332 ARRAN. WATER. 



which was brown by transmission of the tint of the rocks 

 below, becomes green. In all cases beyond a certain 

 depth, it is always green, as it is in a breaking wave ; the 

 bottom colour ceasing to be transmitted in both cases, and 

 that which belongs to the water alone, or its proper hue, 

 acquiring the predominance. This statement however 

 implies, as before observed, a certain state of the sky and 

 of agitation ; circumstances affecting the natural colour of 

 the water, either by reflection, or by the multiplication 

 of small shadows ; and well understood by those artists 

 who have attended to marine scenery, or have studied 

 the works of the Dutch painters in this line. 



It has been said, that if fresh water is green, that 

 colour should be more frequently visible. But, in this 

 country at least, it is rare to find, either in lakes 

 or rivers, a white bottom ; that being blackened in the 

 former by mud and aquatic vegetables, and scarcely any 

 beds of quartz or granite occurring in the latter, except in 

 a very few situations and for short spaces among the 

 Highland mountains ; in all of which, wherever they are 

 free from peat water or suspended clay, the colour is inva- 

 riably green if the depth be sufficient. It is only in dry 

 seasons that the two obstructing causes last mentioned 

 are absent, and it is only in such cases that the fact can be 

 observed. 



But there is another case distinct from this, and ana- 

 logous to that of a disturbed and breaking sea, where the 

 green colour of fresh water is also visible. It occurs in 

 cascades, sometimes in the fall itself, at others in the pool 

 below ; and is perfectly understood by artists in landscape 

 painting, who in representing these objects are compelled 

 to use a green tint to give truth to their colouring. In 

 these instances, the body of air intervening between the 

 fall and the rock, or mixed with the water below, serves 

 to cut off the transmitted colour of the rocks, and 

 thus allows the water to display its natural tint, in a 

 greater or less degree, according to the varying circum- 



