Animal cular "Phofphorefcence of Ocean Water, $3 



about an inch and a half in length, and the lead as fmall as 

 the eye could difcern. Their Aru&ure was too delicate to 

 allow them to be examined in any other manner than in their 

 floating ftate. They were about of the fame weight with fea 

 water. At their option they could readily afcend and defcend 

 in it. And as they have no air-veflels like fiflics, they ac- 

 complifhed their rife and fall by a mere change of their fpe- 

 cific gravity; contracting themfelves into a fmaller volume if 

 they wiflied to fink, and expanding themfelves to a wider bulk 

 if they intended to fwim. Before ten o'clock next morning 

 feveral of them were evidently dying, and before forty-eight 

 hours had elapfed all of them were dead, and fo entirely dif- 

 organifed that not a film or membrane was left ; but the 

 water, which was a little turbid, had a fmall mud-like fedi- 

 ment, and fmelled ftrong of phofphorated hydrogenous gas. 



The nearnefs of their approach to pellucidity difpiayed their 

 internal flructure to the eye without the trouble of anato- 

 mifing. They might be looked through without the aid of 

 a dilfecting inftrument ; and their blood, though not red, 

 but nearly of the pale colour of their bodies, reflected light 

 enough in the day-time to enable it to be feen in motion, 

 brifldy circulating through the arterious and venous tubes. 

 This view of the circulation of the blood through the whole 

 ceconomy of a healthy animal, was one of the molt interefting 

 appearances in animated phyfiology that I ever had beheld. 

 This creature, like the echinus, and many more, had no 

 heart, but the veflels were endowed with mufcular power 

 enough to propel their fluids without the aid of fuch an organ. 

 The pulfations of the arteries could be eafily counted, and 

 the little waves of the circulating fluid diftinguiflied as they 

 pafled from the larger extremity, where the motion was moft 

 evident, to the fmailer, where it was more evanefcent, and 

 terminated in corresponding veins. In thefe animals the cir- 

 culation not only proceeds, as in other creatures, one while 

 fwiftly, and at another flowly, but, at times, is totally inter- 

 mitted or fufpended, and this, feemmgly, ad arb'drium. 

 .Eight large arteries received the pale blood from a common 

 trunk, and conveyed it from one extremity toward the other. 

 They were about equi-di riant, and gave the animal a forne- 

 what ftriped appearance, fuch as a flight intermixture of ar- 

 fenic imparts to glafs. The termination of thefe arteries in 

 continuous veins was very plain to be feen, until their 

 ramifications upon the parts which appeared to be nutritive 

 vifcera became too minute for light, after which the invifible 

 lube!- 1 feemed to connect their branches into a common canal, 



1$ 4 or 



