Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1894-04-02
FREAKISH SORT OF WINTER
OUT METEoRoLoGI-
CAL PHENoME MA.
1t Has Rained Angle Worms and Lana
SnaiIs-Simple Explanations Tor
Some Very Queer Things.

1t Has Rained Angle Worms and Land
Snails-Simple Explanations Tor
Some Very Queer Things.
THE winter of 1S9394 will go
on record as freak winter.
With the snow line 500 miles
g north of where it ordinarily
is during January, the entire winter
wheat region was bare. That i'm
portant crop was thus exposed to de-
struction by the always possible sud
den cold wave. Meanwhile, people all
over the country have been sending to
the Weather Bureau reports of out-of-
the-way meteorological phenomena
unusually varied and peculiar.
There have been showers of angle
worms Ill New York and showers of
land snails in Ohio. A boxful of the
latter, to furnish proof, was sent to
Washington by express. They were
about the size of pin heads. Instead
of falling from the sky, they must
have been brought out of the ground
by the wet. Worms and small toads
are fetched out of the earth under like
conditions, appearing in great num-
bers after storms, and thus give rise
to stories that they have rained down.
Spring showers of what used to be
taken for sulphur occur in Washington
every year. When the sky clears the
cutters are found choked with yellow
stuff. Under the microscope, how
ever, it is quickly seen to be vege-
table. 1t is merely the pollen of pine
/ L. ,loa
distant.
People in all parts of the United
States are constantly reporting such
freaks to the Weather Bureau, with de-
mands for explanations. Often the
puzzles thus propounded are too diff
cult for Uncle Sans professional
prophets to solve.
No fewer than twenty-one showers
of blood" have been recorded during
the present century in Europe and AL
geria. These phenomena excited
widespread CONSERVATION i'll ancient
and even comparatively recent times
They were regarded as dire portents
They are accounted for by very COM
monplace reasons. In 1910 shower
of this kind fell at the Hague, and
caused great excitement. A level
headed physician got little of the
crimson fluid and examined it under
microscope He found that it was
filled with small red animalcules,
which proved to be species of water
flea. Doubtless they were brought
from great distance by wind and de-
posted with the rain.
IN March, 1Ht3, the people of
Gerace, in Cal,,h-ia, saw terrific
cloud advancing from the sea. 1t
gradually changed from pale to fiery
red, shutting off the light of the sun.
The town, being enveloped in dark
ness, the inhabitants rushed to the
cathedral. supposing that the end of
the world was come. Meanwhile the
strange cloud covered the whole
heavens, and, amid peals of thunder
and flashes of lightning, red rain fell
in large drops, which were imagined
by the excited populace to be of blood.
Analysis afterward made of the fluid
showed that its coloring matter was a
dust of an earthly taste. Probably
this dust was elected by an active vol
cano, carried great distance by the
wind, and precipitated by the rain.
There was rain of ink in the city
of Montreal on November 9th, 1919.
Some of the liquid, collected and for
warded to New York for analysis, was
discovered to owe its hue entirely tC
SCOT. The explanation of it was that
there had previously been immense
forest fires south of the Ohio River
the season being remarkably dry, ant
the sooty particles from the conf1agra
, tion had been conveyed by strong
winds northward, so as to mingle will
the rain when it fell.
! In 1924, in district of Persia,
7 there was an abundant shower of nu
tritious substance strange to the peo
pie. Cattle and sheep devoured j
greedily, and bread was made from it
. 1t proved to be kind of lichen
: Large quantities of vegetable materia
j., are always floating in the air. Astron
. omers have frequently mistaken sucl
:, organic bodies for meteorites rs they
o passed across the field of the telescope
), They were finally discovered to b.
?. mostly the feathered seeds of plant
carried by the breeze.
. Small marine fishes are sometime
:. found scatterad about on dry land ia
4 from sea. They are transported b,
p storms, which at first take the form o
waterspouts, sucking up the finn,
n creatures, together with portion o
v their native element, and carrying
them shoreward. Showers of frog
n and the larvae of aquatic insects ar
|. produced in a similar fashion by tor
r, nadoes. The "cyclone twister" will
n sometimes suck pond dry in passing
3 Tornadoes are the most extraordin
ary and among the most destructive o
?. atmospheric phenomena. 1t has beel
" reckoned thai, on an average, each o
v them costs one life. That which strucl
h Louisville in 1890 wiped out SO, $50,
.e 900 worth of property and 1876 lives
II The funnel shaped cloud which doe
le the damages runs at speed OF fror
&c forty to eighty miles an hour.