Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [301]

But this was concrete evidence; it was a fragment of the abolished past, like a fossil bone which turns up in the wrong stratum and destroys a geological theory. It was enough to blow the Party to atoms, if in some way it could have been published to the world and its significance made known. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 301

Note

The fossil-bone-in-the-wrong-stratum simile gives the photograph of Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford the weight of geological proof—evidence that, were it published, would destroy the entire falsified edifice. The conditional ‘if in some way it could have been published’ concedes the impossibility.