The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-02
O THE RED SEA.
What Causes the Color of the Historical Body
OF Water.

Of Water.
Gentleman's Magazine.
OF all undesirable corners of the earth, none
has left on my mind a more dreary impression
than Suez, a dismal settlement in the sand, in
which, often as it has been my fate to visit it,
/ nave failed to find a redeeming feature. Even
its ruinous streets and bazars lack the plctur-
sequences which generally attaches to all Orr
entail life, while the dirt and poverty of the
hungry-looking people are too painfully promi-
nent. Close by the sea stands the one
refuge for Europeans large hotel
which ~rejoices in the monopoly of
the victims who are here detained while
waiting for their steamer, which may perhaps
have stuck somewhere in the great canal-old
Egypts new river-at whose mouth are stationed
huge dredging machines, which travel to
and fro ceaselessly clearing the channel, and
which, seen from the shore, are suggestive or
black sea monsters. Red, rocky, sterile cliffs
rise almost perpendicularly from the sea, and
as they seem to glow like crimson fire in the
scorching sunlight their color is generally said
to give its name to this sea, an explanation,
however, which is unsatisfactory, to soy the least
of it.
And vet the origin of thu name must perplex
every new conner. who, passing from the ex-
~quisitely clear green waters OF the Suez Canal
1.-THE aQua-marine of shallow sea water above a
bed of white sand), finds himself floating on the
beautiful deep blue of the gulf. 1t was therefore
with infinite pleasure that / stumbled on q
passage in the writings of MoquiE Tandon. In
which he states that the Red sea was so called
from the prevalence of q minute bright red
plant, so small that in one square inch 2o,0OO,-
600 plants find room TO live. He quotes q passage
from Ehrenburg, who tells US how he saw
from Tor, near Mount Sinai, the whole bay Of
which that village is the port, red as blood, the
open sea keeping its ordinary color. The wave
lets carried TO the shore during the heat OF the
day a purple mucilaginous matter, and left it
upon the sand, so that in aboutfhalf an hour the
whole bay was surrounded by. a red fringe.
which, on examination, proved to consist OF
myriads of tiny bundles of fbres, about one
twelfth of an inch long, namely. the red tricho-
desmium. The water in which they foated was
quite pure.
Lieutenant Ogilvie Grant tells me that when
off the west coast of Africa, about a days steam
north of the mouth of the Sierra Leone river, he
passed through a broad belt of deep crimson
water, and though the vessel was steaming
rapidly, it took upward of an hour to pass this
strange band Of color. The surface water
brought up in buckets was quite clear, and af-
forded no clue to the cause Of the rosy
hue. Mr.. Gosse tells US that in the
salt works at Lymington. in Hampshire,
England, the reservoirs of concen-
trated brine are peopled by incalculable
myriads of microscopic animalcules of a Grim
son hue. Also, his own tanks of sea water on
one occasion became full of patches of a rich
crimson purple color, which spread rapidly over
the surface of the water and the sides Of the
vessel. This proved to be a microscopic sea-
WILMA tAAo W. W " 50AaO
months. till the tank was unfortunately de-
stroyed. M. de Candolle mentions a similar
phenomenon on the Lake of Morat, near
Neufchatel, when, hearing from the peasants
the report that the waters had suddenly become
the color of blood, he instituted a
minute examination of the cause. He
found that in the morning hours the lake pre-
scented its usual appearance, but later in the day
long lines of reddish matter appeared on the
surface. which, drifting in every direction, tint
ed the water with all shades of yellow, brown
and vivid red, and exhaled a pestiferous odor.
but entirely disappeared at night. He found
that in stormy weather it never appeared at all;
but from November till the following May it
came and vanished constantly. De Candolle
believes this to have been caused by a mighty
army of animalcules. but English< naturalists
attributed it to a freak of the vegetable world.
1t seems curious that there should be room for
so much discussion as to the origin of the name
of the Red sea, as the Hebrew word so translated,
Suph, which occurs upward Of twenty times in
the Old Testament, simply means weeds-the
sea of weeds. The same word occurs in the
the sea the weeds were wrapped around his head.
In allusion to this, Furst says: There is a GER
tain weed which grows in the depths of the Red
sea, and is called by the Philippians Supho. 1t
is crimson, and contains a red dye, which serves
for dyeiEg cloth, according to the testimony of
Hieronymus on the qualities of the Red sea.
Strabo, Diodorus and other ancient writer's are
quoted as abiding to thu weed of Arabian gulf,
"a seaweed resembling WOOL" The Arabians too
allude to it in their poetic proverb to describe
those who are parted forever: Il will retwn to
thee when the sea has ceased to wet the soof,"
that is, never.