22 
«TONBS FALLING FROM THE AIR^ 
Showers of 
oily matter. 
Of mucilage: 
and of honej ( 
Showers of 
■nlphur. 
nr. 
Observations on the fall of Stones from the Air, or Aerolites^ 
By M. Marcel de Serres. 
f 
Concluded from p. 250, Vol. XXXF. 
TTT appears in short, that the difference observed between the 
showers of fire, and those of an oily matter which have been 
seen a great number of times, is only founded on the circum- 
stance, that in the former this matter is in a state of phospho- 
rescence, which has not taken place in the others. After these 
singular showers we may place those which are of a mucila- 
ginous nature, and whidh by the report of Muschenbroek fell in 
Ireland in 1695. As chemistry teaches us that mucilage 
approaches to the nature of sugar or honey, we must class 
these along with the showers of honey, which cannot readily 
be admitted as the excretions of plants, as some philosophers 
have pretended. Silbershlag collected some of the matter 
which had been left by one of these showers, and saw that 
the paper on which it had fallen was covered with a viscid and 
thick liquor*. One of these dews very lately fell at Ulm, ant^ 
is mentioned by all the Journalists, and it was so abundant that 
all the bodies which had been exposed to it were covered with 
a thick viscid matter, which was also found covering the surface 
of stagnant waters and springs. 
It might perhaps be presumed, that the matter which 
produces the globes of fire falls in the form of a shower under 
certain circumstances, and in the same manner as the matter of 
the aerolites is precipitatcdin a very divided state in showers of 
sulphur, of sand, and those which have been erroneously called 
showers of bloodf. 
• In his work already referred to. 
t See Pliny’s Histor. II. 56 . — Mem. Acad, dcs Inscriptions Annce 
1717— Lemair, Autiquites d’Orleaus. 
The 
