COLOURED RAIN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 147, 22 June 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

COLOURED RAIN.

The "blood rain" -which, recently fell in Italy and elsewhere has been proved to consist simply of mineral chut, caused by the wind from North Africa. The "blood rain" is caused by the presence in the water of microscopic forms of low plant life, each of them being a little actively moving red body, to which the name of "Sphaerella fluvialis" is given. A near neighbour of this little plant, the "Sphaerella nivalis," is known as the "red snow plant," It occurs in Arctic regions, gives a red appearance to the snow, suggestive of the occurrence o,f. some sanguinary combat. The red ram plant occurs in pools; and when it has attained a high development and a whirlwind sweeps the -water out of the pools it gets diffused through the air and breeds and multiplies in the new pools and ponds to which it has thus been conveyed. "Sulphur rain" is quite a different thing. The yellow dust which is often found coveringl the ground for acres is the pollen or fertilising'matterof plants and chiefly that of pine forests. Discharged from the cones, it is carried by the wind, and often falls, ineffective as regards its purpose, to the ground. The occurrence of this yellow matter, however, has often given rise to superstitious fears, especially in the North of Scotland, where theological tenets have not yet become quite dissociated from sulphurous surroundings.