noticed, as he was crossing the court of the College Louis-le-Grand, that the drops, on coming in contact with the ground, emitted sparks and tufts (aigrettes) of light, accompanied by a rustling and crackling noise; a smell of phosphorus having been immediately after perceptible. The phenomenon was seen three times. At the same hour a remarkable brightness was seen in the northern sky.
An officer of the Algerian army states, that during a violent storm on the 20th September, 1840, the drops of rain that fell on the beards and mustachios of the men were luminous. When the hair was wiped the appearance ceased; but was renewed the moment any fresh drops fell on it.
But of all these remarkable showers, the greatest alarm has been occasioned by red rain, or showers of blood as they have been ignorantly called. In the year 1608, considerable alarm was excited in the city of Aix and its vicinity by the appearance of large red drops upon the walls of the cemetery of the greater church, which is near the walls of the city, upon the walls of the city itself, and also upon the walls of villas, hamlets, and towns, for some miles round the city. The husbandmen are
said to have been so alarmed, that they left their labour in the fields and fled for safety into the neighbouring houses; and a report was set on foot, that the appearance was produced by demons or witches shedding the blood of innocent babes. M. Peiresc, thinking this story of a bloody shower to be scarcely reconcileable with the goodness and providence of God, accidentally discovered, as he thought, the true cause of the phenomenon. He had found, some months before, a chrysalis of remarkable size and form, which he had enclosed in a box; he thought no more of it, until hearing a buzz within the box, he opened it, and perceived that the chrysalis had been changed into a beautiful butterfly, which immediately flew away, leaving at the bottom of the box a red drop of the size of a shilling. As this happened about the time when the shower was supposed to have fallen, and when multitudes of those insects were observed fluttering through the air in every direction, he concluded that the drops in question were emitted by them when they alighted upon the walls. He, therefore, examined the drops again, and remarked that they were not upon the upper surfaces of stones and buildings,
as they would have been if a shower of blood had fallen from the sky, but rather in cavities and holes where insects might nestle. He also noticed that they were to be seen upon the walls of those houses only which were near the fields; and not upon the more elevated parts of them, but only up to the same moderate height at which butterflies were accustomed to flutter. This was, no doubt, the correct explanation of the phenomenon in question; for it is a curious and well-ascertained fact, that when insects are evolved from the pupa state, they always discharge some substance, which, in many butterflies, is of a red colour, resembling blood, while in several moths it is orange or whitish.
It appears, however, from the researches of M. Ehrenberg, a distinguished microscopic observer, that the appearances of blood which have at different times been observed in Arabia, Siberia, and other places, are not to be attributed to one, but to various causes. From his account, it appears that rivers have flowed suddenly with red or bloody water, without any previous rain of that colour having fallen; that lakes or stagnant-waters were suddenly or gradually coloured without
previous blood-rain; that dew, rain, snow, hail, and shot-stars, occasionally fall from the air red-coloured, as blood-dew, blood-rain, and clotted blood; and, lastly, that the atmosphere is occasionally loaded with red dust, by which the rain accidentally assumes the appearance of blood-rain, in consequence of which rivers and stagnant waters assume a red colour.
The blood-red colour sometimes exhibited by pools, was first satisfactorily explained at the close of the last century. Girod Chantran, observing the water of a pond to be of a brilliant red colour, examined it with the microscope, and found that the sanguine hue resulted from the presence of innumerable animalculæ, not visible to the naked eye. But, before this investigation, Linnæus and other naturalists had shown that red infusoria were capable of giving that colour to water which, in early times, and still, we fear, in remote districts, was supposed to forebode great calamities. In the year 1815 an instance of this superstitious dread occurred in the south of Prussia. A number of red, violet, or grass-green spots were observed in a lake near Lubotin, about the end of harvest. In winter the ice was coloured in the same manner at the surface,
while beneath it was colourless. The inhabitants, in great dismay, anticipated a variety of disasters from the appearance; but it fortunately happened that the celebrated chemist Klaproth, hearing of the circumstance, undertook an examination of the waters of the lake. He found them to contain an albuminous vegetable matter, with a particular colouring matter similar to indigo, produced, probably, by the decomposition of vegetables in harvest; while the change of colour from green to violet and red, he explained by the absorption of more or less oxygen. A few years ago the blood-red waters of a Siberian lake were carefully examined by M. Ehrenberg, and found to contain multitudes of infusoria, by the presence of which this remarkable appearance was accounted for. Thus it appears that both animals and vegetables are concerned in giving a peculiar tint to water. It has also been ascertained that red snow is chiefly occasioned by the presence of red animalculæ.
Showers of fish and frogs are by no means uncommon, especially in India. One of these showers, which fell about twenty miles south of Calcutta, is thus noticed by an observer:—“About two