SHOWERS OF RED RAIN AND RED SNOW, VEGETABLE AND OTHER ORGANISMS.
The so-called showers of blood of many of the older writers, at one time looked upon as a terrible and fatal omen, consisted of ordinary rain tinged or mixed with some red substances, generally of a vegetable nature, or of the red exudations of certain butterflies. Numerous instances of red rain and red snow are given by many of the older writers, and are by no means chimerical. To take a few chronologically: According to Spangenberg, red rain fell in Bohemia in 1416. Showers of blood fell in several places in 1501, on the authority of different chronicles. Fromard mentions red rain falling at Embden, in Louvain, in 1560; and Count Natalis, a fiery meteor and red rain at Lillebonne, in the same year. Leman refers to a shower of blood at La Magdalaine, near Orleans, in 1591. A great fall of stones, with a shower of blood, occurred at Styria in 1618, as stated by De Hammer. Red rain fell at Tournay in 1638; at Bois-le-Duc in January, and at Brussels in October, 1645; at Orsio, in Sweden, in May, 1711; at San Pietro d' Arena, near Genoa, in 1744; and in several countries in November, 1755; a red sky was associated with the red rain in the last. Mercurio describes red rain at Cleves, Utrecht, &c. in 1763; it occurred in Picardy, in November, 1765. I need scarcely observe that the causes of the redness in all these varies, and will be understood from what follows.
During the atmospheric disturbances that occurred in India, in the early part of the year 1860, when several aerolites fell, portions of which were transmitted to this country, according to the official letter of the Deputy Commissioner at Dhurmsalla, to the Secretary of the Government, Punjab, dated 30th July, 1860, a "shower of blood" is mentioned as occurring at Furruckabad, and another at Meerut previously. An instance that occurred nearer home in the same year, and correctly termed Red Rain, falling at Sienna, was communicated to the French Academy in a letter from M. S. de Luca. The details are in Comptes Rendus, 21st January, 1861. On the 28th and 31st December, 1860, and 1st January, 1861, there fell in certain localities of the town of Sienna, a feebly coloured red rain, and on those days in the atmosphere was observed by some persons clouds of a reddish tint, and the snow that fell in some places was similarly coloured. M. Luca examined some of the collected rain, and clearly made out, microscopically and chemically, the colouring matter to be of an organic nature, probably of a species of plant belonging to the Algae, related to the Hygrocrocis Cyclaminae, which furnishes a rose solution. No great stretch of imagination is required to comprehend the generation of the vegetable or plant like organisms in the clouds, if the rising earth's vapour was charged with the necessary elements of growth and fecundation. And we have consequently a simple explanation of red rain or red snow according to circumstances. Crimson snow described by Captain Ross in his voyage to Baffin's Bay, was supposed by Dr. Wollaston to owe its complexion to some vegetable production, this was confirmed by Mr. Bauer who discovered the existence of a nondescript Uredo, which he designated nivalis.
In the beginning of July, 1608, a supposed shower of blood fell for several miles around the suburbs of Aix la Chapelle. The cause of this was discovered by M. de Peiresc to depend upon the exudation of large drops of a blood coloured liquid on the transformation of large chrysalides into the butterfly state. The drops produced red stains on the walls of the small villages in the neighbourhood, on stones in the highways, and in the fields. The number of butterflies flying about too was prodigious. These red drops were not found in the middle of the city or in places where the butterflies did not reach. To the same cause M. de Peiresc attributes (I think very correctly) some other showers of blood related by historians, that happened in the warm season of the year when butterflies are most numerous. Gregory of Tours, mentions one that fell in the time of Childebert in different parts of Paris, and upon a certain house in the territory of Senlis; and about the end of the month of June, another likewise fell in the reign of King Robert. Large drops of excrement of the colour of blood are voided by all the butterflies which proceed from the different species of hairy caterpillar. On one occasion twenty-eight chrysalides of Vanessa antiopa, or Camberwell beauty, which I had preserved in a small room, attached to projecting bodies, underwent transformation on a single day in July; the walls and floor were so bespattered with bright crimson-coloured fluid, resembling blood, as to give the appearance of a regular shower of the fluid.
Although showers of red rain have been well attested by the most reliable authorities, a writer in Rees Cyclop. (1819) has stated that they are by no means to be credited, from the story related by Swammerdam of bloody waters occurring at the Hague in 1760. One morning the town was in an uproar on finding the lakes and ditches full of blood, as they thought, which the night before was clear water. This depended upon prodigious swarms of red animals, known as water-fleas, pulices arborescentes, which were generated in a single night from their ova, lining the margins of the ditches and lakes. This occurrence is a very different thing from the genuine red rain, and does not in the least affect the main testimony.
Red Snow is no new phenomenon, for it was known to Aristotle, and probably seen by him, Humboldt thinks, in the mountains of Macedonia. In 1056 red snow fell in Armenia (Math. Eretz). A shower of red snow fell at Pezzo, Valle Camonica, in March, 1803 (Jour de Physique). A similar shower of red snow fell during three nights in March, 1808, in Carniola and neighbourhood, to the height of five feet ten inches. The earth was previously covered with snow of a pure white, and the coloured variety was again succeeded by the common sort, the two kinds remaining perfectly distinct, even during liquefaction. The red snow melted and evaporated, gave a little finely divided earth of a rose hue, consisting of silex, alumina, and oxide of iron. The same phenomenon was observed at the same time on the mountains of the Valteline, Brescia, and the Tyrol. Red rain and snow mingled with red dust, following thunder and lightning, fell at Gerace in Calabria, on March 14th, 1813. It was composed of silex, carbonate of lime, alumina, iron, and chrome. This red rain and snow fell in Tuscany, various parts of Calabria, and elsewhere. On April 15th, 1816, coloured snow again fell in Italy, particularly on Tonal and other mountains. It was brick red and left an earthy powder, very light and impalpable, unctuous to the touch, argillaceous odour, and sub-acid saline, and astringent taste. It was composed of silex, iron, alumina, &c. I am disposed to believe in these four instances of the present century, the colouring matter of the snow was due to volcanic ashes, known under the name of puzzolana, already referred to, resembling brick-dust, which view is favoured by the localities described.
Showers of red rain and red snow are therefore genuine and undoubted facts, and when we know what it is that imparts to them their peculiar colour, as has been fully explained, there is nothing preternatural or marvellous about them. Indeed, there is not a single phenomenon in nature, no matter how curious or uncommon, that cannot be explained by the well known and unerring laws of natural and physical science.
Humboldt has remarked in his Cosmos, that although the existence of meteoric infusoria is more than doubtful, it cannot be denied that in the same manner as the pollen of the flowers of the pine is observed every year to fall from the atmosphere, minute infusorial animalcules may likewise be retained for a time in the strata of the air, after having been passively borne up by currents of aqueous vapour. In regard to this, Ehrenberg has discovered that the nebulous dust or sand which mariners often encounter in the vicinity of the Cape de Verde Islands, and even at a distance of 300 miles from the African shore, contains the remains of 18 species of silicious-shelled polygastric animalcules.
A shower of wheat is described as having occurred in Wiltshire: and a shower of millet seed in Silesia, mentioned in the Ephem. Germanica. They were most probably due to the effects of a hurricane, although this cannot be stated with certainty, as the original account we have not seen.
SHOWERS OF METEORITES OR METEORIC STONES.
These substances have long been objects of study and interest to the curious, and when occurring in a certain quantity are described as a shower of meteorites, although sometimes a single meteorite falls and becomes broken into numerous fragments, thus constituting the shower. In character they resemble ordinary stones, of a brownish colour, or metallic masses with a thin black crust, more or less shining. The one contains no iron, and the other does; this is well illustrated in the fine collection of these bodies preserved in the Mineralogical Gallery of the British Museum. Showers of meteorites have been known from the most ancient times, for both Livy and Pliny describe examples. Various accounts of them have appeared in modern times occurring in different parts of the world, too numerous to give in this place. Of single masses that have fallen, the weight has varied from a few pounds to fifteen tons. One that fell in Brazil weighed upwards of 17,000 pounds; another in Siberia 1680 pounds. One at Dhurmsalla, in India, in 1860, burst with a series of loud explosions, scattering the fragments to various distances over an extent of four miles: as other stones were found in more distant places, it is fair to infer that there was a shower of them.
A shower of meteoric stones fell in Guernsey County, Ohio, on May 1st, 1860, at twenty minutes to one o'clock p.m. which was preceded by a clap of thunder, and an extraordinary sensation like an earthquake shock. This was observed for a distance of sixty miles; many stones were seen to fall, and upwards of thirty were recovered. One weighed 51 pounds that had buried itself twenty inches in a stiff soil, and was so hot that it could be scarcely held in the hands. The others weighed 42, 36, and four pounds; the heaviest was 103 pounds, and the lightest half-a-pound. All the stones were irregular in figure, and had the same general appearance, having a blackened smooth vitreous surface. Within, the stones had an ashy colour, with fine shining particles supposed to be nickel. My account of the meteoric shower is taken from Lieut. Tiddall, U.S. Army, in the local papers; and Dr. Lawrence Smith, in Amer. Jr. Science for January, 1861. One hundred parts of the largest stone yielded ten of nickeliferous iron, and 89 of earthy minerals. The Guernsey shower has been compared to that which fell near L'Aigle, in France, on 26th April, 1812, at one o'clock p.m. A brilliant fiery globe burst with a loud explosion, followed by a great shower of meteoric stones to the number of 3000, the largest weighing over seventeen pounds. The direction of both of these showers was from S.E. to N.W.; the extent of surface covered by the L'Aigle, 7.5 by 2.5 miles, and the Guernsey 10 by 3 miles; and both not only occurred about the same time of day, but were seen by a number of persons. A similar phenomenon occurred at Benares in 1798, followed by a shower of meteoric stones. There can be no doubt they are frequently happening over all parts of the globe, and those only are recorded that come within the knowledge of civilized communities. A great many must happen over the wide expanse of ocean that remain unknown.