142 ROMANCE OF LOW LIFE AMONGST PLANTS. 



animal matter, and possessed a purely vegetable 

 character. 



Red Sea. 



" The sea, then, makes a twofold indentation in the 

 land upon these coasts, under the name of riibnnn, 

 or ' red,' given to it by our countrymen ; while the 

 Greeks have called it Erythrum, from King Erythras, 

 or, according to some writers, from its red colour, 

 which they think is produced by the reflection of 

 the sun's rays ; others, again, are of opinion that it 

 arises from the sand and the complexion of the soil, 

 others from some peculiarity in the nature of the 

 water." Thus wrote Pliny ^ of the Red Sea a very 

 long time ago, and since that time many persons 

 have puzzled themselves, and others, to account for 

 the redness of colour, attributed to the waters of the 

 Red Sea. Perhaps the best summary of the past, 

 and most satisfactory determination of fact, were 

 contained in Montagne's memoir on the colouration 

 of the water of the Red Sea, in 1844,^ wherein the 

 colour is attributed to an alga, allied to Oscillaria, 

 and known by the name of Trichodesinmm eryth- 

 raimi. The conclusions which are arrived at in this 

 memoir, are — 



I. That the name of the Erythraean Sea, given 

 first to the Sea of Oman and to the Arabian Gulf 

 by Herodotus, afterwards by the later Greek authors 

 to all the seas which bathe the coasts of Arabia, 



1 ''Natural History," bk. vi. ch. 28. 



- " Sur la Coloration des Eaux de la Mer Rouge," Ann, des Sci, 

 Kat., 1844, p. 332. 



