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_ depth, there would be for each square English mile, an amount 
Ehrenberg favors the view of the atmospheric origin of these 
_ showers, and speaks of their relation to the fall of aerolites._ 
378 « On Infusoria in Dust-showers and Blood-rain. 
Polygastric species and 20 Phytolitharia are common to the At- 
lantic showers and the Tyrolese snows. This uniformity of char- 
acter over regions so widely separate, yet in nearly a common lat- 
itude or zone, and in so many distinct examples through a num- 
ber of years, is most surprising. 
VII. Dust which fell in Italy in 1803, and in Calabria in 
1813.—The former of these showers is represented as coming 
from the southeast. It afforded 49 species, and that of Calabria 
64. Out of the 49, 39 have been observed in the more recent 
showers; and out of the 64, 51 are like the more recent. These 
showers, although 10 years apart, have 28 species in common, or 
about one-fourth. In both nearly all the species are of fresh-wa- 
ter or continental origin. In both, as in other showers, the most 
abundant species are H'unotia amphiorys, Gallionella granulata, 
. crenata, G. distans, G. procera, Lithodontia, Lithostylidia. 
In both, also, there are four South American forms ; Coscinodiscus 
flavicans from Peru and St. Domingo, Navicu/a undosa from Suri- 
nam, Stauroneis linearis from Chili and North America, Synedra 
Entomon from Chili. The last occurs also in Africa and Asia. 
There are no characteristic African species. 
Ehrenberg next mentions facts of a similar kind of earlier date. 
Humboldt when in Paramo, on the way from Bogota to Popayan, 
at a height of 2300 toises (14,700 feet), observed a red hail, a 
fact published by him in the Annales de Chimie for 1825. ‘The 
height of the place gives peculiar interest to the observation. — 
In 1755, on the 14th of October, at 8 o’clock in the morning, . 
a warm Sirocco wind was blowing at Locarno near Lago Maggi- 
ore. At 10 o’clock the air was filled with a red mist, and at 4 
o'clock p. m. there was a blood-red rain, which left a reddish de- 
posit, equal to one-ninth of its mass. There fell nine inches of this 
rain in one night. About 40 square German leagues were cover- 
ed with this bloody rain, which also extended 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 
~ 
equal to 2700 cubic feet. But actual measurement gave [or the 
depth in some places about one inch (or jth of 9 inches). 
In 1623 there was another blood-rain at Strasburg. It hap- 
pened on the 12th of August, between the hours of 4and 5in 
the afternoon. In the year 1222 a similar rain fell at Rome for 
one day and night. Many other like facts are cited. 
’ which fell between 1790 and 1819, amounted to not less an 
~ 600 hundred Ly 
sd weight: while for the single dust-shower of 
the material that fell was full 7200 hundred Vv 
a 
