NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 45 



green and on the left all equally clear brown. One may see the same 

 contrast where Green River enters the St. John, but with a result less 

 striking, for the greater river, though brown, is less clear. Indeed, 

 the St. John water is of mixed color and texture — -one might call it a 

 golden brown — as would be expected from its receiving so great a 

 mixture of streams. Another striking contrast of color is to be seen 

 in the two branches of Charlo River. Where they cross the highway 

 road, a quarter of a mile apart, the western is clear green, the eastern 

 clear brown. The upper branches of the Restigouche are green ; 

 Xepisiguit is, I believe, brown ; but I have no exact information as to 

 the color of Tobique, and the many other clear rivers which abound in 

 all the northern wilderness from Temiscouata and the St. John east- 

 ward. A Rlue River empties into St. Francis, but 1 know not whether 

 the name describes the water ; and Blue Lakes are mentioned near 

 the Cascapedia in the Geological Survey Reports (1881, D., p. 20), 

 though the color is not in the water, but by reflection from the blue 

 clay bottom. Blue water lakes occur, however, in Europe,* though 

 green is much more common in clear lakes, both there and in this 

 country. 



The explanation of the difference between the green and brown 

 colors is no doubt this : the physical composition of the purest river water 

 is such that when white light enters and is reflected back through it, 

 the green rays are absorbed least, and hence preponderate in the light 

 which comes to the eye. The clear, brown rivers, on the other hand, 

 though possessing green water as a basis, have added to it a brown 

 liquid (not sedimentary) coloring matter, leached out from swampy 

 places. What we know of the Restigouche and Metapedia is consistent 

 with this, for the former has hardly any, if any, swampy area upon it, 

 while the latter has at least some swamp around Metapedia Lake 

 (Johnston, Notes on North America, I, 387). I have no such data 

 for the two branches of Charlo River. 



The subject has been carefully studied in Europe, and an important 

 memoir on the subject has recently appeared.! It will aid to the 

 solution of the problem if members of the Society will make exact 

 observations upon the color of the water in our clear rivers, particu- 

 larly giving attention to the character of the country through which 

 they flow. 



*The deep blue color of the Lake of Geneva differs from that of the other Swiss lakes, 

 which are all more or less of a greenish hue . . . the cause of the phenomenon has 

 never been actually ascertained —Baedeker's Switzerland, 15th Ed., p. 222. 



t La Couleur des Eaux. Par Ad. Kemna. Bull, de la Soc. Beige de Geologie. X , 211, 



