ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 261 



( 5 ) p. 229. " Shine like stars:' 



The luminosity of the ocean is one of those superb natural phe- 

 nomena which continue to excite our admiration even when we have 

 seen them recur every night for months. The sea is phosphorescent 

 in every zone; but those who have not witnessed the phenomenon 

 within the tropics, and especially in the Pacific, have only an imper- 

 fect idea of the grand and majestic spectacle which it affords. 

 When a man-of-war, impelled by a fresh breeze, cuts the foaming 

 waves, the voyager standing at the ship's side feels as if he could 

 never be satisfied with gazing on the spectacle which presents itself 

 to his view. Every time that in the rolling of the vessel her side 

 emerges from the water, blue or reddish streams of light appear to 

 dart upwards like flashes of lightning from her keel. Nor can I 

 describe tjje splendor of the appearance presented on a dark night 

 in the tropic seas by the sports of a troop of porpoises, As they 

 cut through the foaming waves, following each other in long winding 

 lines, one sees their mazy track marked by intense and sparkling 

 light. In the Gulf of Cariaco, between Cumana and the Peninsula 

 of Maniquarez, I have stood for hours enjoying this spectacle. 



Le Gentil and the elder Forster attributed the flashing to the 

 electric friction excited by the ship in moving through the water, 

 but the present state of our knowledge does not permit us to receive 

 this as a valid explanation. (Joh. Reinh. Forster' s Bemerkungen 

 auf seiner Reise um die Welt, 1783, s. 57; Le G-entil, Voyage 

 dans les Mers de Tlnde, 1779, t. i. pp. 685-698.) 



Perhaps there are few natural subjects of observation which have 

 been so long and so much debated as the luminosity of the waters of 

 the sea. What we know with certainty on the subject may be 

 reduced to the following simple facts. There are several luminous 

 animals which, when alive, give out at pleasure a faint phosphoric 

 light: this light is, in most instances, rather bluish, as in Nereis 

 noctiluca, Medusa pelagica var. j3 (Forskal, Fauna ^Egyptiaco- 

 arabica, s. Descriptiones animalium quse in itinere orientali obser- 

 vavit, 1775, p. 109), and in the Monophora noctiluca, discovered in 

 Baudin's expedition, (Bory de St. Vincent, Voyage dans les lies 

 des Mers d'Afrique, 1804, t. i. p. 107, pi. vi.) The luminous 



