Blood-red Colour of Water. 125 



I. Rivers flowed suddenly with red or bloody water, rcith- 



out any 'previous rain of that colour. 



In 323 A. C. in Picenum ; in 787 P. C. in Italy. 



As no account is given of the locality of these rivers, it is 

 doubtful whether both these instances may not be referred to 

 the third rubric. Similar doubts exist regarding modern in- 

 stances of this kind. Accurate investigations are every where 

 awanting. 



II. Lakes and stagnant waters were suddenly or gradually 



coloured, witJiout previous hlood-rain. 

 Two such cases are found among the notices of early periods, 

 collected by Chladni. 



The bloody colour of the Volsinian Lake, in 208 A. C, 



recorded by Livy. 

 The similar colour of a Venetian lake, in summer of the 

 year 586 A. C. I find in Pliny, that there was a lake 

 near Babylon, which had a red colour during eleven 

 days of summer. 

 The colouring of Lake Wan, in A. D. 1110, may perhaps 

 belong to this department, though it was considered to 

 be caused by a fiery meteor falling into it. 

 Every appearance of this kind requires rigid examination, in 

 regard to the very small cryptogamous plants, which, singly, 

 are imperceptible to the naked eye, and whose colouring is visi- 

 ble only when a great many of them are together, and also in 

 regard to equally minute water animalcula. As the foregoing 

 instances were not examined in these respects, they cannot with 

 certainty, nay [even with probability, be considered as atmosphe- 

 rical productions. 



III. Meteoric substances, which are usually colourless, dew, 

 rain, snow, hail, and what are called shot stars, fall from 

 the air red coloured, as blood-dew, blood-rain, and clot- 

 ted blood, without the atmosphere being obscured hj 

 red dust, 

 (a) Blood-dew. 

 To this belong the two passages of Homer, which, however 

 poetical, are still applicable to rain, and some accounts of 

 bloody sweat on the statues of the gods, and on warlike 

 armour, which I find mentioned in Livy. 



