THE PAGE OF NATURE. 145 



Arctic regions, or the highly elevated mountains of the 

 globe. It has been discovered spreading over decayed 

 leaves and mosses on the borders of small lakes, and in 

 water tanks in hot-houses ; and in greater perfection on 

 limestone rocks within reach of the spray of the ocean 

 in Lismore, an island off the coast of Argyleshire. W. 

 H. Harvey, the distinguished Irish botanist, found small 

 patches on micaceous schist near Miltown Malbay, on 

 calcareous rocks at Limerick, and in the neighbourhood 

 of Dublin on granite, with only an occasional supply of 

 moisture. On Ben Nevis and Ben Lawers I have more 

 than once detected specimens, upon the surface of the 

 large masses of unmelted snow, with which the summits 

 of these mountains are sometimes covered even in the 

 depth of summer. 



The fact that the red snow is capable of growing in 

 such spots as those in which it has chiefly been found in 

 Britain, namely, on rocks, leaves, and mosses, exposed to 

 occasional or frequent inundations of water, seems to 

 prove that the ice- plains of the Arctic regions, and the 

 snow-crowned sides and summits of the European moun- 

 tains, are not its natural situations. When, however, its 

 germs have once been deposited in these barren and 

 cheerless localities, the simplicity of its organization, and 

 the consequent strong persistency of the vital principle 

 in it, enable it effectually to resist the cold ; and with that 

 extraordinary power of rapid development which char- 

 acterizes in a greater or less degree all the members of 

 the family to which it belongs, it forms in a few years, 

 when nourished by the moisture produced by the melting 

 of the icy snow during summer, vast and dense masses, 

 K 



