Page Content (OCR)
sustaining power. It would cost me too much explaining, if | should have to admit that this earth's atmosphere has such Later, we shall have data of things that have gone up in the air and that have stayed up--somewhere-- weeks--months--but not by the sustaining power of this earth's atmosphere. For instance, the turtle of Vicksburg. It seems to me that it would be ridiculous to think of a good-sized turtle hanging, for three or four months, upheld only by the air, over the town of Vicksburg. When it comes to the horse and the barn--I think that they'll be classics some day, but | can never accept that a horse and a barn could float several months in this earth's atmosphere. The orthodox explanation: See the Report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society. It comes out absolutely for the orthodox explanation--absolutely and beautifully, also expensively. There are 492 pages in the "Report," and 40 plates, some of them marvelously colored. It was issued after an investigation that took five years. You couldn't think of anything done more efficiently, artistically, authoritatively. The mathematical parts are especially impressive: distribution of the dust of Krakatoa; velocity of translation and rates of subsidence; altitudes and persistences-- Annual Register, 1883-105: That the atmospheric effects that have been attributed to Krakatoa were seen in Trinidad before the eruption occurred; Knowledge, 5-418: That they were seen in Natal, South Africa, six months before the eruption. Inertia and its inhospitality.