A singular product of vitreous lavas is called in Hawaii ‘Pélé’s Hair.’ This silky, filamentous substance is described by Miss Gordon Cummings, in her latest book of travels, as ‘of a nigh olive-green or yellowish-brown color, and glossy, like the byssus of certain shells, but very brittle to handle.’ It is said to be produced by the wind catching the fiery spray thrown up from the crater, but the extreme fineness of its texture seems rather to suggest the action of escaping vapors within the lava itself. This view is strengthened by the circumstance that a perfect counterfeit is fabricated at ironworks by passing jets of steam through molten slag, when a material resembling vitreous cotton-wool, admirably adapted for packing fragile articles, results. The chief seat of its natural production is the great Hawaiian crater of Kilauea (personified as the fire-goddess Pélé), and it is found well adapted for nest-building by some inventive Hawaiian birds.

— Edinburgh Review, quoted in Bizarre Notes & Queries, May 1886

Here’s an odd, little-cited detail in the mystery of the Mary Celeste, the American brigantine found sailing unmanned in the Atlantic in 1872. John Austin, the marine surveyor who inspected the ship for the board of inquiry, reported:

On approaching the vessel I found on the bow, between two and three feet above the water line on the port side, a long narrow strip at the edge of a plank under the cat-head cut away to the depth of about three eighths of an inch and about one and a quarter inches wide for a length of about six to seven feet. This injury had been sustained recently and could not have been effected by weather or collision and was apparently done by a sharp cutting instrument continuously applied through the whole length of the injury. I found on the starboard bow but a little further from the stern of the vessel a precisely similar injury at the edge of a plank but perhaps an eighth or tenth of an inch wider, which in my opinion had been effected simultaneously and by the same means and not otherwise.

“As the Official Surveyor for this Court of Inquiry,” Austin concluded, “I must profess intense bewilderment as to the tool used to cut such marks and why they would have been cut in any vessel at these locations.”

So, what, was she attacked by sea monsters? Who knows?

In the spring of 1819, a little girl, about eleven years old, appeared at the Royal Exchange, and made some very extraordinary calculations. Several gentlemen asked her some intricate question, and while they were calculating it, she gave a correct answer. She was asked to multiply 525,600 by 250; which she answered in one minute, 131,400,000. A second question was, how many minutes there are in forty-two years? Answer, 22,075,200. She was next desired to multiply 525,000 by 450; answer, 236,250,000. Several other questions, equally difficult, were put, all of which she answered very correctly. It is remarkable, that the girl could neither read nor write. She stated herself to be the daughter of a weaver, living at Mile-End, New Town, of the name of Heywood.

— Cabinet of Curiosities, Natural, Artificial, and Historical, 1822

On Nov. 12, 1717, German inventor Johann Bessler invited a committee of witnesses to a special room in the ducal castle at Weissenstein. In the room was a large wheel, 12 feet in diameter and 14 inches thick. At a push from Bessler it accelerated to about 26 rpm and maintained that speed. Under the committee’s supervision, the windows were secured and the Landgrave’s own seal was put on the door. The room was reopened twice in 54 days, and on both occasions the wheel was still spinning.

Bessler demanded 20,000 pounds for his secret. (He said the weights inside the wheel “could never obtain equilibrium.”) But while the Royal Society was debating whether to pay him, Bessler discovered one witness examining the axle, accused him of duplicity, and angrily smashed the wheel. He vanished into obscurity after that, dying in 1745.

The demonstration has never been explained. If Bessler had a secret, he took it with him.

On the 4th of July 1803, a ball of fire struck the White Bull public-house, kept by John Hubbard, at East Norton. The chimney was thrown down by it, the roof in part torn off, the windows shattered to atoms, and the dairy, pantry, &c. converted into a heap of rubbish. It appeared like a luminous ball of considerable magnitude; and on coming in contact with the house, exploded with a great noise and a very oppressive sulphureous smell.

— Kirby’s Wonderful and Scientific Museum, 1803

On May 19, 1997, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration detected an unprecedented sound in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Deep and vast, it descended in frequency over about 7 minutes. Here’s a sound file, sped up 16 times.

A few months later, and about 2,500 miles closer to Cape Horn, a Navy hydrophone picked up a mysterious “bloop.” This one matched the audio profile of a living creature; if so, it must have been gigantic, as the sound was audible more than 5,000 km away. Here’s a sound file of that one, similarly sped up.

No one knows whether the two are related; if something huge was headed for Chile, it never arrived. Neither sound has been heard since.

A Massachusetts paper says that Isaiah Thomas, the almanac-maker, when preparing the ‘annual’ of 1780, being asked by one of his boys what he should put in opposite July 13th, for weather predictions (a date overlooked), he replied ‘anything, anything.’ The boy returned to the office and set up ‘Rain, hail, and snow.’ The country was all amazed when the day came, for it actually rained, hailed, and snowed violently.

— Bizarre Notes & Queries, March 1887