Page Content (OCR)
Mr. Symons says: [p. 112] it. "| think that most probably they had been raked out of the steam fire-engine." June 20, 1880, it was reported that a "thunderstone" had struck the house at 180 Oakley Street, Chelsea, falling down the chimney, into the kitchen grate. Mr. Symons investigated. He describes the "thunderstone" as an "agglomeration of brick, soot, unburned coal, and cinder." He says that, in his opinion, lightning had flashed down the chimney, and had fused some of the brick of He does think it remarkable that the lightning did not then scatter the contents of the grate, which were disturbed only as if a heavy body had fallen. If we admit that climbing up the chimney to find out is too rigorous a requirement for a man who may have been large, dignified and subject to expansions, the only unreasonableness we find in what he says--as judged by our more modern outlook, is: "| suppose that no one would suggest that bricks are manufactured in the atmosphere." Sounds a little unreasonable to us, because it is so of the positivistic spirit of former times, when it was not so obvious that the highest incredibility and laughability must merge away with the "proper"--as the Sci. Am. Sup. would say. The preposterous is always interpretable in terms of the "proper," with which it must be continuous--or--clay-like masses such as have fallen from the sky--tremendous heat generated by their velocity--they bake bricks.