% gttst-fall m 0f 
By ALFRED C. FRYER, Pii.D., F.I.C., F.C.S. 
N March 11, 1901, rain fell in Italy thickly charged 
with sand, and three days later the same dust- cloud 
reached parts of England and Scotland and the Danish 
Islands. The whole phenomenon has been carefully 
studied by Professors Hellmann and Meinardus in their 
valuable monograph entitled, Der grosse Staubfall von 
9 bis 12 Marz 1901.^ 
A somewhat similar dust-fall \dsited the south-west of 
England and South Wales in January, 1902, and Dr. H. R. 
Mill has written an able paper upon this subject in the 
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society? 
The conclusion which seems to be inevitable,” says Dr. 
Mill, “ is that on January 22 the atmosphere over the west 
of Europe consisted of air which had come from the African 
deserts carrying with it a quantity of fine dust, which was 
brought down in perceptible quantities wherever rain 
happened to fall. The extreme sharpness of the boundary 
line where the dust-fall was observed seems to indicate a 
sharply defined dust-cloud in the air. The question 
whether the identity of desert air may be determined other- 
1 Ahhandlungeri des koniglich preussischen meteorlogischen Instituts, 
Bd. ii., No. 1. 
2 See vol. xxviii., No. 124, p. 247. 
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