The substance is described as "cobwebs"—but it fell in flake-formation, or in "flakes or rags about one inch broad and five or six inches long." Also these flakes were of a relatively heavy substance—"they fell with some velocity." The quantity was great—the shortest side of the triangular space is eight miles long. In the Wernerian Nat. Hist. Soc. Trans., 5–386, it is said that there were two falls—that they were some hours apart—a datum that is becoming familiar to us—a datum that cannot be taken into the fold, unless we find it repeated over and over and over again. It is said that the second fall lasted from nine o'clock in the morning until night.
Now the hypnosis of the classic—that what we call intelligence is only an expression of inequilibrium; that when mental adjustments are made, intelligence ceases—or, of course, that intelligence is the confession of ignorance. If you have intelligence upon any subject, that is something you're still learning—if we agree that that which is learned is always mechanically done—in quasi-terms, of course, because nothing is ever finally learned.
It was decided that this substance was spiders' web. That was adjustment. But it's not adjustment to me; so I'm afraid I shall have some intelligence in this matter. If I ever arrive at adjustment upon this subject, then, upon this subject, I shall be able to have no thoughts, except routine-thoughts. I haven't yet quite decided absolutely everything, so I am able to point out:
That this substance was of quantity so enormous that it attracted wide attention when it came down—
That it would have been equally noteworthy when it went up—
That there is no record of anyone, in England or elsewhere, having seen tons of "spider webs" going up, September, 1741.
Further confession of intelligence upon my part:
That, if it be contested, then, that the place of origin may have been far away, but still terrestrial—
Then it's that other familiar matter of incredible "marksmanship" again—hitting a small, triangular space for hours—interval of hours—then from nine in the morning until night: same small triangular space.
These are the disregards of the classic explanation. There is no mention of spiders having been seen to fall, but a good inclusion is that, though this substance fell in good-sized flakes of considerable weight, it was viscous. In this respect it was like cobwebs: dogs nosing it on grass, were blindfolded with it. This circumstance does strongly suggest cobwebs—
Unless we can accept that, in regions aloft, there are vast viscous or gelatinous areas, and that things passing through become daubed. Or perhaps we clear up the confusion in the descriptions of the substance that fell in 1841 and 1846, in Asia Minor, described in one publication as gelatinous, and in another as a cereal—that it was a cereal that had passed through a gelatinous region. That the paper-like substance of Memel may have had such an experience may be indicated in that Ehrenberg found in it gelatinous matter, which he called "nostoc." (Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist., 1–3-185.)
Scientific American, 45–337:
Fall of a substance described as "cobwebs," latter part of October, 1881, in Milwaukee, Wis., and other towns: other towns mentioned are Green Bay, Vesburge, Fort Howard, Sheboygan, and Ozaukee. The aeronautic spiders are known as "gossamer" spiders, because of the extreme lightness of the filaments that they cast out to the wind. Of the substance that fell in Wisconsin, it is said:
"In all instances the webs were strong in texture and very white."
The Editor says:
"Curiously enough, there is no mention in any of the reports that we have seen, of the presence of spiders."
So our attempt to divorce a possible external product from its terrestrial merger: then our joy of the prospector who thinks he's found something:
The Monthly Weather Review, 26–566, quotes the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser:
That, upon Nov. 21, 1898, numerous batches of spider-web-like substance fell in Montgomery, in strands and in occasional masses several inches long and several inches broad. According to the writer, it was not spiders' web, but something like asbestos; also that it was phosphorescent.
The Editor of the Review says that he sees no reason for doubting that these masses were cobwebs.
La Nature, 1883–342:
A correspondent writes that he sends a sample of a substance said to have fallen at Montussan (Gironde), Oct. 16, 1883. According to a witness, quoted by the correspondent, a thick cloud, accompanied by rain and a violent wind, had appeared. This cloud was composed of a woolly substance in lumps the size of a fist, which fell to the ground. The Editor (Tissandier) says of this substance that it was white, but was something that had been burned. It was fibrous. M. Tissandier astonishes us by saying that he cannot identify this substance. We thought that anything could be "identified" as anything. He can say only that the cloud in question must have been an extraordinary conglomeration.
Annual Register, 1832–447:
That, March, 1832, there fell, in the fields of Kourianof, Russia, a combustible yellowish substance, covering, at least two inches thick, an area of 600 or 700 square feet. It was resinous and yellowish: so one inclines to the conventional explanation that it was pollen from pine trees—but, when torn, it had the tenacity of cotton. When placed in water, it had the consistency of resin. "This resin had the color of amber, was elastic, like India rubber, and smelled like prepared oil mixed with wax."
So in general our notion of cargoes—and our notion of cargoes of food supplies:
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."
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 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."
And:
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. The fall is listed by Chladni, and is mentioned in other catalogues, but, from the absence of all inquiry, and of all but formal mention, we see that it has been under excommunication as much as was ever anything by the preceding system. The datum has been buried alive. It is as irreconcilable with the modern system of dogmas as ever were geologic strata and vermiform appendix with the preceding system—
If, intermittently, or "for a good part of the spring," this substance fell in two Irish provinces, and nowhere else, we have, stronger than before, a sense of a stationary region overhead, or a region that receives products like this earth's products, but from external sources, a region in which this earth's
