254 0?i the Fall of Stones froTh, the Clouds ^ 



according to Muschenbroeck, fell in Ireland in 1695. As che- 

 mistry shows that mucilage closely approaches to the nature of 

 sugar and honey, we ouglit to reier to these same pha-nomena 

 the honey dews, as they are called, which it is resv difficult to 

 acknowledge as an excretion of plant;^, as some htae asserted. 

 Silberschlag collected on papev is matter -which was left by 

 one of these falls of dew, nn ] he iound it to 'he a thick and vis- 

 cous licpjid. One of these showers of d'^', loCk place at Ulm 

 Ro recently as 1802, and in so much abv;iuiance that evtry thing 

 exposed to it, as well the surface o' .' ij;.ia.nt waiers aiid foun- 

 tains, was covered with a coating of it. 



It may perhaps be presumed that the matter which produces 

 globes of hre falls in the form uf rain on some occasions, and in 

 the same way that the aerolites themselves are precipitated in 

 very minute divisions, in showers of suljjhur, sand, and those 

 falsely called showers of blood *. 



As to showers of fire and brimstone f , a vegetable origin has 

 been assigned to them, although facts do not warrant this ex- 

 planation. Thus the shower of brimstone which fell at Copen- 

 hagen in 1646, fell at the same time with a strong rain, while 

 the air was infected with a smell of sulphur, and the sulphur col- 

 lected by VVormius and some other men of science had absolutely 

 the same properties with that which is generally extracted from 

 minerals. A shower of the same kind also took place at Copen- 

 hagen in 1665, and that after a very violent storm. The matter 

 which it brought with it, when thrown into the fire, emitted a 

 strong smell of sulphur, and with the spirit of turpentine it formed 

 a kind of balsam of sulphur. Lastly, in I SOI, the rain which 

 foil at Rastadt was so sulphurous that it was used to prepare 

 matches with. In general the sulistaiice mixed with these 

 showers resembles much more the balsam of sulphur than sulphur 

 itself: this vras observed at Chatillon sur Seine, where the rain 

 left a very fetid, thick, and viscous residue J, and finally in Ire- 

 land in 1695, where the matter deposited presented a deep yel- 

 low colour, with a disagreeable smell and a gluey consistence §. 

 This matter had moreover the property of being deliquescent in 

 the air, and of drying by the action of caloric. Similar showers 

 have also fallen in the duchy of Mansfield in 1658, and at 

 Brunswick in 1 72 1. 



It is equally absurd to consider the mineral showers as of 



* See book ii. chap. 5C, of Pliny's Histury of the World. Memoirs of 

 tlie Academy of Inscriptioiis for 1717. Leuiain's Antiquities of Orleans. 



t Moses, Spaniienbcrii, OI.ius VVormius, yiegesbeck, and after them 

 Jluschenbroeck, have spoken of these showers of sulphur. See tome ii. 

 tf Muschcnbrocck's Elements of Physics. 



X Hist. Nat. de I'Air, by Richard, tome v. 



§ iMusshenbrot«k and Izarn. animal 



