THE OPEN SEA 
125 
Certain particles or floating matters—animal, 
vegetable or mineral, I know not which—make 
the Gulf Stream an indigo current travelling 
through a lighter body of water, make the Gulf 
of Lyons a darker blue than the sky above it, and 
make the Gulf of Gascony adark green. Refer- 
ence is now being made solely to local color and 
not to sky reflection of any kind. For if these 
waters be taken up in white jars the difference 
in hue will still be well marked. It is inherent 
in the water and is a part of it, just as the Yel- 
low Sea is yellow because of vegetable deposits, 
and the North Sea off Scheveningen is yellow- 
brown from carrying in it a solution of earth 
matter. Wecan see the same local color effects 
in fresh-water lakes, as, for instance, in the Yel- 
lowstone region, where mineral deposits may 
produce red, green, blue, brown, or almost any 
colored water; and the warmer the water the 
more astonishing the coloring. 
Aside from this coloring matter, the hue of 
ocean water is sometimes changed in spots by 
the presence of great swarms of animalcule, 
or patches of alge, or ‘‘sea-sawdust.” The 
spots and areas of white, red, and brown that 
look so picturesque upon the surfaces of the 
Indian and Pacific Oceans, and occasionally 
Gulf color- 
ings. 
Color 
patches, 
