The Book of the Damned

zone of a magnet's attraction, we accept that there are bodies of water and also clear spaces—bottoms of ponds dropping out—very interesting ponds, having no earth at bottom—vast drops of water afloat in what is called space—fishes and deluges of water falling—

But also other areas, in which fishes—however they got there: a matter that we'll consider—remain and dry, or even putrefy, then sometimes falling by atmospheric dislodgment.

After a "tremendous deluge of rain, one of the heaviest falls on record" (All the Year Round, 8-255) at Rajkote, India, July 25, 1850, "the ground was found literally covered with fishes."

The word "found" is agreeable to the repulsions of the conventionalists and their concept of an overflowing stream—but, according to Dr. Buist, some of these fishes were "found" on the tops of haystacks.

Ferrel (A Popular Treatise, p. 414) tells of a fall of living fishes—some of them having been placed in a tank, where they survived—that occurred in India, about 20 miles south of Calcutta, Sept. 20, 1839. A witness of this fall says:

"The most strange thing which ever struck me was that the fish did not fall helter-skelter, or here and there, but they fell in a straight line, not more than a cubit in breadth." See Living Age, 52-186.

Amer. Jour. Sci., I-32-199:

That, according to testimony taken before a magistrate, a fall occurred, Feb. 19, 1830, near Feridpoor, India, of many fishes, of various sizes—some whole and fresh and others "mutilated and putrefying." Our reflex to those who would say that, in the climate of India, it would not take long for fishes to putrefy, is—that high in the air, the climate of India is not torrid. Another peculiarity of this fall is that some of the fishes were much larger than others. Or to those who hold out for segregation in a whirlwind, or that objects, say, twice as heavy as others would be separated from the lighter, we point out that some of these fishes were twice as heavy as others.

In the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 2-650, depositions of witnesses are given:

p. 88