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then shone as at first. This luminous matter appears, 

 from our experiments, to be of a spherical form, in- 

 cluded in a capsule perfectly diaphanous, or transpa- 

 rent, and which, when ruptured, unfolds the included 

 luminous matter in a liquid form, of the consistency 

 of cream. The luminous substance, there can be 

 little doubt, remains permanently luminous, and the 

 eclipse seems entirely occasioned by the spherulae in 

 which the luminous principle resides being withdrawn 

 by a contractile movement into the darker recesses of 

 the body of the insect, or being embosomed in the 

 interstitial substance. In one instance, when the 

 weather continued warm, the thermometer being 

 above 70, a glow-worm was accidentally crushed on 

 the floor, yet the light continued visible for three or 

 four days. We remember to have picked up a lampy- 

 ris noctiluca on the road from Ouchy to Lausanne, 

 which had been accidentally crushed, it was still 

 luminous. 



We transferred a spherule into oil of olives in a 

 small glass capsule, and viewed it under the lens of 

 the microscope : it was opaque, of a bean shape, and 

 indented ; slightly chromatic at the ends when illumi- 

 nated by the reflector from below, being at one end 

 fringed with blue, and at the other reddish yellow 

 the matter being itself yellow, and environed by mi- 

 nute air bells. The luminous matter, divided by a 

 lancet, previously gilt with etherised gold, in order to 

 ascertain whether the hemispheres, thus separated, 

 would exhibit a luminous annulus surrounding the cen- 

 tral mass, did not discover such an effect, the luminous 

 matter was instantly dissipated, and hence seems subtile 

 and volatile ; for a portion of the same being instantly 

 transferred to muriate of platinum, remained lumin- 

 ous for 85 seconds, while the rest had ceased to be 



