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May 3, 1932

 That lovable doubter of scientific verities, Charles Fort, died on May 3, 1932. He collected oddities which seemed to cast doubt on popular science. His was a discriminating intellect which his followers seem to lack. In the following excerpt from his Book of the Damned, his reasons for rejecting a coin proposed to be ancient in origin, are mentioned:

"...with due disregard, you can find signs of your great grandmother, or of the Crusades, or of the Mayans, upon anything that ever came from Chillicothe or from a five and ten cent store. Anything that looks like a cat and a gold fish looks like Leo and Pisces: but, by due suppressions and distortions there's nothing that can't be made to look like a cat and a gold fish. I fear me we're turning a little irritable here. To be damned by slumbering giants and interesting little harlots and clowns who rank high in their profession is at least supportable to our vanity; but, we find that the anthropologists are of the slums of the divine, or of an archaic kindergarten of intellectuality, and it is very unflattering to find a mess of moldy infants sitting in judgment upon us."

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