d
to float within a hundred feet of the earth, but soon rose high, or
"midway between horizon and zenith." The wind was quite strong from the
east, but the light held a course almost due north.

Its speed varied. Sometimes it seemed to outrun the train
"considerably." At other times it seemed to fall behind. The mail-clerks
watched until the town of Linville, Iowa, was reached. Behind the depot
of this town, the light disappeared, and was not seen again. All this
time there had been rain, but very little lightning, but Mr. Crotsenburg
offers the explanation that it was "ball lightning."

The Editor of the _Review_ disagrees. He thinks that the light may have
been a reflection from the rain, or fog, or from leaves of trees,
glistening with rain, or the train's light--not lights.

In the December number of the _Review_ is a letter from Edward M.
Boggs--that the light was a reflection, perhaps, from the glare--one
light, this time--from the locomotive's fire-box, upon wet telegraph
wires--an appearance that might not be striated by the wires, but
consolidated into one rotundity--that it had seemed to oscillate with
the undulations of the wires, and had seemed to change horizontal
distance with the varying angles of reflection, and had seemed to
advance or fall behind, when the train had rounded curves.

All of which is typical of the best of quasi-reasoning. It includes and
assimilates diverse data: but it excludes that which will destroy it:

That, acceptably, the telegraph wires were alongside the track beyond,
as well as leading to Linville.

Mr. Crotsenburg thinks of "ball lightning," which, though a sore
bewilderment to most speculation, is usually supposed to be a correlate
with the old system of thought: but his awareness of "something else" is
expressed in other parts of his letters, when he says that he has
something to tell that is "so strange that I should never have mentioned
it, even to my friends, had it not been corroborated... so unreal that I
hesitated to speak of it, fearing that it was some freak of the
imagination."

27

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

Round and smooth. Cannon balls. Things that have fallen from the sky to
this earth.

Our slippery brains.

Things like cannon balls have fallen, in storms, upon this earth. Like
cannon balls are things that, in storms, have fallen to this earth.

Showers of blood.

Showers of blood.

Shower