76 DISCOLORATION OF THE ARCTIC SEAS. 
Bromus patulus, Reich., and B. tectorum, L. Gloucester. Dr. St. 
rody. 
B. arvensis, L. Teddington, Middlesex. W. T. Dyer. 
CORRIGENDA IN LAST Year’s REPORT. 
Under Sedum purpureum, “ Miss Gifford” should be “Miss Edmonds.” In 
the List of Exotic and Introduced Plants, “ Barkhausia fetida, DC.,” isa 
mistake for B. setosa, DC. 
J. G. BAKER. 
Henry TRIMEN. 
February, 1868. 
ON THE NATURE OF THE DISCOLORATION OF THE 
RCTIC SEAS. 
By RosERT Brown, Eso, F.R.G.S. 
(Read before the Edinburgh Botanical Society, December 12, 1867.) 
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 shallow- 
ness, 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 phenomenon, and have recorded their observations, brief 
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 coincidences. John Davis, when, 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 
