FUNGI. 297 



Romulus, as related by Livy, and after that passes to 

 subsequent periods. In the year 1222 a blood-rain 

 fell at Rome for one day and night. In 1623 there 

 was another blood-rain at Strasburg, which happened 

 on the 1 2th of August, between the hours of four 

 and five in the afternoon. In 1755, on the 14th of 

 October, at eight o'clock in the morning, a warm 

 sirocco wind was blowing at Locarno, near Lago 

 Maggiore, At ten o'clock the air was filled with a 

 red mist, and at four o'clock p.m. there was a blood- 

 red rain, which left a reddish deposit, equal to one- 

 ninth of its mass. There fell nine inches of this rain 

 in one night. About forty square German leagues 

 were covered with this bloody rain, which also ex- 

 tended on the north side of the Alps into Suabia, 

 and nine feet of reddish snow fell upon the Alps. 

 Supposing that the deposit averaged but two lines 

 in depth, there would be for each square English 

 mile an amount equal to 2700 cubic feet. But actual 

 measurement gave for the depth, in some places, 

 about one inch. 



Mention is also made that Humboldt, when in 

 Paramo, on the way from Bogota to Popayan, at a 

 height of 14,700 feet, observed a red hail, which fact 

 was published by him in 1825.^ 



And yet no one can determine what the colouring 

 matter was in each of these instances. Possibly in 

 some of them it was simply the rust-coloured dust, 

 which gives the colour to some of the " dust showers " 

 which have from time to time been recorded. This 



' Summai7 of Ehrenberg's paper on "Blood Rain," in Sillimaii^s 

 Journal, 185 1, p. 372. 



