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THE DRIFT OF THE SEA. 249 
the color of the sea, makmg it crimson, brown, black, or white, 
according to their own hues. These patches of colored water 
sometimes extend, especially in the Indian Ocean, as far as the 
eye can reach. The question, "What produces them?" is one 
that has elicited much discussion in seafaring circles. The Brus- 
sels Conference deemed them an object worthy of attention, and 
recommended special observations with regard to them. 
The discolorations of which I speak are no doubt caused by 
organisms of the sea, but whether wholly animal or wholly vege- 
table, or whether sometimes the one and sometimes the other, has 
not been satisfactorily ascertained. I have had specimens of the 
coloring matter sent to me from the pink-stained patches of the 
sea. They were animalculse well defined. Quantities of slimy, 
red coloring matter are, at certain seasons of the year, washed 
up along the shores of the Red Sea, which Dr. Ehrenberg, after an 
examination under the microscope, pronounces to be a very deli- 
cate kind of sea weed : from this matter that sea derives its name. 
So also the Yellow Sea. Along the coasts of China, yellowish col- 
ored spots are said not to be uncommon. I know of no examina- 
tion of this coloring matter, however. In the Pacific Ocean I have 
often observed these discolorations of the sea. Red patches of 
water are most frequently met with, but I have also observed white 
or milky appearances, which at night I have known greatly to 
alarm navigators, they taking them for shoals. 
542. These teeming waters bear off through their several chan- 
nels the surplus heat of the tropics, and disperse it among the 
icebergs of the Antarctic. See the immense equatorial flow to 
the east of New Holland. It is bound for the icy barriers of .that 
unknown sea, there to temper climates, grow cool, and return 
again, refreshing man and beast by the way, either as the Hum- 
boldt Current, or the ice-bearing current which enters the Atlantic 
around Cape Horn, and changes into warm again as it enters the 
Gulf of Guinea. It was owing to this great southern flow from 
the coral regions that Captain Ross was enabled to penetrate so 
much farther south than Captain Wilkes, on his voyage to the 
lations of identity with other provinces. The Red Sea and Persian Gulf are its off- 
sets." — From Professor Forbes's Paper on the " Distribution of Marine Life." Plate 
31st, Johnston's Physical Atlas, 2d ed. : Wm. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh ar.d 
London, 1854. 
