ly of microscopic mushrooms, of the genus
_Uredo_, which Bauer proposed naming _Uredo vivalis_.

Then the doctor, prying into the snow with his cane, showed his
companions that the scarlet layer was only nine feet deep, and he bade
them calculate how many of these mushrooms there might be on a space
of many miles, when scientific men estimated forty-three thousand in a
square centimetre.

This coloring probably ran back to a remote period, for the mushrooms
were not decomposed by either evaporation or the melting of the snow,
nor was their color altered.

The phenomenon, although explained, was no less strange. Red is a rare
color in nature; the reflection of the sun's rays on this crimson
surface produced strange effects; it gave the surrounding objects, men
and animals, a brilliant appearance, as if they were lighted by an
inward flame; and when the snow was melting, streams of blood seemed
to be flowing beneath the travellers' feet.

The doctor, who had not been able to examine this substance when he
saw it on crimson cliffs from Baffin's Bay, here examined it at his
ease, and gathered several bottlefuls of it.

This red ground, the "Field of Blood," as he called it, took three
hours' walk to pass over, and then the country resumed its habitual
appearance.

CHAPTER XX.
FOOTPRINTS ON THE SNOW.

July 4th a dense fog prevailed. They were only able with the greatest
difficulty to keep a straight path; they had to consult the compass
every moment. Fortunately there was no accident in the darkness,
except that Bell lost his snow-shoes, which were broken against a
projecting rock.

"Well, really," said Johnson, "I thought, after seeing the Mersey and
the Thames, that I knew all about fogs, but I see I was mistaken."

"We ought," answered Bell, "to light torches as is done at London and
Liverpool."

[Illustration: "'We ought,' answered Bell, 'to light torches, as is
done at London and Liverpool.'"]

"Why not?" asked the doctor; "that's a good idea; it wouldn't light up
the road much, but we could see the guide, and follow him more
easily."

"But what shall we do for torches?"

"By lighting tow dipped in alcohol, and fastening to the end of
walking-sticks."

"Good!" said Johnson; "and we shall soon have it ready."

A quarter of an hour later the little band was walking along with
torches faintly lighting up the general gloom.

But if they went straighter, they did not go quicker, and the fog
la