A FALL OF MANNA.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 118, 21 May 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

A FALL OF MANNA.

A fall of manna at Vrijheid, Natal is recorded by the Morning Post. One

morning an area of 700 yards by 60 feet was found covered with a substance like a snowdrift. Mr. T. Botha, a cousin of the late General Botha, on whose farm the phenomenon occurred, said the substance corresponded in every respect with that described in Exodus 16: “And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground . . . And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna; and it was like coriander seed, white; and the ste of it was like wafers made with honey.” The accuracy of the description was startling. In appearance the substance found on Mr. Botha’s farm resembled small “pop corn,” and it tasted “like wafers made with honey.” “It is known,” says the '•orrespondent of fhc Morning Post, “that a type of manna exudes fron certain trees ot the eucalyptus family, but in the present instance the substance appeared on a wide stretch of barren veld without a tree anywhere in the vicinity. The traditional theory has been that the manna recorded in •he Bible was to be identified with the taniarix mannifera, a species of tamarisk shrub which exudes a sugary secre tion called manna. But an expedition, suit out by the Hebrew University in .Jerusalem to Central Sinai in 1927. de termined that the manna is an excretion of insects which feed on the tamarisk. This produces clear, syrup-like drops, which, falling to the ground, form whitish grains from the size of a pin’s head to that of a pea.”