Blood-red Colour of Water. 343 



the new name, which is grounded on the erroneous hypothesis 

 that the Egyptian appearance is the same with tliat refer-* 

 red to. iqr. ardJ^ Jcdl 



j! An extensive series of laborious observations on the' chemical 

 ingredients of meteoric masses, by Professor Zimmerman of 

 Giessen, are connected with our present subject. These were». 

 occasioned by the occurrence of a red shower that fell in Giessen^ 

 3d May 1821. Its water was of a peach-red colour, and 

 flakes of a hyacinth colour floated on its surface. It was only 

 chemically analyzed, but had it been botanically and microsco^ 

 pically examined, which it was not, it might easily have afford-, 

 ed an interesting and satisfactory result. The collective result 

 of this investigation was, as is well known, that there is in 

 meteoric water a peculiar animal and vegetable substance, 

 chemically different, from the extractive matter and the glu- 

 ten of plants and animals, and this substance, on account of its 

 uniform yellowish-brown colour, is called pyrhine, that is, yel- 

 low matter. Among the different volatile substances formed 

 near the surface of the earth, this may be taken up by the 

 clouds in an aeriform state, and again precipitated in rain water, 

 as a stimulant and nutritive material for plants and the lower 

 animals. It may form the first thin covering of soil on naked 

 rocks, and by decomposition produce ammonium. .J, 



G. Nees of Esenbeck's spirited treatise on the Meteoric organiza^ 

 tions, published in 1825^ as an Appendix to Robert Brown's mis- 

 cellaneous botanical writings, vol. i., has given a more definite dU 

 rection to the examination of this subject. The principal object 

 of this essay was, to place a copious collection of facts in oppo- 

 sition to Chladni's hypothesis, which comprehended only mine- 

 ral or chemical formations, and which referred to a fancied for- 

 mation of organic existences in the higher regions of the atoio- 

 sphere. qr?s 



In 1826, Professor Fr. Nees Von Esenbeck, the brother of 

 the president, observed an infusory animal as the colouring 

 material of red water, in. a vessel of the botanical garden at 

 Bonn, and which, in Kartner's Arch. vii. p. 116, he, along 

 with Goldfuss, his fellow-observer, called Enchclys sangu'tnea. 

 It. .appeared that the colour of the body of the^^^mP^.J^^ 



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