212 MEDUSA: MINUTE AND PHOSPHORESCENT. 



crometer glass, of an eight hundred and fortieth of 

 an inch ; and as the drop occupied a circle on a plate 

 of glass containing 529 of these squares, there must 

 have been, in this single drop of water, taken out of 

 the yellowish-green sea, in a place by no means the 

 most discoloured, about 26,450 animalcules. Hence, 

 reckoning sixty drops to a dram, there would be a 

 number in a gallon of water exceeding, by one half, 

 the amount of the population of the whole globe ! 

 It gives a powerful conception of the minuteness 

 and wonders of creation, when we think of m^e 

 than twenty-six thousand animals living, obtain- 

 ing subsistence, and moving perfectly at their ease, 

 without annoyance to one another, in a single drop 



of water A whale requires a sea, an ocean, to 



sport in. About one hundred and fifty millions of 

 these animalcules would have abundant room in a 

 tumbler of water ! " 



But besides furnishing food to the whale, and, no 

 doubt, to many other of the inhabitants of the deep, 

 those medusae are the cause of the phosphorescent 

 light that sometimes glows on the ocean with re- 

 splendent brilliancy. We see this light oftentimes 

 on our own coasts. It is usually of a pale bluish- 

 white colour, more or less intense, apparently, ac- 

 cording to the condition of the creatures by which 

 it is emitted. It can only be seen at night. We 

 have seen it on the west coast of Scotland, so bright 

 that the steamer in which we sailed left behind her 

 what appeared to be a broad highway of liquid fire. 



