24.0 



On the Nature of the Discoloration of the Arctic Seas. 

 By Robert Brown, Esq., F.R.G.S.* 



The peculiar discoloration of some portions of the frozen 

 ocean, differing in a remarkable degree from the ordinary 

 blue or light green usual in other portions of the same sea, 

 and quite independent of any optical delusion occasioned by 

 light or shade, clouds, depth or shallowness, or the nature of 

 the bottom, has, from a remote period, excited the curiosity 

 or remark of the early navigators and whalemen, and to this 

 day is equally a subject of interest to the visitor of these 

 little-frequented parts of the world. The eminent seaman, 

 divine, and savant, William Scoresby, was the first who 

 pointedly drew attention to the subject, but long before his 

 day the quaint old searchers after a North-west Passage " to 

 Cathay and Zipango " seem to have observed the same phe- 

 nomenon, and have recorded their observations, brief enough 

 it must be acknowledged, in the pages of ' Purchas — His 

 Pilgrimes.' Thus, Henry Hudson, in 1607, notices the 

 change in the colour of the sea, but has fallen into error 

 when he attributes it to the presence or absence of ice, 

 whether the sea was blue or green — mere accidental coin- 

 cidences. John Davis, Avhen, at even an earlier date, he 

 made that famous voyage of his with the " Sunshine " and 

 the " Moonshine," notes that, in the strait which now bears 

 his name, " the water was black and stinking, like unto a 

 standing pool." More modern voyagers have equally noted 

 the phenomenon, but without giving any explanation, and it 

 is the object of this paper to endeavour to fill up that blank 

 in the physical geography of the sea. In the year 1860 I 

 made a voyage to the seas in the vicinity of Spitzbergen and 

 the dreary island of Jan Mayen, and subsequently a much 

 more extended one through Davis' Straits to the head of 

 Baffin's Bay, and along the shores of the Arctic regions lying 

 on the western side of the former gulf, during which I had 

 abundant opportunities of observing the nature of this dis- 

 coloration. At that period I arrived at the conclusions which 

 I am now about to state. In the course of the past summer 

 I again made an expedition to Greenland, passing several 

 weeks on the outward and homeward passages in portions of 

 the seas mentioned, during Avhich time I had an opportunity 

 of confirming the observations I had made seven years pre- 



* Kead before tlie Edinburgh Botanical Society, December 12, 1867, and 

 printed in the 'Journal of Botany' for March, 18GS. 



