CAUSE OF RED SNOW. 353 



while Mr. Bauer thoijght it was a fungus of the genus 

 Uredo. Professor Agardh refers it with Brown to 

 the lowest order of aigse, but standing as a distinct 

 genus upon the very limits of the animal and vege- 

 table kingdoms. Saussure, indeed, from finding that 

 the red snow of the Alps gave out, when burnt, a 

 smell like that of plants, concluded that it was of 

 vegetable origin, and supposed it to consist of the 

 farina of some plant, though he could net trace it to 

 its source. Baron Wrangel, again, who discovered a 

 production similar or identical with Agardh's Proto- 

 coccus nivalis growing upon limestone rocks, men- 

 tions that it was easily detached when placed under 

 water, and in three days it was converted into ani- 

 mated globules like infusory animalcules, which swam 

 about and were made prey of by other infusoria. 

 Professor Nees von Esenbeck, of Bonn, is inclined 

 to think that the minute red globules, of which 

 the Protococcus consists, are the vegetable state of 

 bodies which had gone through a previous animal 

 existence. 



The Rev. W. Scoresby, on the other hand, conjec- 

 tures that the red colour of the snow may be traced 

 to the same cause as the orange- coloured ice of the 

 polar seas, which arises from innumerable minute 

 animals belonging to the Radiata, and similar to the 

 Beroe globulosa of Lamarck. It is about the size of 

 a pin's head, transparent, and marked with twelve 

 brownish patches of dots. In olive-green sea water, 

 he estimated 110,592 of these in a cubic foot.* 



Agardh remarks, that it is agreed upon all hands 

 that the crimson snow always falls in the night, from 

 which he infers that it has not been actually seen to 

 fall. He thinks it is called into existence by the 

 vivifying power of the sun's light, after its warmth 

 has caused the snow to dissolve, accompanied by the 

 * Jameson's Edin. Jourri., Jan. 1829, p. 55. 



X 3 



