Message #141256

[Dusk]

That, in Wilna, Lithuania, April 4, 1846, in a rainstorm, fell nut-sized masses of a substance that is described as both resinous and

p. 48

gelatinous. It was odorless until burned: then it spread a very pronounced sweetish odor. It is described as like gelatine, but much firmer: but, having been in water 24 hours, it swelled out, and looked altogether gelatinous—

It was grayish.

We are told that, in 1841 and 1846, a similar substance had fallen in Asia Minor.

In Notes and Queries, 8-6-190, it is said that, early in August, 1894, thousands of jellyfish, about the size of a shilling, had fallen at Bath, England. I think it is not acceptable that they were jellyfish: but it does look as if this time frog spawn did fall from the sky, and may have been translated by a whirlwind—because, at the same time, small frogs fell at Wigan, England.

Nature, 87-10:

That, June 24, 1911, at Eton, Bucks, England, the ground was found covered with masses of jelly, the size of peas, after a heavy rainfall. We are not told of nostoc, this time: it is said that the object contained numerous eggs of "some species of Chironomus, from which larvae soon emerged."

I incline, then, to think that the objects that fell at Bath were neither jellyfish nor masses of frog spawn, but something of a larval kind—

This is what had occurred at Bath, England, 23 years before.

London Times, April 24, 1871:

That, upon the 22nd of April, 1871, a storm of glutinous drops neither jellyfish nor masses of frog spawn, but something of a [line missing here in original text. Ed.] railroad station, at Bath. "Many soon developed into a wormlike chrysalis, about an inch in length." The account of this occurrence in the Zoologist, 2-6-2686, is more like the Eton-datum: of minute forms, said to have been infusoria; not forms about an inch in length.

Trans. Ent. Soc. of London, 1871-proc. xxii: