HISTORICAL RAINS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 171, 7 July 1876, Page 15

HISTORICAL RAINS.

A storm of red hail is stated by Humboldt to have occurred at Palermo. In Tuscany, March 14, 1813, there fell hail of an orange color. In March, 1808, a fall of over five feet of red snow occurred in Carniola, Germany. The ground had been previously covered with white, and the storm of colored snow was succeeded by another, the flakes of which were, as usual, of a pure and brilliant white, the two binds being perfectly distinct. A portion of the red snow melted in a vessel and the water evaporated left a fine rose-colored, earthy sediment at the bottom. * Snow, colored brick red, fell in Italy in 1816 and in the Tyrol p A black snow fell at Walpole, N.H., so intense in its color that Fa correspondent of the Boston ' Journal ' remarks concerning it : — " I send you some writing written with the snow as it fell, and with a clean pen." The different colors of many of these snow deposits may depend upon the same coloring matter under different conditions. Microscopic investigations in different parts of the world have revealed the cause of these dust storms and blood rains to be either portions of various minerals or shells of infusoria or parts of plants and insects carried into the atmosphere by the winds. Infusorial shells and aquatic plants of especial localities have been identified after having crossed the ocean and been deposited in dust storms, thus tracing the aerial currents. Ehrenberg found 320 different species of organisms in the dust of various showers; of these five were of marine origin. Humboldt treats very fully of the subject in his ' Ansicht der Natur ' and in his • Kosmos.' Maury's ' Physical Geography of the Sea ' has also some interesting facts on the same topic. °