The Irish standard., 1894-07-14
STRANGE SHOWERS.
Blood, Spiders and Other Queer Things
Rained Down from Heaven.

Blood, Spiders and Other Queer Things
Rained Down from Heaven.
The meteorological phenomenon that
dates from 1.-THE night of the big wind"
and the disastrous downpour that
drenched suffering humanity on that
occasion is surpassed by the record of
other transforms.
The sky has shed tempests of blood,
and more than once this phenomenon
has produced CONSERVATION among
men whose startled eyes beheld what
they deemed was the visible sign of
their impending destruction. Blood"
rain is caused by the presence of inf
nitely little plants, animalcules or
minerals in the globnles. In one in
stance Of a shower that fell at Bristol
and in the Bristol channel the ana
lytical examination showed that the
red color was due to ivy-berry seeds
In medieval times blood rain was
prodigy; in the east it was connected
with the belief that man was produced
from blood that fell from heaven. 1t
was portent as remarka BILE as the
"bloody host" which, while it -four
ished, probably caused the death of
more Jews in this country than any
other individual superstition directed
against that people. 1t is described as
ian appearance of blood flowing from
bread when bitten but it manifested
itself in other articles of food besides
bread and sometimes seemed to drop
from the air. 1t will be remembered
by historical readers that while Alex
ander was besieging Tyre this prodigy
and the other one of "blood rain oc-
Cured in one day, much to the con-
sternation of the soldiers.
More curious than blood rain in re-
gard to the mere color was the red, violet
and grass-green shower which fell in
the south of France many years ago
and made a patchwork of the big lake,
wherein it's manifestation was the
more noticeable. This shower, again,
was caused by untold myriads of
differently colored animalcules. Spider
showers are another curiosity worthy
of mention in this connection: The
spiders are gossamers; and all those
who have read Whites Natural His
tory of Selborne will call to mind his
description Of the showers he observed.
One of these, he tells us, continued
for nearly whole day and the gossa-
mers descended from surprising
height, for when one gentleman as
cended hill near at hand some three
hundred feet high he found that the
spiders were dropping from a region in
the atmosphere that was still beyond
the reach of his gaze. DIR. Martin
Lister named this aerial spider ''the
bird,' from the facility with which it
can traverse the air; and upon one oc-
oasion when he observed shower of
them at York he assembled to the top of
that altitude he was still below their
level--that they were descending from
some region above that standpoint.
Darwin, another observer of spider
showers, describes one he saw in 1882,
when on board the Beagle, at the
mouth of the La Plata river, when the
vessel was some sixty miles from land;
and he seems to have been the first to
notice that each parachute of gossamer
carried a spider aeronaut, for he not
only observed them arrive on board the
ship but he also saw them reproduce a
new parachute, and on this frail bark
launch forth again ION the bosom of
the palpitating air" These gossamer
showers are great mysteries and once
seen cannot very readily be forgotten,
for the air on these occasions becomes
literally crowded. with the tiny para
chutes mentioned, which are composed
of a few threads of almost invisible
gossamer, with a small but lively
spider attached. This may be regarded
as the most beautiful thing in strange