a 
EHRENBERG ON METEORIC ASHES IN BARBADOES. 19 
similarity to the fauna of the transition period, and strengthen the 
view that this is a formation peculiar to the chain of the Alps and 
Carpathians. 
The connection of the beds on the north and south sides of the 
Alps is much strengthened by these researches, as many species have 
recently been found at Aussee identical with those of St. Cassian and. 
Bleiberg. There is indeed a closer resemblance between these places 
and Aussee than between them and Hallstatt, nay even than between 
Aussee and Hallstatt, which lie so near each other. Thus the most 
common species in Aussee, 4. Johannis Austrie and A. Gaytani, 
have never been found in Hallstatt, whilst the species common to 
both localities, as O. alveolare, A. tornatus, show many variations. 
(J. N.] 
On Organic Substances, recognizable by the microscope, found 
in the Meteoric Ashes which fell on the 1st of May 1812 in the 
Island of Barsavors, and changed the day into night. By 
Professor EHRENBERG. 
[Monatsbericht der K. P. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1847, p. 152.] 
Tuer mixture of organic matter and of very minute but still entire 
and distinctly recognizable organic beings in deposits of meteoric and 
volcanic dust has already, by various communications made by me to 
the Academy, been shown to be of extensive occurrence, and is evi- 
dently a matter of great and varied scientific interest. The well- 
known shower of dust in Barbadoes, which in 1812 occurred simul- 
taneously with the violent eruption of the volcano on the island of 
St. Vincent, and shortly after the terrible earthquake of Caraccas, is 
one of the most remarkable of volcanic phenomena, and every new 
fact connected with an event so extraordinary and so opposed to the 
common order of nature seems well-deserving of attention. In order 
to appreciate the new observations, it will be necessary to give a 
short summary of the circumstances in which this shower of dust 
took place*. 
On the evening of the 30th of April 1812, a noise so like a violent 
discharge of artillery was heard for some time in the island of Bar- 
badoes, that the garrison of Fort St. Anne remained all night under 
arms. On the morning of the Ist of May the eastern horizon of the 
ocean was clear and with a distinct outline, but immediately above it 
there appeared a black cloud, which soon covered the remaining part 
of the sky, and spread over that part of the sky where the day was 
beginning to break. The darkness was soon so great, that in a room 
it was impossible to distinguish where the windows were, and several 
persons in the open air could not discern either the trees close at 
* The occurrences in Barbadoes were first noticed in the ‘ Edinburgh Monthly 
Magazine,’ from which the notice in the ‘ Annales de Chimie et de Physique,’ 
1818, t. ix. p. 216, was taken. The first account of the events in Barbadoes is 
found in the ‘ New England Journal of Medicine,’ vol. ii. No. 1, Jan. 1813, whence 
it is copied into the ‘ Trans. of New York Philos. Soc.’ 1815, vol. i. p. 318. 
C2 
