RED-SNOW. 35 
the great ocean from shore to shore, until they 
stick to some favouring rock, where they begin 
to grow, and in time bring forth their irregular 
stems, and leaves, if we may call them such. The 
remarkable plant beforementioned, the ‘ Red- 
snow,’ as it is called, is produced also by little 
cells of this kind. 
This little plant, being of a blood-red colour, 
has often been the innocent cause of much popu- 
lar alarm. We frequently read, for instance, in 
old books, of the occurrence of showers of blood, 
and noted as demonstrating the special anger of 
God against a people or district; and, in truth, 
the blood-bedropped ground presented a spec- 
tacle sufficiently calculated to arouse the easily 
excited fears of an ignorant age. Modern science 
in this, as in many other instances, has destroyed 
these unreasonable apprehensions; and informs 
us, as has been before mentioned, that the light 
spores of the red-snow plant, wafted through the 
air, and dropped on the surface of the earth, 
are the cause of the marks, so long looked upon 
with dismay. 
We cannot tell how the early processes of life 
take place in these classes of plants: they 
