The Book of the Damned - Charles Fort-pages

Page 338 of 376

Page 338 of 376
The Book of the Damned - Charles Fort-pages

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[p. 278] oriental waters. direction." Or finally as to submergence--"These waves of light extended from the surface well under the water." It is Commander Pringle's opinion that the shafts constituted one wheel, and that doubling was an illusion. He judges the shafts to have been about 25 feet broad, and the spaces about too. Velocity about 84 miles an hour. Duration about 35 minutes. [paragraph continues] Time 9:40 P.M. Before and after this display the ship had passed through patches of floating substance described as "oily-looking fish spawn." Upon page 428 of this number of Nature, E. L. Moss says that, in April, 1875, when upon H.M.S. Bulldog, a few miles north of Vera Cruz, he had seen a series of swift lines of light. He had dipped up some of the water, finding in it animalcule, which would, however, not account for phenomena of geometric formation and high velocity. If he means Vera Cruz, Mexico, this is the only instance we have out of Scientific American, 106-51: That, in the Nautical Meteorological Annual, published by the Danish Meteorological Institute, appears a report upon a "singular phenomenon" that was seen by Capt. Gabe, of the Danish East Asiatic Co.'s steamship Bintang. At 3 A.M., June 10, 1909, while sailing through the Straits of Malacca, Captain Gabe saw a vast revolving wheel of light, flat upon the water--"long arms issuing from a center around which the whole system appeared to rotate." So vast was the appearance that only half of it could be seen at a time, the center lying near the horizon. This display lasted about fifteen minutes. Heretofore we have not been clear upon the important point that forward motions of these wheels do not synchronize with a vessel's motions, and freaks of disregard, or, rather, commonplaces of disregard, might attempt to assimilate with lights of a vessel. This time we are told that the vast wheel moved forward, decreasing in brilliancy, and also in speed of rotation, disappearing when the center was right ahead of the vessel--or my own interpretation would be that the source of light was submerging deeper and deeper and slowing down because meeting more and more resistance. The Danish Meteorological Institute reports another instance: