complete intermission on the sacred day of rest. Nutritious substances
have fallen from the atmosphere in some countries; such, for example, was
that which fell a few years ago in Persia, and was examined by Thenard. It
proved to be a nutritious substance referable to a vegetable origin. We
have before us, at the moment of writing these pages, a small work,
printed at Naples in 1793, the author of which is Gaetano Maria La Pira;
it is entitled, "Memoria sulla pioggia della Manna," &c.: and describes a
shower of manna which fell in Sicily, in the month of September, 1792. The
author, a professor of chemistry, at Naples, gives an interesting account
of the circumstances under which it was found, together with a variety of
interesting particulars, some of which we shall select, and we do so to
prove that a similar substance may have an _aerial_ origin, though carried
up in the first instance, it may be, by the process of evaporation;--this
would considerably modify the product. On the 26th September, 1792, a fall
of manna took place at a district in Sicily, called _Fiume grande_; this
singular shower lasted, it is stated, for about an hour and a half. It
commenced at _twenty-two o'clock_, according to Italian time, or about
five o'clock in the afternoon: the space covered with this manna seems to
have been considerable. A _second_ shower covered a space of thirty-eight
paces in length, by fourteen in breadth. This second shower of manna,
which took place on the following day, was not confined to the _Fiume
grande_, but seems to have fallen in still greater abundance in another
place, called _Santa Barbara_, at a considerable distance: it covered a
space of two hundred and fifty paces in length, by fourteen paces in
breadth. An individual, named Guiseppe Giarrusso, informed Sig. G.M. La
Pira, that about half-past eight o'clock, A.M., he witnessed this shower
of manna, and described it as composed of extremely minute drops, which,
as soon as they fell, congealed into a white concrete substance; and the
quantity was such, that the whole surface of the ground was covered, and
presented the appearance of snow: the depth, in all cases, seems to have