184 Mr C. G. Ehrenberg's Observatums on the 



Arctic Regions, vol. i. This observation does not indeed im- 

 mediately belong to the bloody colour of water ; but, as it clearly 

 indicates the abundance of microscopic organization in the sea, 

 it was thought advisable to attend to it. 



Though a variety of observations had been made at an earlier 

 period on red snow, the voyage of the English Captain Ross 

 in 1818 and 1820, afforded particular facilities for a varied 

 and fundamental examination of this subject. The red moun- 

 tains in Baffin's Bay, of 6 English miles long and 600 feet 

 high, showed that their colour was caused by large flakes of 

 red snow scattered upon them ; and this phenomenon has not 

 merely been noticed, but the colouring substance has been col- 

 lected for examination. It was at first taken for birds' mute. 

 Francis Bauer, a microscopic and botanical investigator, and 

 the chemists Wollaston and Thenard, kept the substance for 

 examination. Robert Brown, Hooker, Sprengel, Agardh, De 

 Candolle, and Chladni, have given their opinions concerning 

 it, and, more recently, many other naturalists and philosophers. 

 All, with the exception of Chladni,' agree that the colouring 

 matter is a vegetable substance ; and botanists unanimously 

 declare it to be not a decomposed dead substance, but a living 

 vegetable organization. It has been variously arranged by au- 

 thors, hence have arisen the following synonyms for the colour- 

 ing body. Is the Uredo nivalis of Bauer a genus of Alga ? By 

 what affinity is it connected with the Confervis simplicissimis, 

 and the Tremella cruenta ? Robert Brown : Palmella nivalis, 

 Hooker : Lepraria Jcermesina, Wrangel : Protococcus hermesi- 

 nus, Agardh : Chlorococcum, Fries : Vaucheriae radicatae affinis, 

 Sprengel : Alga, Ulvis et Nostoc affinis, De Candolle : Sphcerella 

 nivalis, Sommerfield : Protococcus nivalis, Agardh. The last 

 mentioned name must be distinguished from that of the more 

 complicated Protococcus nivalis, which Greville received from 

 Captmn Carmichael from the shores of the island of Lismore, 

 which Agardh considers as an entirely genus, and calls it Hae- 

 matacoccus Grevillii. 



We cannot admit the phantastic opinions, that these bodies 

 are formed in the snow through the influence of the solar rays, 

 but consider them as foreign bodies brought from another situa- 

 tion and deposited on the snow, and, by the melting of which, 



