed to a
mountain. That's the crux: conceivably a mountain could cast a
round--and that means detached--shadow, in the lighted part of the moon.
Prof. Serviss could, of course, explain why he disregards the light in
the first place--maybe it had always been there "in the first place." If
he couldn't explain, he'd still be an amateur.

We have another datum. I think it is more extraordinary than--

Vast thing, black and poised, like a crow, over the moon.

But only because it's more circumstantial, and because it has
corroboration, do I think it more extraordinary than--

Vast poised thing, black as a crow, over the moon.

Mr. H.C. Russell, who was usually as orthodox as anybody, I suppose--at
least, he wrote "F.R.A.S." after his name--tells in the _Observatory_,
2-374, one of the wickedest, or most preposterous, stories that we have
so far exhumed:

That he and another astronomer, G.D. Hirst, were in the Blue fountains,
near Sydney, N.S.W., and Mr. Hirst was looking at the moon--

He saw on the moon what Russell calls "one of those remarkable facts,
which being seen should be recorded, although no explanation can at
present be offered."

That may be so. It is very rarely done. Our own expression upon
evolution by successive dominants and their correlates is against it. On
the other hand, we express that every era records a few observations out
of harmony with it, but adumbratory or preparatory to the spirit of
eras still to come. It's ve