The Mountain Ash Fish That Fell Alive

Transcript

In Odd Showers, published in 1870, Sir George Duncan Gibb records a report of fish falling at Mountain Ash. The striking detail is that they were said to be alive. Newspaper accounts reported that some were still living and healthy when placed in bottles. Gibb considered whether a waterspout, or a hurricane, might carry fish from water and bring them down in rain. But he did not treat that explanation as certain. He noted that the fish landed on several house roofs, where such an event would have been noticed. And he acknowledged that their source remained uncertain. They may have come from fresh water, but their quick death in artificial seawater did not prove it. The report is curious; the cause, Gibb cautioned, was unresolved.