■with Chemistry and the Natural Sciences. 321 



action of the will in those animals which are endowed with the 

 peculiar faculty. 



The glimmering which appears, and which is nothing else 

 than the electrical light which the particles of bodies permit to 

 escape, on their losing their natural condition of equilibrium, 

 through the agency of one of the causes we have just named, may 

 assist in conducting us to the origin of a vast number of pheno- 

 mena. Chalk, for example, and some varieties of lime, become 

 quite luminous after exposure to the sun's rays ; hence it results 

 that considerable masses of these substances, after being exposed 

 for whole days to the burning rays of the sun, may spread wide- 

 ly, at the close of the day, a feeble phosphorescent light. Is it 

 not to some such cause as this we must refer the phosphorescence 

 which some travellers have observed, as in certain mountains, 

 it has been stated, in the interior of Africa ? This phenomenon 

 evidently allies itself to the question of the decomposition of 

 rocks, for it would indicate either immediate decomposition, orthe 

 disintegration of the constituent parts, or a derangement in the 

 naturalstate of equilibrium, one or other of which maybe induced, 

 when the atmospheric agencies are brought into operation. 



In some animals, among which lampreys may be instanced, 

 phosphorescence is the result of a chemical action, which, to a 

 certain extent, predominates over the will, since the luminousness 

 shews itself only after their exposure to the light of day, and yet 

 they possess the power of insensibly diminishing it to the extent 

 of its complete disappearance. 



Some marine fishes, on the other hand, and some other organ- 

 ized bodies, only became phosphorescent when they have so far 

 advanced in the decomposition which precedes putrefaction ; 

 that is to say, in the contest which takes place between the powers 

 of organic and those of inorganic nature. 



The phosphorescence of the ocean has been observed from time 

 immemorial. In all regions of the globe, and especially within 

 the tropics, as soon as the day has departed, a fainter or brio-hter 

 phosphorescence is seen sparkling on the face of the waters, which 

 IS produced partly by animalculae, partly by organic matters, 

 such as the mucosity which escapes from the surface of the watery 

 inhabitants of the deep, and partly from physical causes which 

 disengage the electrical fluid. The presence of organic bo- 

 dies, intimately mixed with the water, cannot be doubted after 



