120 THE PEACOCK BUTTERFLY. 



mention of the Red Sea, as deriving its name from the 

 red colour exhibited by its waters at different periods, 

 owing to the showers of blood, which they considered 

 as the immediate operations of supernatural powers, 

 and as direct violations of the established laws of 

 nature. Cicero was the first to question the preter- 

 natural origin of these phenomena, and endeavoured 

 to account for them by physical means. The red 

 colour of water he accounts for from its holding in 

 solution a mixture of red coloured earthy ingredients, 

 and the express traces of blood drops on plants and 

 stones to the bloody colouring of moisture. 



From the time of Cicero till the beginning of the 

 seventeenth century, we have many records of such 

 natural phenomena ; but no accurate or philosophical 

 investigations of them have been offered. There was 

 an absurd doctrine supported by the Hippocratic 

 believers, among whom was the physician Garceeus s 

 who, in 1568, says, blood-rain is rain boiled by the sun. 



The aim of Chladnei was, the advancement of the 

 study of truly cosmical and atmospherical bodies. 



It would be foreign to our subject, although 

 extremely interesting, to introduce, in chronological 

 order, the sudden overflowings of rivers with red or 

 bloody water which have taken place, without any 

 previous rain of that colour ; or of lakes and stagnant 

 waters which have been suddenly or gradually coloured, 

 without any previous red rain. But we may mention, 

 that modern discovery has led to a belief, that all 

 these can be accounted for as arising from the water 

 containing innumerable animalcules, of the order called 



