] 68 Analysis of Scientific Books and Memoirs. 



observations of Monocalus quadricornis, L. (or Cyclope quadricornis of 

 Latr.) which literally dye the water with the number of their red bodies. 

 Linnaeus mentions another blood-red water in his Westgotha Rcsa, which 

 formed a pulverulent mass in the cavities of the calcareous mountains 

 moistened by rain-water. That, however, which is found on the shore, is 

 a dye extracted from a species of fucus. 



These observations are brought forward in connection with the red snow, 

 which for some years past has been seen near the North Pole, and which 

 has so much excited the attention of naturalists, that one would conclude 

 the phenomenon to be of very rare occurrence ; and yet the red snuw is 

 very common in all the alpine countries of Europe, although De Saussure 

 was the first, if I mistake not, who paid any attention to it. He found it 

 in 1760, on Mont Breven in Switzerland, and afterwards observed it 

 to be so coraraou on the Alps, that he was surprised it had not been noticed 

 by other travellers, especially by the accurate Scheuchzer. Ramond 

 found Red Snow on the Pyrenees, and the botanist Sommerfeldt told me 

 that he had seen it in Norway. The Italian Giornale di Fisica, Nov. 

 and Dec. 1818, gives some very interesting accounts of Red Snow that 

 fell on the Italian Alps and the Apennines. In March 1808, for instance, 

 the whole country about Cadore, Belluno and Feltri was, in one single 

 night, covered to the height of twenty centimetres with a rose-coloured 

 snow : but both before and after it pure white snow fell, so that the red 

 formed a layer between the white. At the same time a similar pheno- 

 menon was witnessed on the mountains of Valtelin, Brescia, Carinthia, 

 and Tyrol. Another is mentioned as occurring between the 5th and 6th 

 of March 1 803 at Tolmezzo in the Friaul, and one still more remarkable 

 in the night between the 14th and loth of March 1813, in Calabria Ab- 

 riuzo, in Tuscany, and at Bologna, and upon the whole chain of the Ap- 

 ennines. On the 15th of April Red Snow fell on the mountain of Toual 

 in Italy. 



Hence it appears that this phenomenon is of sufficiently frequent oc- 

 currence, and that the cause of the red snow found in the voyage of Cap- 

 tain Ross on the 1 7 th of August 1819 at Baffin's Bay, in 75° 54.' N- lati- 

 tude, being so much noticed, is attributable to the acuteness of the natu- 

 ralists and chemists who had the opportunity of examining its origin. Ac- 

 cording to the account of Captain Ross, the mountains that were dyed 

 red with this snow were about eight English miles in length, and about 

 600 feet high. The red colour reached to the ground, in many places to 

 a depth of ten or twelve feet, and appeared so for a great length of time. 



This is all that was known respecting red snow in its natural state ; 

 but it was reasonable to expect some elucidation from chemical analysis, 

 Thus De Saussure had found, that the colouring matter of the red snow 

 of the Alps gave out, when burnt, a smell like that of plants, and thence, 



only found a Cyclops in such water, and which agreed in every thing with C. quad- 

 ricornis of Lair, whilst it differed from Linnceus's Monoculus quadricornis, in be- 

 ing red, whereas that is brown. The animal must either undergo a change in co- 

 lour, or there are two species.— -Ag. 



