The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1901-03-23
The Colored Rain in Europe.
From the New York Sun.

The colored rain that fell few days ago
in various parts of Germany, the same phe-
nomenon having been observed days earlier
in Italy, is, of course, ascribed by scientific
men to the presence of dust in the air
whose particles, commingling with the rain
drops, destroyed their limpidity This
dust may have been carried for great dis
tances. 1t is thought, for example, that
the colored rain in southern Italy may be
due to dust blown across the Mediterranean
from the Sahara; and some of the scientific
men of Hamburg believe that the phenom
enon observed in various parts of Germany
may be due to a volcanic eruption in Ice
land The muddy rains that are some
times observed have often been attributed
to the diffusion of volcanic ashes through
the atmosphere, carried perhaps many hun
dreds of miles from the place of the erup
ton.
Perhaps we do not commonly appreciate
what an active agent the wind Is in the re-
moval of matter from one place to another
unless this activity takes the form of
hurricane or tornado. Several years ago
considerable shower of barley fell from the
heavens in district of southern Spain.
The source whence the barley came was
mystery till it was learned, little later,
that whirlwind in Morocco had swept
clean number of threshing floors where
the farmers with their fails were separating
the grain from the straw. This was pro-
badly the solution of the phenomenon OBJ
served in Spain. The grain had been car
ried across the Mediterranean from Africa
to Europe.
1t is we'll known now that the wind as
carrier of matter plays an important part,
in the course of ages, in determining the
topographic aspects of the earth surface,
and thus helps to distribute the industrial
features of life. A great deal of the dust
of the Sahara has helped to make the fine
soil that produces two crops year on the
banks of the Nile The vast accumula-
lions of loess, among the most fertile of the
soils in China, which in some places are as
much as 1000 feet thick, are deposits of
dust blown southwark from the rainless
regions i'll the heart of the continent This
has been proven by the fact that the or
ganic remains found in them are never
marine and are very rarely even of fresh
water origin. They consist almost entire
ly of land shells, with now and then the
bones of some land animal.
A man in London who deals in minerals
and other material illustrating natural his
tory advertises dust from famous volcanoes,
some of it collected at places far from its
place of origin, whence it was carried by
the wind He has dust from Cotopaxi
that fell at Quito, after journey through
the air of thirty -four miles; dust from Co
topaxi that landed on the slopes of Chin
borazo, sixty-four miles away; dust from
St. Lucis that fell on the deck of a ship off
Barbados; dust from volcanic strata sew
eral inches in thickness that are far from
any existing volcano. The various kinds
of dust that have been carried aloft and
borne on the wings of the winds for thous
ands of miles have been carefully examin
ed, and the finest particles have been found
to weigh less than one twenty FIVE -thous-
andth part of grain. Whenever the at
mosphere holds a sufficiently large quantity
of this powdery dust it may have the effect
to tinge the sunsets or color the water that
passes through it.