274 SALMONIA. [NINTH DAT. 



melted by the sunbeams, that has fallen on glaciers, 

 themselves formed from frozen snow, water may be 

 regarded as in its state of greatest purity. Congela- 

 tion expels both salts and air from water, whether 

 existing below, or formed in, the atmosphere ; and in 

 the high and uninhabited regions of glaciers, there 

 can scarcely be any substances to contaminate. 

 Removed from animal and vegetable life, they are 

 even above the mineral kingdom ; and though there 

 are instances in which the rudest kind of vegetation 

 (of the fungus or mucor kind) is even found upon 

 snows, yet this is a rare occurrence; and red snow, 

 which is occasioned by it, is an extraordinary and not 

 a common phenomenon towards the pole, and on the 

 highest mountains of the globe. Having examined 

 the water formed from melted snows on glaciers in 

 different parts of the Alps, and having always found 

 it of the same quality, I shall consider it as pure 

 water, and describe its characters. Its colour, 

 when it has any depth, or when a mass of it is 

 seen through, is bright blue ; and, according to 

 its greater or less depth of substance, it has more 

 or less of this colour : as its insipidity, and its 

 other physical qualities, are not at this moment 

 objects of your inquiry, I shall not dwell upon 

 them. In general, in examining lakes and masses 

 of water in high mountains, their colour is of 



