I°*0 Ajingular Phenomenon re ("peeling Snow. 



the wind, are mixed with it, fo that its colour is no longej 



diflinguifhable. 



In the year 1778, when M. de SamTure was on mount 

 St. Bernard, he found a great deal of the fame kind of (bow. 

 He collected as much of it as he poihb'v cculd ; and Mr. 

 Murrith, an experienced natural;!!, collected of it alio; fo 

 that they were enabled to make ionic experiments. On ac- 

 count of its great fpecific gravity, M. de Sauffure treated this 

 red powder as an earth, firft with diniiled vinegar, but ho 

 employed fo little that he had no rcfult. He then boiled it 

 in the muriatic acid, and obtained a folution, which, when 

 carefullv diltilled and fill red, had fo brown a colour that he 

 was quite at a lots reflecting the nature of this fubftance. 

 He therefore applied it to the blow-pipe, anr! obferved that 

 it inflamed with a fmell like that of burnt vegetables. 



This experiment induced M. de Sauiiure to digeft 40 

 grains of the powder in fpirit of wine ; and having filtered 

 the folution, he found that the relidue weighed 7 grains 

 Ms: the fpirit of wine had become of a golden yellow 

 colour. He then diftilled it in a balneum mariae, and the 

 fpirit of wine came off perfectly pure. An oily traniparent 

 matter of a golden brown colour, which by the warmth of 

 the balneum mariae had not become dry, remained at the 

 bottom of the retort. This oily matter had a fmell like that 

 of wax, which it emitted alfo when burning. The depolit, 

 which the fpirit of w he had not ditlblved, was, in regard to 

 its extractive part, alfo inflammable ; and the allies which 

 remained after it was burnt, though they did not feem alka- 

 line, were fufed by The blow-pipe into a porous kind of 

 greenifh glafs. 



Thefe experiments feem to prove that this powder was a 

 vegetable fubllancc, and probably the farina of fome flower. 

 ?.i. dc Sauffure was aco.uainted with no plant in Swiflcrland 

 that produced red farina in fuch abundance as to tinge the 

 fnow of the Alps red; efpecially when it is conlidered that 

 a great deal of it mult be loft before it can reach the fpots 



where 



