PECULIAR SHOWERS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2951, 24 November 1900, Page 2 (Supplement)

PECULIAR SHOWERS.

bv hailstones, varying between |lb and 11b in weight. A similar storm, fou " mi £ wide, visited lowa on August 7, 1000, tie . stroyed all vegetation, blocked several trains —it lay in many places five feet deep severely wounded a large number of people, and actually killed one unfortunate woman who was struck upon the head. Similar disasters visited Graz, in Austua, on August 21, 1890, and a huge tract of country in Now South wales on October 13, 1892. In the latter case the stones were as much as 6in in diameter, and at rulcumbah, New South Wales, actually

PIERCED THE COHBVGATKD IRON HOOFS of several farm sheds.

Like rain, hail occasionally descends in a coloured state. In 1880 a large number of red and blue hailstones fell in Minsk, Russia ; and five years later, in May, 1885, Cas'tlewellan, Ireland, was the recipient of a considerable sprinkling of red hailstones. Hail of an orange red also descended in Tuscany on March 14, 1873. In the case of the blue stones, the colouring has been ascertained to be due to the presence of the salts of such metals a's cobalt and nickel, a fact which rather favours the supposition that the stones originated somewhere outside our own atmosphere. Finally, perhaps, the most unpleasant of ail is the “ mud ” storm of “ foreign parts.” It usually occurs in countries such as the Transvaal, which are afflicted with that temper-trying terror, the “ dust storm.” In the midst of a “ dust storm ” it starts to rain furiously, and —there you are, don t you know. It is also frequently caused by our old friend the water-spout. A shower of tho latter description occurred at Onaga, upon the Union Pacific Railway, on April 4, 1872, whilst a somewhat similar infliction bedraggled fashionable Simla for several days a few seasons back. In the American visitation the whole town looked as though it had been liberally besprinkled with stale mustard, owing to the fact that the “ spout ” which caused it had sucked up a huge bank of semi-liquid clay.

(Pearson’s ircefcljj.)

The witty Yankee who gave it as his opinion that we Britishers had no weather to speak of, merely “ samples,'’ had no doubt a certain amount of justification for his cutting summary of the British climate. Nevertheless, extraordinary though our climatic freaks undoubtedly are, they come in reality very low down in the scale of Nature’s atmospheric fireworks, as witness the phenomena- which follow. In august, 1892, the worthy villagers of Bjelina, in Bosnia, were not a little amazed to find their streets and hack gardens suddenly invaded by a large multitude of fish. The fish, which werem ostly of the whiting order, fell to the accompaniment of a severe north-westerly thunderstorm. Strangely enough, they were “alive and kicking;” so much so, indeed, that the delighted Bosnians not only ate them for breakfast, but also for dinner and supper. Meanwhile they openly proclaimed the miracle as an up-to-date edition of the manna which fell for the delectation of the Israelites. Indeed, they might eventually have turned Bjelina into a Bosnian Lourdes, had not the cold eye of the scientist been speedily focussed upon the scene of the alleged miracle. Then it was discovered that the fish were of a salt-water order, and that there had recently been water-spouts in the Adriatic, many miles distant. Putting two and two together, the scientists quashed the miracle by deciding that the fish, had originally been

RAISED IX WATER-SPOUTS and carried by strong atmospheric currents inland, until they had ueen gently dropped at Bjelina. A similar fish shower is ‘stated to have occurred at Cranstead, Kent, in the year of the great fire of London.

Considerably less pleasant was the experience of a party of- Irish immigrants who, some thirty-five years since, were threading their painful way across the torrid plains of Arizona. The day had been intensely hot, and the whole party was wellnigh dropping from exhaustion, when suddenly a- low rumbling sound was heard, as if if a- distant locomotive. Immediately the dead-heat cattle showed signs of intense restiveness and uneasiness. A moment later a dark funnel-shaped cloud seemed' to spring out of the trackless waste n few miles ahead of them, and bore down upon them at the rate of an express train.

By a miracle the little party escaped personal injuries by throwing themselves flab upon their faces; but their baggage was hurled half a mile away, whilst their four horses were all badly injured by the falling debris. Worse, however, was to come. No sooner did the unfortunate colonists come to look around them, than they were horrified to find themselves surrounded by scores of poisonous young rattlesnakes. These reptiles had evidently been caught by the storm frofn one of their numerous sunning grounds, and subsequently dropped right across the colonists’ route. Happily for them, the snakes were either dead or half stunned by their experience; but the fright of those few minutes blanched the hair of one of the men perfectly white, and temporarily turned another INTO A GIBBERING IDIOT; Another curious natural freak is that which, for want of a better name, we will call a “ spider shower.” It is not often that one has the opportunity of witnessing one. So long ago as 1832, when Darwin was some sixty miles off the La Plata River in H.M.S. -Beagle, he observed a shower of .this description descending upon the ship. In all, such showers must consist of hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions, of the tiny insect known as the gossamer spider. This little chap is a bit of a mystery. He is our earliest parachutist, for by means of the filmy threads of gossamer spun by him he is enabled to travel, as though in the car of a balloon, upon the faintest suspicion of a breath of wind. He is given to travelling in company, and it was the unexpected descent of one of his army corps that so surprised the great naturalist. Once the hitherto invisible army of spiders determines to descend, the air suddenly grows thick, as though with a yellowish fog. Down it comes, until its real nature is suddenly disclosed by the thick yellow carpet of busy little insects that cover every square inch of the surrounding objects, whilst their gossamer-like threads weave themselves in the most picturesque confusion over everything near. It is scarcely a pleasant experience, especially for those who do not love spiders. But it is quite harmless. The insects rest themselves —this, indeed, seems to be the real cause of their descent —once more spread their .tiny films, and float off much as they came, ’ whither, goodness knows.

These showers, although exceedingly rare, are exceedingly ancient. Onaucer seems to have known them, for he evidently alludes to something of the sort in his old nursery rhyme; “ Old woman, old woman, old woman,” quoth

I, “Oh! whither, oh! whither, oh! whither so high?” “To swoop the cobwebs out of the sky.”

Curious ns these instances undoubtedly are, they are by no means the only queer showers on record. Indeed, although the normal constituents of a rain-cloud should undoubtedly be colourless, they have frequently transgressed this rule in the mostalarming fashion. On May 4, 1882. an area of three or four miles in diameter, over the parish of Edrom, in Berwickshire, was suddenly visited with a- deluge of black rain, a visitation wlpch was repeated later thirty miles away in the parish of Ashkirk. A subsequent analysis of the water revealed bur little as to its true origin. It was certified that the blackness was due to “ certain organic and carbonaceous pari ides in mechanical suspension ” ; also, that so much as leu tons of solid matter must have fallen upon every hundred acres. Beyond this, however, science was silent, and, so far as we arc aware, tlie exact cause of Ike black rain of Berwickshire remains to this day a mystery. A similar shower fell at Montreal at the beginning of the present century, whilst the curious spectacle of a- snow-storm-with black Hakes was once witnessed at Uicken Betcrzell, in Geneva. Nor is red rain by any mean- uncommon. it- is generally caused by the- presence of 1 inv animaiculiu. or mineral dust, in the air through which the rain has fallen. As the remit- of the microscopical examination of a. “blond” shower that ONCK FKI.r. AT JUMSTOU, it- wais found thai the ruddy appearance was due to ivy berry seeds, whilst the presence of a- red earlli dust once produced a, red ■snowstorm in Candida, Germany. A huge tract of Arctic couim-y, “the crimson dill's' of Sir John Boss.” is also covered with a distinctive coating of red snow. Even the comparatively rare—in England --hailstorm can add its quota to Nature's curiosity shop. Most of us have heard of the extraordinary pains taken by Ihe Italian vineyard proprietors lo ward nil’ I, the local hailstorms, even to the extent of : bombarding the gathering clouds by meanof specially constructed cannon. Few, ; however, realise the terrific power of some ! of these foreign hailstorms, i In September, 1856. a huge strin of couni (rv near Florence was absolutely devastated