RED SNOW, The apparent redness of snow, as seen from a di3tance, is often an effect of light, which adds a peculiar charm to mountain and winter landscapes, particu larly in the mornings and evenims, when the rays of the sun fall most obliquely on the surface of the snow. But snow is occasionally found both in polar and alpine regions of a really red color. This phenomenon seems to have been observed by the ancients, as a passage in Aristotle apparently refers to it; but it attracted no attention in modern times till 1760, when Saussure observed it in the Alps, and from chemical experiments concluded that the red color was owing to the presence of some vegetable substance, which be supposed might be the pollen of a plant. The next observations on red snow were made in the arctic expedition under cant. Ross, when it was found extending over a range of cliffs on the shore of Bailin's bay for eight miles, and the red color penetrat ing the snow in some places to a depth of 12 feet. On the return of the expedition in 119, the coloring matter, as then existing in the incited red snow, was subjected to care ful examination by Robert Brown and by Francis Bauer, the former most eminent botanist pronouncing it to be an unicellular plant of the, order alga'. while the latter
referred it to credo, a genus of fungi, and called it U. nirails. Baron Wrangel afte• ward declared it to be a lichen, and called it lepraria kerinesina; but Agardh and Dr. Greville of Edinburgh—the latter of whom obtained specimens from the Scottish island of Lismore—on further examination, returned to the opinion of Brown, an opinion which has since been fully confirmed, and the plant is generally known by the name, protococcus nivalis, given to it by Agardh, or palmetto nircils, given to it by sir William _Hooker. The motions of this microscopic plant in the earlier stages of itsexistence have led some observers, and among them eminent naturalists, to regard the organisms which they found in red snow us animalcules. See PALMELLACE.E. But while no doubt is now entertained of its real nature, it is not impossible that animal as well as vegetable life may exist in red snow, and that real animalcules may have been observed. The rid snow plant consists, in its mature state, of brilliant globules like fine garnets, seated on. but not immersed in, a gelatinous mass.