the recording of the history of our vain efforts may prove useful—if only to some later, future student of the First Contact—because the published accounts, those official reports, concentrate on the so-called successes, that is, on the pleasant warmth that emanates from the burning pages. Of the hypotheses we tried, one after another, practically nothing is said there. Such a course of action would have been permissible—I alluded to this already—had the thing investigated been kept separate, in the end, from its investigators.
