I 616 > 



8.— DISCOLOUEED WATER. 



In various parts of the Ocean, particularly in the Equatorial and 

 Tropical regions, patches of discoloured water are occasionally met with, 

 which at times may appear like shoal water, and are due to various causes. 

 In the open sea, they may be owing to the minute spores of marine 

 plants, or to the presence of minute animal life, in prodigious abundance ; 

 in the volcanic regions, it is conceivable that they may be due to sub- 

 marine disturbances ; and near the coasts, they may consist of matter 

 discharged by large rivers, and this is notably the case off the mouths of 

 the Orinoco and Amazon. "We now proceed to give a few details of some 

 of these appearances. 



At 3 p.m., July 15th, 1792, Don Cosme de Churruca, then on his 

 passage to the West Indies, discovered a boiling and breaking of the sea, 

 so very extraordinary, that it appeared to be breakers; but found no 

 bottom at 150 fathoms. This phenomenon appeared to' be in consequence 

 of a current setting against the wind. On the 16th, at 10 a.m., they 

 were in lat. 13° 56', long. 54° 7' W., nearly 400 miles to the eastward of 

 St. Lucia, and 450 miles to the N.E. of the Orinoco, and observed that 

 the colour of the water changed, looking like muddy river water, or 

 as if they were on a bank. They continued their course without altera- 

 tion ; sounded at night, and found no bottom at 120 fathoms. Churruca 

 says that the colour is always the same in that part of the ocean, always 

 appearing as if on soundings in that region, and that it never varies the 

 position of its limits. In addition to his own remarks, he had assured 

 himself of the fact by information collected from various sources ; such 

 as the English Sailing Directions for the year 1782, entitled the 

 " Complete Pilot for the Leeward Islands," which, in the account of 

 Barbados, mentions that this phenomenon is found at the distance of 

 210 to 240 miles to the eastward of that island, and that there are no 

 soundings, though the water seems as if there were.* 



The passage, from the above Directions, is as follows: — "In the 

 latitude of Barbados, about 70 or 80 leagues to the eastward, you will 

 find the water discoloured and prodigiously thick, as if there were sound- 

 ings, but there are none, and you may depend on being at the distance 

 aforesaid from the island." f 



Lieut. Greevelink, in alluding to Mr, Luccock's and Captain Kotzebue's 

 remarks about patches of water exhibiting a brown and dirty appearance, 



* Captain Livingston remarks: — " It seems that the appearance of soundings, 

 described above, occurs in the same place where Captain TuUoch told me a bank 

 existed, which some Americans were in the habit of making as a fresh point of 

 departure when bound to Surinam, &c." But Lieut. Lee, in the Dolphin, found depths 

 of 2,500 fathoms here. 



f " In 1813, at 197 miles to the eastward ©f Barbados, we found the water dis- 

 coloured; the thermometer here rose 1°. The current (Equatorial) inclines to the 

 northward here ; which, as well as the discoloured water, may be attributed to tha 

 stream discharged by the great River Orinoco, &c." — Lieut. Evans. 



