390 THE CHEMISTRY OF CREATION. 



that amount of entire success which could be 

 desired. Sometimes it is of a beautiful blue ; 

 this is its natural colour ; at others it is eme- 

 rald green. Sometimes it appears streaked 

 in brownish, or bright green, or olive-green 

 patches ; sometimes it is even milky, and some- 

 times red, or of a reddish cast. Scoresby 

 found, in the Arctic seas, that the green hue 

 appeared to depend upon the presence of a 

 vast number of semi-transparent spherical sub- 

 stances, with others resembling small portions of 

 fine hair; and noticed further, that the whales 

 delighted most to feed in these green patches 

 of water. Darwin, while cruising in the Beagle 

 off the coast of Chili, found the vessel passing 

 through a large area of water having a pale 

 red colour. Obtaining a bucket-full of this 

 singularly tinged fluid, and placing a drop or 

 two under the microscope, he found it full 

 of animalcules which darted about with great 

 rapidity. A cubic inch contained more than 

 a thousand of them, yet the surface tinged by 

 their bodies extended for several miles. What 

 an innumerable multitude must have been pre- 

 sent in the whole ! 



The ordinary colours of the sea, however, 

 depend undoubtedly in a great measure upon 

 the influence of the water upon light, and not 

 upon any colouring principle diffused or dis- 



