DREDGING — AURORA — PHOSPHORESCENCE. 287 



rectly after supper, and rowed across the bay nearly to the opposite 

 side, then, letting down our dredge, we began our work. That 

 night we secured a most strange collection of objects. Our buck- 

 ets were quickly filled with the profusion of material that was pro- 

 cured, and we were soon obliged to row back to the ship and get 

 more pails and buckets. Occasionally, when too near shore, we 

 would bring up a dredge, full to the top, of spiny sea urchins or 

 echini among which an occasional star-fish or holothurian would 

 be found ; in such cases we were obliged to empty the net over- 

 board and make a new haul. 



In the midst of our work, when we had nearly filled our buckets 

 and pails with rich material, to be looked over in the morning, sud- 

 denly a most brilliant Aurora gathered in the heavens. It gathered 

 itself as if it were an immense snake, and with many undulations 

 seemed to coil and recoil itself to make room for the enormous 

 length with which it spanned the heavens and reached almost di- 

 rectly over our heads, from horizon to horizon. It was broad and 

 of a most intense white. It undulated like a ribbon, and changed 

 its form continually, sometimes concentrating much like an immense 

 drop, then as suddenly lengthening again. Then its direction would 

 change from northeast and northwest to nearly east and west. 



While these contortions were attracting our attention in the heav- 

 ens, another peculiar phenomenon was beginning to appear in the 

 water, which suddenly became magnetized as it were to an unusual 

 degree, and that most remarkable occuiTence of phosphorescence 

 began to display itself in a most intense degree. I have never seen 

 it so beautiful and so luminous. We had now reached the side of 

 the ship, and every dash of the oar sent large, whirling eddies of fire 

 off at our right and left. The boat left a long, luminous wake, like 

 the reflection in the water of the auroral ribbon above. A dash of 

 the oar would cover the surface with bubbles of fire, while, occasion- 

 ally, large disks of the same would sail by apparently ten or fifteen feet 

 below the surface, we could not touch them with our oar, though that 

 was twelve feet long. We all sat up some time watching these cu- 

 rious appearances, and each decided that they were the most beauti- 



