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!
colour was either in distinct stripes, 1-20 feet long, and 3 inches
to 4 feet broad, or forming roundish spots 5 inches to 3 feet in
diameter *. This certainly appears more like the process of
ordinary vegetation, than the effect of a shower of organic particles,
wliich must have been very whimsical, indeed, to have
fallen in sucli a manner. The most probable conjecture seems
to be, that snow is not the natural situation of Protococcus nivalis,
but that, being tenacious of life, it preserves its vitality
when cast upon so chilling a surface, and under favourable circumstances,
even propagates its species. I f this be granted, it
will be easy to see how wide a surface may soon he covered with
a vegetation of this kind, hy the flowing of the melted snow as
it gradually dissolves; especially when we also consider, as
A g a r d h has well observed, how inconceivably rapid minute bodies
of tliis kind increase. Having become once established in the
snow, it is possible, that, by the intense cold of winter, the vegetating
power may he suspended beneath the frozen surface,
when, in other situations, it would liave perished; and thus, on
the annual dissolution of the superincumbent snow, our Protococcus,
numerous as the grains of sand on the sea-shore, may
start at once into renewed life, and seem indeed to have descended
unseen from the clouds.
M EM O IR on the Red Snow brought f r om the Polar Regions. By
Hr C. A. A g a r d h , Professor of Botany, Lund.
{Nima Acta Fhgstco-Jlledica Academits Cmsarim Leopoldmo-CaroUnce Natuns Curiosorum,
V. xii. p. 737.)
B.AIN, mingled with minute extraneous substances, is b y no means
an unfrequent phenomenon. Tlie most general appearance of this kind
is what has been called a shower q f su lph u r: in repeated examinations,
however, no sulphur has ever been detected, but in the place of it the
fa r in a of the fir (P in u s sy lv e stris). Some years ago a rain of this
kind fell at Lund, and I had an opportunity of examining it. I found
it mixed with this farina, though the nearest forest capable of supplying
so large a quantity must have been distant five or six Swedish miles.
( n )
After showers of sulphiff, showers o f blood are of the most frequent
occurrence, and are far less understood. That which P i e r e s c examined
at Aix in France, in the year 1608, was occasioned by insects ;
and so was the one which fell at Shonen in 1711, which was examined
by H i l d e b r a n d , the clergyman. In this instance, the learned Bishop
Sw ED B E RG pronounced it to be a miraculous production of the Divinity,
and not a natural one. The rain which fell some years ago in Flanders
had another origin, of which we shall speak afterwards. The important
fact, whether the red particles actually fell with the ram, or whether
they were produced on the moist surface of the earth after the rains
had fallen, has generally been neglected; which is of more consequence,
because there is another phenomenon to be classed along with the
showers of blood. This is the blood-red water, supposed by the common
people to he water changed into blood ; it is mentioned by many
writers, and seems to be, or rather certainly is, of two kinds. The ordinary
kind noticed by L i n n .e d s in the Literary Gazette of S a b iu s ( ? ) ,
makes its appearance in spring and summer in pools of water, and owes
its colouring matter, according to him, to a prodigious number of Mo-
noculus Pulex, L. {Daphinia Pulex, Latr.)_* ; hut according to my
■own observations to Monoculus quadricornis, L. (or Cyclops quadri-
cornis, Latr.), which dye the water with their red bodies. L i n n .eits
speaks of another kind of hlood-red water in his Westgotha Resa,
which had a pulverulent appearance, and occurred in the cavities of calcareous
mountains moistened hy rain-water. That which is found on
the sea-shore is only a dye given out by some species of sea-weed.
These observations become worthy of attention when we consider
them in connection with the red snow discovered some time ago near
the North Pole, and which excited such a degree of astonishment among
naturalists, that it might be concluded it was either a solitary instance,
or of very rare occurrence, and little known. Nevertheless, red snow is a
very common appearance in all the alpine countries of Europe, though
H e S a u s s u r e , if I be not mistaken, was the first who noticed it. Fie
found it for the first time in the year 1760, on Mount Breven in Switzerland,
and subsequently so frequently among the Alps, that he was
surprised how such a phenomenon could have escaped the attention of
other travellers, especially S c h e u c h z e r . R a m o n d found red snow on
the Pyrenees, and the botanist S o m m e b f e l d t informed me he observed
it in Norway.
• I t is very singular thai LiNXiEUS, who seems to have been well acquainted with
this Motwculus Pulex, should attribute the colour of the water to it. I have only found
a Cyclops in that kind of water, agreeing in every respect with C. quadricornis of L a-
T R E IL L E , and unlike Momculus quadricornis of L iN N iE U S in being red instead of brown :
either the colour must change, or there are two species— A g .