CAUSE OF RED SNOW. 353 



while Mr Bauer thought it was a fungus of the genus 

 Uredo. Professor Agardh refers it with Brown to 

 the lowest order of algae, but standing as a distinct 

 genus upon the very limits of the animal and vegeta- 

 ble kingdoms. Saussure, indeed, from finding that 

 the red snow of the Alps gave out, when burnt, a 

 smell like that of plants, concluded that it was of 

 vegetable origin, and supposed it to consist of the 

 farina of some plant, though he could not trace it to 

 its source. Baron Wrangel, again, who discovered a 

 production similar or identical with Agardh's Proto- 

 coccus nivalis growing upon limestone rocks, mentions 

 that it was easily detached when placed under water, 

 and in three days it was converted into animated globules 

 like infusory animalcules, which swam about and were 

 made prey of by other infusoria. Professor Nees von 

 Esenbeck of Bonn, is inclined to think that the minute 

 red globules, of which the Protococcus consists, are the 

 vegetable state of bodies which had gone through a 

 previous animal existence. 



The Rev. W. Scoresby, on the other hand, conjec- 

 tures that the red colour of the snow may be traced to 

 the same cause as the orange-coloured ice of the polar 

 seas, which arises from innumerable minute animals 

 belonging to the Radiata, and similar to the Beroe 

 globidosa of Lamarck. It is about the size of a pin's 

 head, transparent, and marked with twelve brownish 

 patches of dots. In olive-green sea water, he esti- 

 mated 1 10,592 of these in a cubic foot.* 



Agardh remarks, that it is agreed upon all hands 

 that the crimson snow always falls in the night, from 

 which he infers that it has not been actually seen to 

 fall. He thinks it is called into existence by the 

 vivifying power of the sun's light, after its warmth has 

 caused the snow to dissolve, accompanied by the 



* Jameson's Edin. Journ., Jan, 1829, p. 55. 

 VOL. vi. 30* 



