INTERESTING FACTS. 39 



boat, it gives out phosphoric matter, leaving a 

 brilliant line in the boat's wake, and the blades 

 of the oars when raised from the water seem to 

 be dripping with liquid phosphorus. 



Even between the tropics, the phosphoric 

 light is increased or diminished in its degree 

 of brilliancy, in a very slight difference of lati- 

 tude ; on one day it would be seen to a most 

 magnificent extent, on the next it would be 

 perhaps merely a few luminous flashes. It 

 might proceed from the shoals of marine ani- 

 mals, that caused the brilliancy to be less ex- 

 tensively distributed over one part of the ocean 

 than another. That I am correct in asserting 

 that some of the animals which occasion the 

 phosphoric light, emitted by the ocean, do travel 

 in shoals, and are distributed in some latitudes 

 only in a very limited range, I insert two facts 

 which occurred during this voyage, and which 

 will no doubt be regarded as interesting. 



On the 8th of June, being then in latitude 00** 

 30' south, and longitude 27° 5' west, having fine 

 weather and a fresh south-easterly trade wind, 

 and range of the thermometer being from 78° to 

 84", late at night the mate of the watch came 

 and called me to witness a very unusual appear- 

 ance in the water, which he, on first seeing, 

 considered to be breakers. On arriving upon the 

 deck, this was found to be a very broad and 



