Strange Phenomenon

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Oct 10, 1865

Strange Phenomenon.

From the Chicago Tribune of the 27th ult., we take the following item. It is from the correspondence of the N. Y. Tribune.

HOT WEATHER IN ALGERIA—A SIROCCO UNDER WHICH HOUSES BURST THEIR WALLS AND FORESTS ARE LIT UP IN FLAMES.

The exceptionally hot weather which we have had for the last week makes us read with additional interest the accounts of a scorching sirocco in Algeria, followed by devastating fires. A letter from Algeria says: "Almost all summer we have been congratulating ourselves on the coolness of the season, and when letters from France complained of the heat, we recommended our friends to come to Algeria for fresh air. But we reckoned without our host—the sirocco; and now that has come with a vengeance. It was prefaced by a tremendous thunder-storm, which broke the windows, and roused the population from their beds. An hour later, all was calm; but the old colonists knew what was coming, and sure enough the next day the sky assumed that peculiar violet color which so astonishes artists when they venture to pass a summer on the other side of Mt. Atlas. A few burning gusts of air, feeling and smelling like that issuing from an oven when the baker opens it to take out the bread, served as an advance guard of the enemy. The temperature rose rapidly. On Friday, the thermometer at Duchassaing's Club, with a northern exposure, marked forty-five centigrade in the shade. At El Biar, at the same time, another thermometer, also in the shade, but exposed to the full blast of the sirocco, went up to 51½. The most robust man could not have crossed the sunny side of Government-place without danger. The ground burned the feet through the shoe-leather; the hand that touched any object whatever—a cane or a coat-sleeve—smarted with pain; the nostrils contracted, and the eyes closed under the influence of the torrid breath of the simoon. In many houses, furniture fell to pieces, tapestry dropped suddenly from the bursting walls, and ceiling crumbled to pieces, and descended upon the heads of the inmates like flakes of burning snow. Never, within the memory of man, had such things been seen in Algiers. At night a frightful spectacle was seen. From Guyotville to Cape Matifou, along an extent of twelve leagues of coast, a lurid glow suddenly appeared, became rapidly more and more intense, and it soon became apparent that the whole country was on fire. Entire mountains burst forth in flame like a volcano, and burning forests lit up the waters of the harbor, and made the stars look pale. It was a sublime horror. There are rumors of loss of life, and the damage done to property is necessarily enormous. Many farms, barns, and stacks, have been entirely destroyed."