176 PHOSPHORESCENCE. 
Experiments, the results of which appear con- 
tradictory, were made upon the glowworm’s light, 
by Forster, Spallanzani, Dr. Hulme, Beckerheim, 
and Humphry Davy. Davy’s experiments show 
that the hght was neither increased in oxygen or 
extinguished in hydrogen gas (Phil. Trans. 1810). 
It was in 1749 and 1750, as we have seen, that 
Professor Viannelli and Dr. Grixellini discovered, 
in the Adriatic Sea, their small luminous worm, 
Nereis noctiluca ; and from this moment the real 
cause of the phosphorescence of the sea was esta- 
bhshed. It was then owing to animalcules! Soon 
afterwards Captain Cook and Mr. Forster met 
with those curious little organisms, the Noctiluce, 
and recognized them as the cause of the phospho- 
rescence of the ocean. In 1776, the Abbé Spal- 
lanzani treated of the phosphoric light emitted 
by Meduse. 
Since then, discoveries connected with phos- 
phorescence have multiplied considerably up to 
the present day. 
The history of that of our own Noctiluca miliaris, 
which illuminates the waters of the English Chan- 
nel, and therefore interests us particularly, is curi- 
ous enough. 
This animalcule was accurately observed, for 
the first time, by a French naturalist, Rigaud, in 
1765, who speaks of it in the ‘Mémoires de 
V Académie de Paris ;’ it was seen also, about the 
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