THE PAGE OF NATURE. 155 



was encountered by Captain Cook during his third 

 voyage. Mr. Scoresby narrates that he noticed in his 

 last expedition to the Arctic regions in 1823, some in- 

 sulated patches of reddish brown water, which were 

 found to be occasioned by minute algse ; and often too 

 were the floating icebergs tinged with them of a carmine 

 or deep orange hue. Ehrenberg frequently observed in 

 the steppes of Siberia, lakes and other collections , of 

 water filled with red algse. " In a fen," he remarks, 

 " with a pool of water, the dark-red blood colour was 

 very striking even at a distance. This colour I found 

 on examination was confined to the slimy surface, which 

 in different places formed a shining skin. The red 

 colour was darkest at the edge of the marsh." How 

 many a wonderful fairy tale has science divested of its 

 gilded ornaments, and converted into hard fact and un- 

 varnished truth ! And how many a phenomenon, mag- 

 nified by the unthinking ignorance and credulity of 

 vulgar superstition into an evidence of supernatural 

 agency, and an omen of future calamity, has the micro- 

 scope resolved into a mere collection of minute and simple 

 vegetables, or equally harmless animalcules ! 



There is a startling thought suggested by these ac- 

 counts of blood-prodigies. Occurring as most of them 

 did before the outbreak of epidemics which they were 

 supposed to herald, they obviously point to the conclu- 

 sion that they were developed by abnormal conditions of 

 the atmosphere. In ordinary circumstances, but few either 

 of the animals or plants which caused these alarming 

 appearances are produced, and then only in obscure and 

 isolated localities ; but their seeds lie around us in im- 



