372 THE WHALE'S FOOD. 



a characteristically wonderful manifestation of Divine 

 beneficence and wisdom. A considerable area of the 

 regions inhabited by the Greenland whale is occupied by 

 what seamen call "green water." According to Dr. 

 Scoresby it forms almost a fourth part of the Greenland 

 Sea; and between the parallels of 74 and 80 N. latitude, 

 spreads over some twenty thousand square miles. The 

 action of the great polar currents somewhat modifies its 

 position ; but it is always found year after year in certain 

 situations. Often it extends in long belts or streams of 

 varying dimensions ; from one hundred and forty to two 

 hundred miles in length, and five to thirty or forty miles 

 in breadth. It is usually an olive-green, and of peculiar 

 opaqueness ; sometimes a grass-green, or green with a 

 tint of black. 



The reader will naturally ask to what cause is due this 

 very peculiar colouring. 



Dr. Scoresby ascertained, from a series of careful 

 analyses, that the green water region is, in reality, a 

 world of animalcules ; most of them invisible to the 

 naked eye, and belonging chiefly to a species of Medusadce; 

 the medusae being well known to sea-side visitors under 

 the popular name of " sea-blubber " or "jelly," a soft 

 gelatinous substance frequently found lying on the shore, 

 and exhibiting 110 other indication of life than to shrink 

 and contract when touched. 



The medusadie are globular, transparent, and from one- 

 twentieth to one-thirtieth of an inch in diameter. . To 

 convey any exact or definite idea of their number is 

 almost impossible. Scoresby estimates that two square 

 miles of sea contain 23,888,000,000,000,000 ; but these 

 are figures which carry no actual meaning to the imagina- 



