“A small cloud of rectangular form seemed to have been the origin of all this terrible noise; the broader side of which was towards the west. It appeared to be motionless throughout the phenomenon; vapours being emitted after each discharge. The cloud was very high in the air. The inhabitants of two villages, situated a league asunder, perceived it as if exactly suspended above their heads. A hissing noise, similar to a stone hurled from a sling, was heard wherever it hovered; and at the same time, numerous solid bodies fell, which being collected, proved to be meteoric stones.
“When tested, they were found to contain sulphur, iron in the metallic state, magnesia and nickel; which, in the mineral kingdom have no analogy.”
Monsieur Biot also stated that the direction of the meteor was precisely that of the magnetic meridian; an important remark, as a guide for future observations. The great point gained in this inquiry, is that the highest order of science, agreeing with the earliest professors, adopts what by progressive science was denied.
The fact of showers of stones being established, all that remains to be proved is their origin. Some still assert that they fall from the moon; others attribute them to volcanos. Neither fact can be proved; and the descent of aërolites at present remains a mystery.
One phenomenon often succeeds another; and shortly after the fall of stones at Aigle, a shower of peas took place in Spain, and the kingdom of Leon. This last phenomenon occurred in the month of May of the same year; and, in Spain, fifteen quintals of an unknown seed were collected after a violent storm; being round in form, white in colour, less than peas in size, and resembling no known seed. They seemed, however, to belong to the leguminous family of plants. Cavanilla, the botanist, analized them without being able to determine their class. These productions, at least, could neither be supposed to come from the moon, nor to have a volcanic origin. Some of the seeds were sown in the Botanic Garden of Madrid, but without result. This is, however, by no means a solitary instance of a miraculous shower.
Pliny, Livy, Solinus, and Julius Obsequius have recorded showers of blood, milk, wool, money, and pieces of flesh! Those authors make frequent mention of such occurrences; dupes, no doubt, to the traditions of the ancients. Lamothe Levayer, however, surpasses them all, and mentions the fall of a man from the sky. Unless from a balloon, or the scaffolding of some lofty building, we must be permitted to doubt; though he may, perhaps, allude to some individual carried up by the force of a whirlwind; for in the autumn of 1812, on the road to Genoa, a mule was raised up by the wind, sustained during thirty seconds in the air, then disappeared in a ravine, where it probably perished.
If we deny the existence of showers of blood, we must admit that there have been phenomena such as to justify impostors in propagating such delusions. During the Siege of Genoa, in 1774, there fell a red rain upon the suburb of San Pietro d’Arena, which caused much consternation among the inhabitants; the wind having carried up a quantity of red earth, which proved the cause of general alarm. A similar phenomenon took place, near Hermanstadt, in Transylvania.
“On the 17th of May, 1810,” says a German journal, “there was a rain of blood which lasted a quarter of an hour, accompanied by a violent storm, and gusts of wind towards the south-west. Being collected on the spot by a physician, and submitted to the chemical tests of sulphurated nitrous, muriatic acid, acetate of lead, lime water, mercury, and saponaceous spirit, it exhibited neither precipitation, nor loss of colour. Tested with a solution of alum and fixed alkali, the precipitate induced a belief that the colouring matter of this strange rain pertained to the vegetable kingdom.
To elucidate the mystery of the rain at Hermanstadt, it sufficed to inquire in what point was the wind. For on examining the localities in the southwesterly direction, the hills proved to be clothed with fir, in bloom, and the rain of blood was instantly explained. For in the North of Europe rains of a reddish yellow, impregnated with the bloom of the fir, constantly occur.
In 1608, the walls of Aix in Provence were covered with red spots, which the people conceived to be blood. But Peiresc, a man of profound science, undeceived them by proving them to be the spots left by a species of butterfly on emerging from its crysalis; the number having been immense that year at Aix.