RED SNOW. 39 



a snow hut by the huddling together of three or four 

 persons within it. When Dr Elisha Kane, the American 

 explorer, passed a cold arctic winter's night in a hut 

 beyond Smith's Sound, the temperature produced by its 

 complement of lodgers, and two or three oil lamps, reached 

 90 F. ; so that he was compelled by the heat to follow the 

 example of the rest of the party, and partially to divest 

 himself of his clothing. Yet in lat. 79 N., Dr Kane marked 

 a temperature of 75 below zero in the month of February. 

 No fluid could resist it. Even chloric ether became solid, 

 and the air was pungent and acrid in respiration. 



RED SNOW. 



As if it had been ordained that there should be nothing 

 absolute in nature, snow itself, the very type of whiteness, 

 sometimes exhibits the most curious colouring. Who, for 

 instance, has not heard tell of red snow? Its existence 

 was even known to Pliny, the great Roman naturalist, and 

 he attributed it to a dust with which the snow became 

 covered after it had lain several days on the ground. 

 "Snow itself," he says,* "reddens with old age" (Ipsa nix 

 vetustate rubescit). 



Benedict de Saussure was the first who described red 

 snow like a naturalist, f He observed it on the occasion of 

 his ascent of Mont Breven, near Chamounix, in 1760; and 

 was greatly astonished at seeing the snow tinted in various 



* Pliny, " Historia Naturalis," Book xi. 



+ De Saussure, "Voyage dans les Alpes," Book Hi., p. 45 (ed. 1803, 

 Neufchatel). 



