330 M. Arago on the Colour of the Ocean. 



the heart : he hesitates to visit it, and would almost fear to de- 

 scend into that deep and mournful solitude, where he imagines 

 that all is suffering, and which is barely habitable. But we 

 have only to famiharize ourselves a little with the person of 

 the Icelander, — with his manners, his habits, his industry, and 

 all the details of his domestic life, to recover from these first 

 impressions, — to be charmed with a life so simple, with an 

 ease and quiet which elevates him incomparably above the 

 Greenlander, and even above the indigent population of Europe. 



On the Colour of the Ocean. By M. Arago. 



The study of the colour of the ocean has exercised the saga- 

 city of a great number of philosophers and seamen, without our 

 being able to affirm that the problem regarding it has hitherto 

 been entirely resolved. 



To the question. What is the colour of the sea? the re- 

 sponses, indeed, might be very nearly identical. It is, in fact, 

 to an ultramarine blue that Mr Scoresby compares the general 

 tint of the polar seas ; it is to a perfectly transparent solution 

 of the most beautiful indigo, or to celestial blue, that M. Costaz 

 assimilates the colour of the waters of the Mediterranean ; it is 

 by the words bright azure that Captain Tuckey characterizes 

 the waves of the Atlantic in equinoctial regions; it is also bright 

 blue that Sir Humphrey Davy assigns as the hue reflected by 

 pure water procured by the melting of snows and ice. Celes- 

 tial blue, then, more or less deep, that is to say, mixed with 

 smaller or greater quantities of white light, would appear to 

 have been always the peculiar tint of the ocean. Is there any 

 deception in this ? 



We shall speak chiefly of pure water : but the waters of the 

 sea are often impregnated with foreign matter. Thus, for ex- 

 ample, the green bands so widely extended, and so peculiarly 

 striking in the polar regions, contain myriads of medusae of a 

 yellowish tint, which, when mixed with the blue colour of the 

 water, produce the green. Near to Cape Palmas, upon the 

 coast of Guinea, Captain Tuckey's vessel appeared to move in 

 milk ; which appearance arose also from multitudes of animals 



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