Where the
sea is dark blue, you may be sure that it is deep where it looks gold and
purple, the sun has tinged it with the glory of his rising and setting;
where it is grey and sad, it takes its sorrowful hue from the rain-clouds
overhead. These are some of the reasons why the sea is of such different
colours, but the water is sometimes coloured, to some extent, by myriads of
living things which give it a reddish tinge; in the cold Northern Ocean,
where the icebergs are, travellers tell us the sea is green because there
its tiny inhabitants are green; while those who have sailed in the South
American waters tell of countless swarms of minute creatures which make
them glow like fire on a dark night, lighting up the crest of every wave as
it rolls past the ship.
The sea is also coloured by those beautiful plants which we often call by
one common name--seaweeds, but which are almost as varied in their way as
the land plants are.
Columbus, when sailing sadly through unknown seas in search of the New
World of which he had dreamed so long, came upon water so covered with long
green weeds that it seemed like a floating meadow, while his vessels could
hardly make their way through the grassy tangles of what is now known as
the Gulf-weed.
I have seen the sea off the coast of Ireland green for miles, with long,
ribbon-like plants covering its sandy bottom, sheltering, and perhaps
helping to feed, the millions of crawling and running and swimming
creatures, many of them so small as to be nearly invisible, which find
their home there.
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