22 THE SEA SCUM AND ITS NATURE, 
That the absence of red seas off the coast here is due to a 
want of such special conditions, as I have surmised to exist 
under other climatic circumstances in the Indian Ocean, seems 
the more probable in view of the fact that the Hoang Hae or 
Yellow Sea of China, which has a climate not unlike that of the 
Queensland waters, and where the Trichodesmium also exists 
is stated to have received its name from the natural yellow- 
brown colour which the scum invariably possesses there. 
During the decomposition of the scum, when washed ashore, 
wheu banked against the windward side of a vessel at anchor, 
or when confined in any receptacle, a very unpleasant odour is 
liberated, which has been compared to such odours as are to be 
found in a category, including those of crushed artichoke, 
rancid butter, &c. Here and elsewhere the scum as it occurs 
out at sea seldom, if ever, diffuses this unpleasantness, as was 
remarked by MacDonald in his description previously cited, and 
as is to be concluded from the negative evidence of M. Hvenor 
Dupont and Mr. Charles Darwin on the subject. This pungent 
odour sometimes exerts a decided physiological action on the 
human subject, causing, according to Mr. Berkeley (quoting the 
experience of Mr. Hinds who, during the voyage of the “Sulphur,” 
met with this sea scum in 1837 at Liebertad, St. Salvador), 
inflammation of the conjunctiva and nasal mucous membrane. 
This happily, however, is not an invariable attendant circum- 
stance. Suspected action of a very virulent nature receives 
gome confirmation from the particulars related by Mr. G. Francis, 
of Adelaide, in his article in “ Nature ” [1878, vol. xvii., No. 
to find that the same idea conveyed by the word ’Epv@pos viz., that 
of the blood-red colour of wine, such as the attendants of Circe gave 
Ulysses and his companions on their return from the infernal regions to 
the wave of the wide-wayed sea [ Odyssey, xii., 19, ] and which Herodotus . 
uses as above in his Erythraean Sea, entered the minds of modern sailors, 
who, on witnessing the phenomenon, cried out: ‘‘ This is indeed the Red 
Sea (whilst) the boatswain likened it to blood from the shambles.” 
[Salt, “‘ Voyage to Abyssinia, London, 1814, pg. 196. ] 
