On August 28, 1883, the volcano of Krakatoa exploded. The atmospheric effects continued for seven years. “Except that,” Fort tells us, “in the seven, there was a lapse of several years–and where was the volcanic dust all that time?”
Fort poses the rhetorical question, “How can you prove that something is not something else, when neither is something else some other thing?”
He goes on to say that “you can oppose an absurdity only with some other absurdity. But Science is established preposterousness. We divide all intellection: the obviously preposterousness and the established.”
Fort points out references in Annual Register, 1883-105, and Knowledge, 5-418, that the atmospheric effects attributed to Krakatoa were seen in Trinidad and Natal before the eruption occurred.
[Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned. From The Complete Books of Charles Fort, Dover, c1974.]