408 THE MICROSCOPE. 



and restored them to life after a sleep of more than 

 twenty-one months. Professor Owen saw an animalcule 

 that had been entombed in a grave of dry sand four years 

 reborn to all the activity of life. Spallanzani tried the 

 experiment of alternate life and death, and accomplished 

 it in some instances on the same object fifteen times ; after 

 which nature was exhausted, and refused further aid in 

 this miraculous care of those minute objects of her won- 

 derful works. 



Naturalists consider the phosphoric light of the marine 

 animalcule to be the effect of vital action. The sparks 

 are intermittem: like the fire-fly; they measure from the 

 12,000th to the 100th of an inch in size. Captain Scoresby 

 found that the broad expanse of waters at Greenland was 

 nearly all discoloured by animalcules, and computed that 

 of some species one hundred and fifty millions would find 

 ample room in a tumbler of water. The phosphorescence 

 of the sea is eloquently portrayed by Darwin, in his 

 Voyage of the Beagle. Mr. Gosse thus describes the 

 luminous appearances presented by a closer inspection of 

 these minute animalcules : " Some weeks afterwards I had 

 an opportunity of becoming .acquainted with the minute 

 animals, to which a great portion of the luminousness of 

 the sea is attributed. One of my large glass vases of sea- 

 water I had observed to become suddenly at night, when 

 tapped with the finger, studded with minute but brilliant 

 sparks at various points on the surface of the water. I set 

 the jar in the window, and was not long in discovering, 

 without the aid of a lens, a goodly number of the tiny 

 jelly-like globules of Noctiluca miliaris swimming about 

 in various directions. They swam with an even gliding 

 motion, much resembling that of the Volvox globator of 

 our fresh-water pools. They congregated in little groups, 

 and a shake of the vessel sent them darting down from 

 the surface. It was not easy to keep them in view when 

 seen, owing rather to their extreme delicacy and colourless 

 transparency than to their minuteness. They were, in 

 fact, distinctly appreciable by the naked eye, measuring 

 from l-50th to l-30th of an inch in diameter." Nocti- 

 luca miliaris belongs to the highest class of the Protozoa, 

 and with a power of about 200 diameters they are seen 



