Huntsville gazette., 1885-06-27

SlOnS Lne TINT mas been reQ, gray or
purple. One of the most remarkable
'.blue days. on record was noticed a
few years ago in South America, and
in some towns, where the houses were
pure white, they gave an extremely
rich blue reflection of many different
| shades. The great extent of these
periods of darkness is difficult to ex-
plain. Thus the one of 1888 not only
spread over Europe, but the greater
part of Northern Africa. According
Lamanon, it spread over the country
with considerable rapidity. 1t was
noticed first at Copenhagen on May
oath; at La Rochelle June 9th, going
rapidly south, reaching Rome ten days
later, and causing a reign of terror
among the ignorant poor. 1t reached
Geneva on the 18th, Paris the follow
ing day, and by the last of the month
had been noticed at Moscow, Syria
and even in America. That it was
not low-lying fog was evident
from the fact that travellers
on the highest mountains, where
the phenomenon was noticed. could
not see above it. Curiously enough,
| wind or rain did not seem to affect it, for
during its existence there were twenty
three days of heavy rain, besides violent
wind-storms that had. however, no
| effect upon it, This dry mist, as it was
called for want of better name, was
of bright red hue, and in many local
tiles signified in the minds of the people
coming war A very similar phe-
nOmenOn has been observed in later
times. Thus, in 1881, Africa, Europe
and parts of America were visited by a
mist that gave to all objects an emerald
hue, or again an azure blue. A re-
markable feature of this was that the
fog, if it could be called by that name,
became luminous at times, so that in
many localities, although lights had to
be used during the day time, at night
the mist gave out light quite sufficient
to read by, and so bright was the light
that fine print was read with ease at
midnight.
The cause of these mists is still
mystery. The scientist Catte consid-
cred that they were due to metal en-
| anations united with electricity, and to
| the indirect result of earthquakes.
| Valtman, German writer, considered
the enormous peat fires of Westphalia
as the prime cause of the mist in that
part of Europe, and the dark days OF
Europe have often been laid to prairie
and forest fires. Benjamin Franklin
proposed a novel theory that had many
adherents. 1t was that an enormous
meteoric globe had struck the atmos-
phere of the earth and exploded, the
smoke and small atoms gradually set
Ting down and so obscuring the sun
and moon. 1t has been found that vast
amounts of organic and inorganic
matter are always floating about in
space, and it has been assumed that
at times great bodies of dust are swept
into the air-quite enough, in fact,
to occasion a series of dark
days under the locality where the
dust was held suspended in the
air. What are known as ''red snow,"
''blood rains" and other phenomena in
Europe are merely the result of the
precipitation of this matter to the
ground. They were even more dread
ed in early times than the dark days,
and the people of the time fully be-
lieved that blood had fallen from the
sky. A blood rain, according to Pliny,
fell in Constantinople in'the year $50.
At Brixan there was a similar fall in
869. at Bagdad in 929, at Viterbo in
1919, in Bohemia in 1419, in West
phalia in 1543, at Emden in 1866, at
Strasburg in 1923, at Brussels in 1910,
and at Venice in 1857. Other famous
blood rains occurred at Genoa in 1744;
at Cleves, 1868; Picardy, 1865; Italy,
1903, and at Glessen in 1921. In the
records of all these rains there are ac-
counts of the terror of the people, who
firmly believed that some terrible visi-
| tation was about to occur, and, indeed,
they were not agreeable to the eve.
The snow that was pure white in the
evening would, in the following morn
ing, have changed to rich blood-red,
SO that the entire country looked as
though it had coating of blood. In
the slang of to-day the world was
''painted red.' The cause of the Pc
culiar color was explained by the fact
| that tons of dust had fallen, and the
red hue was the natural tint of perox-
ide of iron. Nor was the color of
| these rains confined to red. In 1916 a
yellow Tall leIl LII TTduCc, anu SO
| alarmed all the inhabitants that it is
said that wild animals took to the
towns, and utterly lost their fear Of
man. This rain is said to have origin
ated in South America, and Ehrenberg
estimated that hundreds of tons of or
ganic matter was deposited about the
surrounding country. This must have
crossed the Atlantic in some extremely
high current. The yellow pollen Of
plants at times causes what is known
as yellow fog, and that this coloring
agent is carried along through the air
great distances the writer can testify,
as in 1883 the rocks on certain parts OF
the Maine coast appeared covered one
morning with yellow powder that re-
sembled sulphur, and not few of the
fishermen thought it was, but the mi
croscope showed it to be pollen, and
investigation proved that it must have
blown several hundreds of miles.-Csn-
ci,aaaGti Enquirer.
The White House.
The White House covers about one.