Department No. X · Verification · Belief Permitted, Checking Required
Past proofs.
Astonishment proves nothing. The Department admits a wonder only on papers. There are three grades, in ascending solidity.
Grades of proof
I. Eyewitness. A person present writes what he saw, promptly and inconveniently. Pliny at Vesuvius, Carter at Tutankhamun's door, Ehman at the printout. Eyewitnesses err, but they may not invent the volcano.
II. Contemporary record. A clerk with no interest in posterity writes it down anyway. Strasbourg's council accounts, Vienna's mortality tables, Boston's court transcripts. Boredom is the best guarantor of truth.
III. Physical remainder. The thing itself, refusing to go away. Gage's skull with its hole, the ichthyosaur in the museum, the Terracotta Army in its pit, the gold mask weighing 11 kilogrammes. A remainder cannot be cross-examined, which is its chief merit.
A wonder requires one grade. Most of ours hold all three. Those holding fewer are watched with particular affection.
Table of wonders and their papers
- 01 Dancing Plague, 1518
- City chronicles; council accounts.
- 02 Defenestration, 1618
- Pamphlets; Slavata memoir.
- 03 Ichthyosaur, 1811
- Phil. Trans.; specimen NHMUK PV R1158.
- 04 Gage, 1848
- Harlow reports; skull and iron.
- 05 Handwashing, 1847
- Hospital tables; Semmelweis 1861.
- 06 Endurance, 1914–16
- Logs; Hurley photographs; South.
- 07 Molasses, 1919
- Globe reports; Ogden audit 1925.
- 08 Wow! signal, 1977
- Big Ear printout; Ehman notes.
- 09 Emu War, 1932
- Army reports; Hansard; press.
- 10 Terracotta Army, 1974
- Shaanxi excavation reports; pits.
- 11 Tutankhamun, 1922
- Carter journals; Griffith archive.
- 12 Vesuvius, AD 79
- Pliny Letters VI.16, VI.20.
- Disputes
- Members disputing a wonder must do so in writing, with superior papers. Shouting "that cannot be true" has been tried, notably against Semmelweis, and is no longer accepted procedure.
- Transfers
- Any wonder found invented will be transferred to Department No. VI at once, with the Keeper's apologies.