HUMBOLDT. - PLINY. MOMER. 4: 
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1 
greater depth, until the elementary strife has ceased, when it 
again loves to spurt in the warmer or more cheerful superficial 
waters. 
In the tropical zone, Humboldt saw the sea most brilliantly 
luminous before a storm, when the air was sultry, and the sky 
covered with clouds. In the North Sea we observe the pheno- 
menon most commonly during fine tranquil autumnal nights ; 
but it may be seen at every season of the year, even when the 
cold is most intense. Its appearance is, however, extremely 
capricious; for, under seemingly unaltered circumstances, the 
sea may one night be very luminous, and the next quite dark. 
Often months, or even years, pass by without witnessing it in 
full perfection. Does this result from a peculiar state of the 
atmosphere, or do the little animals love to migrate from one 
part of the coast to another ? 
It is remarkable that the ancients should have taken so little 
notice of oceanic phosphorescence. The “ Periplus” of Hanno 
contains perhaps the only passage in which the phenomenon is 
described. To the south of Cerne the Carthaginian navigator 
saw the sea burn, as it were, with streams of fire. Pliny, 
in whom the miracle (miraculum, as he calls it) of the date- 
shell excited so lively an admiration, and who must often 
have seen the sea gleam with phosphoric light, as the pas- 
sage proves where he mentions in a few dry words the luminous 
gurnard (lucerne) stretching out a fiery tongue, has no exclama- 
tion of delight for one of the most beautiful sights in nature. 
Homer also, who has given us so many charming descriptions of 
the sea in its ever-changing aspects, and who so often leads us 
with long-suffering Ulysses through the nocturnal floods, never 
once makes them blaze or sparkle in his immortal hexameters. 
Even modern poets mention the phenomenon but rarely. 
Camoens himself, whom Humboldt, on account of his beautiful 
oceanic descriptions, calls, above aii others, the “poet of the 
sea,” forgets to sing it in his Lusiad. Byron in his “ Corsair” 
has a few lines on the subject: 
“ Flash’d the dipt oars, and, sparkling with the stroke, 
Around the waves phosphoric brightness broke ;” 
but contents himself, as we see, with coldly mentioning a phe- 
nomenon so worthy of all a poet’s enthusiasm. In Coleridge’s 
