§ 745, 746. TIDE-RIPS AND SEA DRIFT. 399 



into tlie Pacific, and the climates of Kussian America do not lavor 

 the formation of large bergs. But, though we do not find in the 

 North Pacific the physical conditions which generate icebergs like 

 those of the Atlantic, we find them as abundant with fogs. The 

 line of separation between the warm and cold water assures us of 

 •these conditions. 



745, What beautiful, grand, and benign ideas do we not see ex- 

 TheanimaicuLBofthe p^sscd in that immcusc body of warm waters 

 ^^ which are gathered together in the middle of the 

 Pacific and Indian Oceans ! It is the womb of the sea. In it 

 coral islands innumerable have been fashioned, and pearls formed 

 in ''great heaps;" there multitudes of living things, countless in 

 numbers and infinite in variety, are hourly conceived. With 

 space enough to hold the four continents and to spare, the tepid 

 waters of this part of the ocean teem with nascent organisms.* 

 They sometimes swarm so thickly there that they change the col- 

 or of the sea, making it crimson, brown, black, or white, according 

 to their own hues. These patches of colored water sometimes ex- 

 tend, especially in the Indian Ocean, as far as the eye can reach. 

 The question, ^' What produces them ?" is one that has elicited 

 much discussion in seafiiring circles. The Brussels Conference 

 deemed them an object worthy of attention, and recommended spe- 

 cial observations with regard to them. 



746. Capt. W. E. Kingman, of the American clipper ship the 

 Colored patches. Shooting Star, reports in his abstract log a remark- 

 able white patch, which he encountered in lat. 8° 46' S., long. 105° 

 80' E., and which, in a letter to me, he thus describes : " Thursday^ 

 July 27, 1854. At 7h. 45m. P.M., my attention was called to notice 

 the color of the water, which was rapidly growing white. Know- 

 ing that we were in a much frequented part of the ocean, and hav- 

 ing never heard of such an appearance being observed before in 

 this vicinity, I could not accouut for it. I immediately hove the 



* *' It is the realm of reef-building corals, and of the wondrously-beautiful assem- 

 blage of animals, vertebrate and invertebrate, that live among them or prey upon them. 

 The brightest and most definite arrangements of color are here displayed. It is the 

 seat of maximum development of the majority of marine genera. It has but few re- 

 lations of identity with other provinces. The Red Sea and Persian Gulf are its ofi^- 

 sets." — From Professor Forbes's Paper on the "Distribution of Marine Life." Date 

 olst, Johnston's Physical Atlas, 2d ed, : Wm. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and 

 London, 1854. 



