HOME LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE. 329 



officer of the expedition and beard many particulars from him, 

 but there is little more to be told than what has been made 

 public. I saw a tracing in fac-simile of the document signed by 

 Fitz James and Crozier. The relics are to remain unopened till 

 Lady Franklin, who is in the south of France for her health, 

 returns to England. The officers are greatly devoted to her ; 

 her noble untiring energy and the sacrifice of her entire re- 

 maining fortune in the cause have quite won their hearts. It is 

 now proved that the whole party must have been dead before 

 the first searching ship sailed from England. M'Clintock, the 

 successful commander, is a Dublin man, so we are going to get 

 up a demonstration for him." 



To Mrs. Alfred Gathj. 



Trinity College, Dublin, November 23rd, 1859. 



My dear Mrs. Gatty, 



I send you by post a volume of Greville's Crypt. Flora, 

 wherein under plate 231 you will find a long story about the 

 Protococcus (red snow plant), telling you how it was first found 

 and what was thought of it. As I have not recently read it, I 

 can't tell how many of your queries it may answer, and so I pro- 

 ceed to answer them as best I can, under corrections of the book. 

 First, each individual Protococcus has a very transitory life, 

 reckoned by hours, or at most by days, but not by weeks. But 

 the community is perennial, to be found at all seasons, more or 

 less. The plant grows indifferently at any place where there is 

 water and a place to rest on. I don't think it is troubled for 

 soil. I have found it on a windowstock, and in the gutter of a 

 house. Probably there are thousands or millions of Prot. nivalis 

 about your vicarage, and you don't know it ! It is true that when 

 it grows in the domestic way the Germans call it P. pluvialis, 

 but to my mind (and that of many other botanists) there is 

 about as much " specific " difference between the matter of snow 

 and the matter of rain as between the P. nivalis and P. joluvialis. 

 When the plant grows in its pluvialis state it is difficult to 

 find, being inconspicuous. When seen on snow (I have seen 

 thousands of acres of it on Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa) it 

 gives the surface of the snow a faint tinge like that of French 

 white note-paper, easily overlooked by a careless eye, and best 

 seen by stooping down and looking obliquely along the surface 



