Arctic Natural History. 79 



10. Bed Snow. 



The surface of the glaciers was of a dirty colour, but there 

 were no moraines. It appeared to be owing to fine dust and 

 sand blown from the adjacent land, or carried by small rills 

 of water from the sides of the valley. Where there were 

 patches of snow on the land a close examination would dis- 

 cover more than the dirty colour, which was also present, a 

 tinge of dirty red, which, in suitable localities, applied also 

 to the glaciers. This is owing to a minute plant which has 

 excited great interest, and has been most carefully described 

 by many distinguished botanists, under the popular name of 

 the red snow (Protococcus nivalis). From what Mr Petersen 

 told me, after he had visited the famous localities where it is 

 said to extend to depth of 12 feet, and also from the replies 

 of the natives to questions upon the same subject, there ap- 

 pears to be no reason for any other opinion than this, that it 

 is a foreign body among snow or ice, which it can only find 

 access to by being carried, either by the water of the pools 

 in which it grows after they begin to overflow by influx of 

 water from snow melting at higher elevations, or by the wind 

 after the water has left it dry upon the rock. There does not 

 appear to be any objection to the idea that this plant may 

 grow upon stones and sand on the surface of a glacier, pro- 

 vided that there be water covering them ; nor to the supposi- 

 tion that a part of an increasing glacier may become impreg- 

 nated with it by being carried from some neighbouring lo- 

 cality by the wind. Although the red snow appears as red as 

 blood when viewed with a high magnifying power, among the 

 snow, along with probably abundance of other adventitious 

 substances, it fails to exhibit its real colour, and rarely does 

 more than impart a dirty appearance. It would prove highly 

 interesting to examine whether the circumstances under which 

 it is developed in the Alps and in the Arctic Regions are the 

 same.* — (Sutherland's Journal.) 



11 . On the Colouring Matter of Marine A Igai. By Dr Dickie. 

 It may be worthy of remark here that the colouring matter 



* Agassiz Etudes, chap. v. ; Travels in the Alps, by Prof. Forbes, chap. ii. 



