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Fort, Charles - The Book of the Damned - Falls of 'rancid butter'
Identifier
011876
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
The Book of the Damned - Charles Fort
In Philosophical Transactions, 19-224,
is an extract from a letter by Mr. Robert Vans, of Kilkenny, Ireland, dated Nov. 15, 1695: that there had been "of late," in the counties of Limerick and Tipperary, showers of a sort of matter like butter or grease... having "a very stinking smell."…….. In Mr. Vans' letter, it is said that the "butter" was supposed to have medicinal properties, and "was gathered in pots and other vessels by some of the inhabitants of this place."
There follows an extract from a letter by the Bishop of Cloyne, upon "a very odd phenomenon," which was observed in Munster and Leinster: that for a good part of the spring of 1695 there fell a substance which the country people called "butter"--"soft, clammy, and of a dark yellow"--that cattle fed "indifferently" in fields where this substance lay.
"It fell in lumps as big as the end of one's finger." It had a "strong ill scent." His Grace calls it a "stinking dew."
In all the following volumes of Philosophical Transactions there is no speculation upon this extraordinary subject. Ostracism. The fate of this datum is a good instance of damnation, not by denial, and not by explaining away, but by simple disregard.
Amer. Jour. Sci., 1-28-361,
that, April 11, 1832-- --fell a substance that was wine-yellow, transparent, soft, and smelling like rancid oil. M. Herman, a chemist who examined it, named it "sky oil." For analysis and chemic reactions, see the_Journal.
The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 13-368,
mentions an "unctuous" substance that fell near Rotterdam, in 1832.
In Comptes Rendus, 13-215,
there is an account of an oily, reddish matter that fell at Genoa, February, 1841.
The source of the experience
Fort, CharlesConcepts, symbols and science items
Symbols
Science Items
Geomagnetic hot spotsGeomagnetic storms and space weather
Sun
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