OF THE
TIMES
I think of a region somewhere above this earth's surface in which gravitation is inoperative and is not governed by the square of the distance—quite as magnetism is negligible at a very short distance from a magnet. Theoretically the attraction of a magnet should decrease with the square of the distance, but the falling-off is found to be almost abrupt at a short distance.RC
I think that things raised from this earth's surface to that region have been held there until shaken down by storms—
The Super-Sargasso Sea.
Derelicts, rubbish, old cargoes from inter-planetary wrecks; things cast out into what is called space by convulsions of other planets, things from the times of the Alexanders, Caesars and Napoleons of Mars and Jupiter and Neptune; things raised by this earth's cyclones: horses and barns and elephants and flies and dodoes, moas, and pterodactyls; leaves from modern trees and leaves of the Carboniferous era—all, however, tending to disintegrate into homogeneous-looking muds or dusts, red or black or yellow—treasure-troves for the palaeontologists and for the archaeologists—accumulations of centuries—cyclones of Egypt, Greece, and Assyria—fishes dried and hard, there a short time: others there long enough to putrefy— ; But the omnipresence of Heterogeneity—or living fishes, also—ponds of fresh water: oceans of salt water. ; As to the Law of Gravitation, I prefer to take one simple stand: ; Orthodoxy accepts the correlation and equivalence of forces: ; Gravitation is one of these forces. ; All other forces have phenomena of repulsion and of inertness irrespective of distance, as well as of attraction. ; But Newtonian Gravitation admits attraction only: ; Then Newtonian Gravitation can be only one-third acceptable even to the orthodox, or there is denial of the correlation and equivalence of forces. ; Or still simpler: ; Here are the data. ; Make what you will, yourself, of them. ; In our Intermediatist revolt against homogeneous, or positive, explanations, or our acceptance that the all-sufficing cannot be less than universality, besides which, however, there would be nothing to suffice, our expression upon the Super-Sargasso Sea, though it harmonizes with data of fishes that fall as if from a stationary source—and, of course, with other data, too—is inadequate to account for two peculiarities of the falls of frogs: ; That never has a fall of tadpoles been reported; ; That never has a fall of full-grown frogs been reported— ; Always frogs a few months old. ; It sounds positive, but if there be such reports they are somewhere out of my range of reading. Free at [Link]
The best explanation I've ever read is Fort's Super Sargasso Sea. See, e.g., article re megacryometeor, where I wrote:
Suspected megacryometeor crashes through Wisconsin home, nearly hitting resident
Imagine trying to get up and get ready for your day but instead of having to shut off your alarm clock, you are greeted by a cannonball-sized chunk of ice. While Mother Nature can be known for...R.C.