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102 LIGHT AND WATER though somewhat imperfectly, so that the surface seems to flicker or glimmer—an effect that no doubt arises from a faint perception from time to time of its constituents. This communicates a soft and peculiar brilliancy to the surface, and gives it a certain percentage of transparency ; we seem to see into it and below it.” * Though less rich in colouring than many southern waters, our home seas can still boast a great variety of tint and tone. After rough weather they generally hold a quantity of fine sand in suspension, which lessens as a rule as the distance from the shore increases—though it is not always the nearest water that carries the most sand—so that we get gradations from a sandy yellow or pinkish tinge through bluegreen to the almost pure blue that marks the deep water, where there are fewer particles, and possibly also less stain from organic matter. The change of colour may be so gradual as to be almost imperceptible, or, owing to currents carrying more or less sediment than the surrounding water, comparatively sudden. When, however, the cliffs are of granite or hard igneous rock, the sea is very clear, the proportion of floating particles being much less than along a softer coast of sandstone, chalk or clay, and consequently in deep water or over a dark bottom its colour hardly appears. But where the bottom is of bright sand, as on many parts of the coast of Cornwall, the colour of the shallow water is seen to great ' “Colour,” by Prof. Ogden Rood (Kegan Paul and Co., 1890), page 280. Chapter XVI, from which the above quotation is taken, cannot fail to be of interest and value to the art student.
