It is well known that the water of different lakes and rivers differs in
color. The Mediterranean Sea is indigo blue, the ocean sky blue, Lake
Geneva is azure, while the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons and Lake
Constance, in Switzerland, as well as the river Rhine, are chrome green,
and Kloenthaler Lake is grass green.
Tyndall thought that the blue color of water had a similar cause as
the blue color of the air, being blue by reflected light and red by
transmitted light. W. Spring has recently communicated to the Belgian
Academy the results of his investigations upon the color of water.
He proved that perfectly pure water in a tube 10 meters long had a
distinctly blue color, while it ought, according to Tyndall, to look
red. Spring also showed that water in which carbonate of lime, silica,
clay, and salts were suspended in a fine state of division offered a
resistance to the passage of light that was not inconsiderable. Since
the red and violet light of the spectrum are much more feeble than the
yellow, the former will be completely absorbed, while the latter passes
through, producing, with the blue of the water itself, different shades
of green.
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There is to be held in Paris this year, from the 1st to the 22d of July,
an insect exhibition, organized by the Central Society of Agriculture
and Insectology. It will include (1) useful insects; (2) their products,
raw, and in the first transformations; (3) apparatus and instruments
used in the preparation of these products; (4) injurious insects and
the various processes for destroying them; (5) everything relating to
insectology.
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A catalogue, containing brief notices of many important scientific
papers heretofore published in the SUPPLEMENT, may be had gratis at this
office.
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