David Wallechinsky - The Book of Lists

In the mid-nineteenth century a theory developed that a vast continent once occupied much of what is now the Indian Ocean. The name Lemuria was created by British zoologist P.L. Sclater in honour of the lemur family of animals, which has a somewhat unusual range of distribution in Africa, southern India and Malaysia. Other scientists suggested that Lemuria was the cradle of the human race; thus it must have been the site of the Garden of Eden.

General Charles ‘Chinese’ Gordon supported the theory that Africa and India used to be part of one massive continent. While on a survey expedition for the British government in the Indian Ocean, he came upon Praslin Island in the Seychelles group. So enchanted was he by this island, and by its Vallée de Mai in particular, that he became convinced that this was the location of the original Garden of Eden. The clincher for Gordon was the existence on Praslin of the coco-de-mer, a rare and exotic tree, which is native to only one other island of the Seychelles and which Gordon concluded was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

In his book The Sky People , Brinsley Le Poer Trench argues that not only Adam and Eve but Noah lived on Mars. He states that the biblical description of a river watering the garden and then parting into four heads is inconsistent with nature. Only canals can be made to flow that way, and Mars, supposedly, had canals. So the Garden of Eden was created on Mars as an experiment by Space People. Eventually the north polar ice cap on Mars melted, and the descendants of Adam and Eve were forced to take refuge on Earth.

In 1886 the Rev. D.O. Van Slyke published a small pamphlet that expounded his belief that Eden was the area stretching from the Allegheny Mountains to the Rocky Mountains and that the Garden of Eden was located on the east bank of the Mississippi River between La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Winona, Minnesota. When the Deluge began, Noah was living in present-day Wisconsin, and the flood carried his ark eastward until it landed on Mt Ararat.

While travelling through Davies County, Missouri, Mormon church founder Joseph Smith found a stone slab that he declared was an altar that Adam built shortly after being driven from the Garden of Eden. Declaring, ‘This is the valley of God in which Adam blessed his children’, Smith made plans to build a city called Adam-ondi-Ahram at the site. The Garden of Eden itself, Smith determined, was located 40 miles south, near the modern-day city of Independence.

The sun did rise in New England on May 19, 1780, but by midday the sky had turned so dark that it was almost impossible to read or conduct business, and lunch had to be served by candlelight. The phenomenon was noted as far north as Portland, Maine, and as far south as northern New Jersey. General George Washington made mention of the spectacle in his diary. At Hartford, Connecticut, there was great fear that the Day of Judgement had arrived, and at the state legislature a motion was made to adjourn. Calmer heads prevailed and when the sky cleared the following day, it was generally concluded that the problem had been caused by smoke and ash from a fire ‘out West’.

During the night of February 13, 1853, the residents of Mt Desert Island, Maine, were frightened by the freak attack of a thunderstorm during a snowstorm. Bolts of purple lightning flashed to the ground and balls of fire entered homes, injuring several people. Fortunately, no one was killed.

Huge snowflakes, 15 in. across and 8 in. thick, fell on the Coleman ranch at Fort Keogh, Montana, on January 28, 1887. The size of the flakes, which were described as being ‘bigger than milk pans’, was verified by a mail carrier who was caught in the storm.

Included in a severe hailstorm in Mississippi on May 11, 1894, was a 6-in.-by-8-in. gopher turtle, which fell to the ground, completely encased in ice, at Bovina, east of Vicksburg.

On February 21 1918, the temperature in Granville, North Dakota, rose 83° Fahrenheit in 12 hours — from -33° Fahrenheit (-36.3° Celsius) in the early morning to 50° Fahrenheit (10° Celsius) in the late afternoon.

Patriotic celebrants were stunned in 1918 when a major blizzard swept across the western plains of the United States, disrupting Fourth of July festivities in several states. Independence Day began with the usual picnics and parties, but in the afternoon the temperature dropped suddenly and rain began to fall, followed by hail, snow and gale-force winds.

On April 5 and 6, 1969 68 in. (172.7 cm) of snow fell on Bessans, France, in only 19 hours.

On April 24, 1930, at 2:30 p.m., hail began to fall at Hinaidi, Iraq, at the remarkably slow speed of 9 mph. A clever observer was able to determine the speed by timing the fall of several specimens against the side of a building.

The most bizarre temperature changes in history occurred at Spearfish, South Dakota, on January 22, 1943. At 7.30 am the thermometer read -4° Fahrenheit. However, by 7.32 am the temperature had risen 45°, to 49° Fahrenheit. By 9.00 am the temperature had drifted up to 54° Fahrenheit. Then, suddenly, it began to plunge, 58° in 27 minutes, until, at 9.27 am, it had returned to -4° Fahrenheit.

The most rain ever recorded in one minute was 1.5 in. (2.68 cm) at Barot on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe on November 26, 1970.

While rain was falling in the street in front of the Empire State Building on November 3, 1958, guards near the top of the building were making snowballs.

An extreme case of localised rainfall occurred the night of August 2, 1966, one and a half miles northeast of Greenfield, New Hampshire. Robert H. Stanley reported that rain began to fall at 7.00 pm, reaching great intensity from 7.45 pm until 10.15 pm. When he awoke the next morning, Mr Stanley found that his rain gauge had filled to the 5.75-in. (14.6 cm) mark. However, Stanley’s neighbour three-tenths of a mile (483 m.) away had collected only one-half in. (1.27 cm) in his rain gauge. Walking around the area, Stanley discovered that the heavy rainfall was limited to no more than one half-mile (805 m.) in any direction.

Another strange case of point rainfall took place on November 11, 1958, in the backyard of Mrs R. Babington of Alexandria, Louisiana. Although there were no clouds in the sky, a misty drizzle fell over an area of 100 sq. ft (9.3 sq. m.) for two and a half hours. Mrs Babington called a local reporter, who confirmed the phenomenon. The Shreveport weather bureau suggested the moisture had been formed by condensation from a nearby air conditioner, but their theory was never proved.

At 6:10 a.m. on January 19, 1977 West Palm Beach reported its first snowfall ever. By 8:30 a.m. snow was falling in Fort Lauderdale, the farthest south that snow had ever been reported in Florida. The snow continued south to Miami, and some even fell in Homestead, 23 miles south of Miami International Airport. The cold wave was so unusual that heat lamps had to be brought out to protect the iguanas at Miami’s Crandon Park Zoo.