THE. PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEA, 25 
light. Every stroke of an oar makes the ocean fling out jets 
of light--here feeble and motionless, there blazing and scattered, 
like sparkling seed pearls. The paddle-wheels of a steamer lift 
out of the water, and toss back again sheaves of light, and as 
the vessel ploughs its way through the sea it pushes before it two 
waves of phosphorescent liquid, leaving behind it a long track of 
fire, like the tail of a comet, which gradually fades away. What 
a splendid subject for the study of the naturalist! What an 
inspiring theme for the poet! 
When the Venxus was at anchor off Simon’s Town, the sea was 
so phosphorescent that the cabin of the naturalists was lit as 
with a lamp. The water, when poured from one bucket into 
another, was like molten lead, and when the hand was plunged 
into it, it came out covered with luminous corpuscles, glittering like 
diamonds full of light. 
Certain animalcules, which do not possess this phosphorescence 
in so marked a degree, frequently, when very numerous, render 
the waters white. This phenomenon is called by the Dutch sailors 
the Milky Sea, or the Sea of Snow. The minute creatures from 
whom this light originates are not the breadth of a hair, and the 
united lengths of 300 of these would hardly be an inch; and yet 
these are the giants in the nation of the infusoria! They stick to 
each other by their extremities, and so form countless threads, 
often of a great length. 
In 1854, in the Bay of Bengal, Captain Kingmann passed for 
thirty miles through the midst of a large patch of sea white with 
these creatures. During the night of the 20th of August, 1860, 
M. Trebuchet, commander of the frigate La Capricieuse, which was 
in the roadstead of Amboine, witnessed a magnificent spectacle 
of the same kind, which continued all night, until the daybreak. 
The sea resembled a white, chalky plain, upon which the moon 
was shedding her silvery light. 
The Noctiluca miharis is one of those infusoria which chiefly 
contributes to the phosphorescence of the sea. This animalcule, 
omitted by Cuvier in his “Animal Kingdom,” has been classed 
by naturalists sometimes with the anemones, sometimes with the 
meduse, and sometimes with the foraminifera. They are very 
