214 Lieut. Milne on Luminous Bodies seen 



vexations, at length assumed an alarming character. A dis- 

 ease of the bladder, from which he had long suffered, obliged 

 him to keep his room, and, after several months of severe suf- 

 ferings, he died on the 7th June 1821, at the age of 67. His 

 death would be an immense and irreparable loss to botany, had 

 he not left a son, who, formed in his school, and imbued with 

 all his doctrines, will not only render to his memory the devo- 

 tion which he owes to him, by publishing his works, but will 

 extend them, and add what may still be wanting for their com- 

 pletion. We also hope that his researches in comparative ana- 

 tomy, which were very considerable, but of which nothing is 

 known, excepting through the medium of some verbal commu- 

 nications, will not be lost to science. 



Description of Luminous Bodies which were observed attached 

 to the Vane-Staff at the Mast-head and Yard-arm q/'H.M.S. 

 Cadmus, while cruizing in the River Plate. By Lieut. 

 Alexander Milne, R. N. Communicated by the Author. 



Ml. he first time I observed this luminous appearance was in the 

 month of September 1827, in Lat. 34.°40' S. and Long. 54.°50' W. 

 The weather for some days had been unsettled, and there was 

 every indication of an approaching pampero, or hurricane, which 

 blows from the pampas or plains of Buenos Ayres, and extends 

 for many hundred miles along the coast of Brazil. During the 

 day it had been exceedingly sultry, and heavily charged clouds 

 had been collecting in the south-west. As the evening ap- 

 proached it became very dark, and the darkness was rendered 

 still more striking by the continued flashes of lightning, followed 

 by heavy peals of distant thunder. About 10 o'clock, while the 

 lisrhtning continued to rag;e and extend itself around the hori- 

 zon, I observed a light on the extremity of the vane-stafF at the 

 mast-head, and shortly afterwards another on the weather-side 

 of the foretopsail-yard. One of the midshipmen, struck with so 

 curious a phenomenon, went aloft to discover its position. He 

 found it attached to an iron-bolt on the yard-arm, its size rather 

 exceeding that of a walnut, and having a faint yellow cast in the 

 centre, approaching to blue on the exterior edge. He applied 



