18 



DISCOLOURED SEA. 



Mar. 1832. 



drop of water which I could remove contained very many. 

 In one day we passed through two spaces of water thus 

 stained^ one of which alone must have extended over several 

 square miles. What incalculable numbers of these micro- 

 scopical animals ! The colour of the water^ as seen at some 

 distance^ was like that of a river which has flowed through a 

 red clay district ; but under the shade of the vesseFs side, it 

 was quite as dark as chocolate. The line where the red and 

 blue water joined was distinctly defined. The weather for 

 some days previously had been calm, and the ocean 

 abounded, to an unusual degree, with living creatures. In 

 UUoa^s voyage an account is given of crossing, in nearly the 

 same latitude, some discoloured water, which was mistaken 

 for a shoal : no soundings were obtained, and I have no 

 doubt, from the description, that this little animalcule was 

 the cause of the alarm.* 



In the sea around Tierra del Fuego, and at no great dis- 

 tance from the land, I have seen narrow lines of water of a 

 bright red colour, from the number of Crustacea, which 

 somewhat resemble in form large prawns. The sealers call 

 them whale-food. Whether whales feed on them I do not 

 know ; but terns, cormorants, and immense herds of great 

 un wieldly seals, on some parts of the coast, derive their chief 

 sustenance from these swimming crabs. Seamen invariably 

 attribute the discoloration of the water to spawn; but I 

 found this to be the case only on one occasion. At the dis- 

 tance of several leagues from the Archipelago of the Gala- 

 pagos, the ship sailed through three strips of a dark yel- 



* M. Lesson (Voyage de la Coquille, vol. i., p. 255) mentions red water 

 off Lima, apparently produced by the same cause. Peron, the distinguished 

 naturalist, in the " Voyage Aux Terres Australes," gives no less than 

 twelve references to voyagers who have alluded to the discoloured waters 

 of the sea (vol. ii., p. 239). It was his intention to have written an 

 essay on the subject. To the references given by Peron may be added, 

 Humboldt's Pers. Narr., vol. vi., p. 804 ; Flinders Voyage, vol. i., p. 92 ; 

 Labillardiere, vol. i., p. 287 ; Ulloa's Voyage ; Voyage of the Astrolabe 

 and of the Coquille ; Captain King's Survey of Australia, &c. 



