104 FOOTNOTES FROM 



witnesses, renders the supposition of its identity with 

 the manna of the Israelites still more plausible. Showers 

 of this lichen have sometimes fallen several inches thick, 

 having been torn from the spots where it grew, and 

 transported by violent gusts of wind. In 1829, during 

 the war between Persia and Russia, there was a great 

 famine in Oroomiah, south-west of the Caspian Sea. One 

 day, during a violent wind, the surface of the^country was 

 covered with a lichen, which fell from the sky in showers. 

 The sheep immediately attacked it, and devoured it 

 eagerly, which suggested to the inhabitants the idea of 

 reducing it to flour, and making bread of it, which was 

 found to be palatable and nourishing. The people 

 affirmed that they had never seen this lichen before or 

 after that time. During the siege of Herat, more re- 

 cently, the papers mentioned a hail of manna which fell 

 upon the city, and served as food for the inhabitants. 

 A rain of manna occurred so late as April 1846, in the 

 government of Wilna, and formed a layer upon the 

 ground three or four inches in thickness. It was of a 

 greyish-white colour, rather hard, irregular in form, 

 inodorous and insipid. Pallas, the Russian naturalist, 

 observed it on the arid mountains, and the calcareous 

 portions of the Great Desert of Tartary. Mr. Eversham 

 collected it in the steppes of the Kirghiz to the north of 

 the Caspian Sea. It has been seen on the Altai range, 

 in Anatolia, in South America, and recently in Algeria 

 by Dr. Guyon. It occurs in irregular-shaped fragments, 

 varying in size from a pin's-head to a pea or small nut ; 

 and when seen in its native sites, is apparently attached to 

 no matrix whatever, and has no fecula in its composition. 



