Rancidness–putridity–decomposition–a note that has been struck many times. In a positive sense, of course, nothing means anything, or every meaning is continuous with all other meanings; or that all evidences of guilt, for instance, are just as good evidences of innocence–but this condition seems to mean–things lying around among the stars a long time. Horrible disaster in the time of Julius Caesar; remains from it not reaching this earth till the time of the Bishop of Cloyne…
Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned, p. 66 (The Complete Books of Charles Fort, Dover, c1974).