³⁴⁹ Therefore Navidson's conclusion seems the only conclusion. Based on the evidence, sample A thru sample XXXX appear to make up an exact chronological map, which though simple, nevertheless still shows that....................................................................................................

Inexplicably, the remainder of this footnote along with seventeen more pages of text vanished from the manuscript supplied by Mr. Truant. — Ed.

350j _w i _s h i could say this mass of black X's was due to some mysterious ash or frantic act of deletion on Zampano's part. Unfortunately this time I'm to blame. When I first started assembling The Navidson Record. I arranged the various pages and scraps by chapter or subject.

Eventually I had numerous piles spread out across my room. I usually placed a book or some heavy object on them to keep the isolated mounds from flying apart if there were a draft or I happened to bump one with my foot. On top of this particular chapter I stupidly placed a bottle of German ink, 4001 brillant-schwarz or something. Who knows how long ago either, probably when I was still sketching pictures and tinkering with collages, maybe in August, maybe as far back as February. Anyway, there must have been a hairline crack in the glass because all of the ink eventually tunneled down through the paper, wiping out almost forty pages, not to mention seeping into the carpet below where it spread into a massive black bloom. The footnotes survived only because I hadn't incorporated them yet. They'd all been written out separately on a series of green index cards held together by a yellow rubber band.