Journalist Dan De Quille meant only harmless fun with his 1865 story “The Traveling Stones of Pahranagat Valley,” a tale of mysteriously moving stones in the Nevada desert. When placed on a level surface, he had written, the strange stones would move toward a common center and form a clutch, “like a lot of eggs in a nest.”

Reportedly the account caused a furor among German scientists, and P.T. Barnum offered De Quille $10,000 for a set of the strange stones. He put them off, but the legend spread. In response to an 1871 inquiry, he wrote, “We have none of said rolling stones in this city at present but would refer our Colorado speculator to Mark Twain, who probably still has on hand fifteen or twenty bushels of assorted sizes.” (Twain and De Quille had been roommates at Virginia City.)

Still the inquiries came. Finally, seven years later, De Quille learned his lesson and confessed. “We are now growing old, and we want peace. We desire to throw up the sponge and acknowledge the corn; therefore we solemnly affirm that we never heard of any such diabolical cobbles as the traveling stones of Pahranagat — though we still think there ought to be something of the kind somewhere in the world.”

Ironically, less than 200 miles away, there were.

A remarkable instance of a sleep-walker came well authenticated, during the course of the month. Between eleven and twelve o’clock, a boy who serves the bricklayers in Maidstone, got out of bed in his sleep, went through a casement, and walked over the ridges of several houses, after which he returned, and came in at the same window, where he awaked in great tremor, occasioned by a fall on his entrance; this extraordinary circumstance happened in sight of several spectators, one of whom, not knowing him to be in a dormant state, had in contemplation a design of firing at him with a gun, from a conclusion that he intended to break into some house; but seeing him return, without any attempt to effect such a purpose, both parties think themselves happy at the interposition of Providence, to prevent so dreadful a catastrophe.

— Gentleman’s Magazine, August 1786

Sometime about the 22d of September 1810, Mr. Elisha Wall and his family, consisting of his wife and three grown children, besides several small ones, at his plantation, on Cypress Creek, about 12 miles from Coosawatchie-bridge, in South Carolina, saw passing over his yard, considerably below the height of the trees, on Sunday, directly after dinner, a prodigious quantity of narrow-headed cat-fish, of two sizes, the lesser quantity about two feet long, and the greater about one foot. The largest fish were as walls of defence, on either side of the small ones, about three yards in breadth, and three tiers deep — they were well arranged, in a small distance from each other, so as each to have room to use their fins and tails, without interfering with each other — they were nearly one hour moving slowly from east to west — they had all the motions of real living fish in their natural element, though there was neither cloud nor wind to support their movements. It is said that several thousands must have passed during the time they were viewed. Mr. Wall is an honest man, of truth, sobriety, and industry, whose word in any case, will not be disputed by those who know him — there were also at his house, at the time, five indifferent persons, who also saw this great phenomenon, and are willing, if necessary, to make oath to the fact herein stated.

— “American Papers,” quoted in Kirby’s Wonderful and Eccentric Museum, 1820

I send you what I regard as one of the most remarkable signatures ever devised by a writer. It is one which I have seen on hundreds of Government papers at Washington, D.C., where the man who uses it was for some years Expert Computer of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey and Astronomer of the Carnegie Institution. His name is Herman S. Davis, and he writes it as here shown. This signature is easily made with two swift strokes of the pen, and is not a mere monogram of initials, for it contains the full name, H.S. Davis, and also the year, month, and day of his birth — namely, 8.6.68. It has the further remarkable quality of being so symmetrical as to read exactly the same viewed upside down. — Mr. Russell Lang, Pittsburg, Pa., U.S.A.

— Strand, December 1908

As a mason, at a village near Kirkaldy, in Scotland, was dressing a barley millstone from a large block, after cutting away a part, he found a lizard imbedded in the stone. It was about an inch and a quarter long, of a brownish yellow colour, and had a round head, with bright, sparkling, projecting eyes. It was apparently dead; but after being about five minutes exposed to the air, it showed signs of life, and soon after ran about with much celerity; after half an hour, it was brushed off the stone and killed. There were about 14 feet of earth above the rock, and the block in which the lizard was found was seven or eight feet deep in the rock; so that the whole depth of the animal from the surface was 21 or 22 feet. The stone had no fissure, was quite hard, and one of the best to be got from the quarry of Cullaloe, reckoned perhaps the first in Scotland.

— Kaleidoscope, Aug. 14, 1821

A strangely “costless” ambiguity: The H and the A are identical, but most people can read this phrase without effort.

From The Strand, July 1908:

“If you ask what Fig. 1 represents, nine people out of ten will tell you that it is a triangular piece of wood fastened to a folding screen on the inside, or something to that effect. It represents in reality a solid rectangular block of wood, with a notch cut in one side. Fig. 2 shows the view looking in the direction of the arrow, the position of the notch being shown by the dotted lines.”

From Kirby’s Wonderful and Eccentric Museum (1820), the long-tailed stallion of Augustus II, king of Poland:

The tail and mane of this horse, exhibit an extraordinary rarity, and excite a doubt whether they may not have been the effect of some artificial means: otherwise, how happens it that the hair of no other animal of this species, should have attained such a wonderful length? The stuffed hide of this horse is preserved in the armoury at Dresden; the colour is cream pye-balled, the length of the mane is nine ells, and of the tail twelve. This horse belonged to Augustus II, king of Poland, who rode him only on extraordinary occasions, when the mane was borne by pages, and the tail by grooms; when he stood in the stable, his hair was tied up in bags.