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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 per¬
centage 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 in¬
creases—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 blue¬
green 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 impercept¬
ible, or, owing to currents carrying more or less sedi¬
ment than the surrounding water, comparatively
sudden. When, however, the cliffs are of granite or
hard igneous rock, the sea is very clear, the propor¬
tion of floating particles being much less than along
a softer coast of sandstone, chalk or clay, and con¬
sequently 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 Corn¬
wall, 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.