ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE PHOSPHORI. 117 



throe days longer for farther trial ; but the weather being very hot, 

 they became fetid ; and, contrary to his expectations, there was 

 no more light produced either by the agitation of the water or in 

 the fish. 



Father Bourzes, in his voyage to the Indies in 1704, took par. 

 ticular notice of the luminous appearance of the sea. The light 

 was sometimes so great, that he could easily read the title of a 

 book by it, though he was nine or ten feet from the surface of the 

 water. Sometimes he could easily distinguish, in the wake of the 

 ship, the particles that were luminous from those that were not ; 

 and they appeared not to be all of the same figure. Some of them 

 were like points of light, and others such as stars appear to the 

 naked eye. Some of them were like globes, of a line or two in 

 diameter ; and others as big as one's head. Sometimes they form, 

 ed themselves into squares of three or four inches long, and one 

 or two broad. Sometimes all these different figures were visible at 

 the same time ; and sometimes there were what he calls vortices of 

 light, which at one particular time appeared and disappeared im- 

 mediately like flashes of lightning. 



Nor did only the wake of the ship produce this light, but fishes 

 also, in swimming, left so luminous a track behind them, that 

 both their, size and species might be distinguished by it. When he 

 took some of the water out of the sea, and stirred it ever so little 

 with his hand, in the dark, he always saw in it an infinite number 

 of bright particles ; and he had the same appearance whenever he 

 dipped a piece of linen in the sea, and wrung it in a dark place, 

 even though it was half dry; and he observed, that whtn the 

 sparkles fell upon any thing that was solid, it would continue 

 shining for some hours together. 



After mentioning several circumstances which did not contribute 

 to this appearance, this Father observes, that it depends very much 

 upon the quality of the water ; and he was pretty sure that thi 

 light is the greatest when the water is fattest, and fullest of foam. 

 For in the main sea, he says, the water is not every where equally 

 pure ; and that sometimes, if linen be dipped in the sea, it is 

 clammy when it is drawn up again : and he often observed, that 

 when the wake of the ship was the brightest, the water was the 

 most fat and glutinous, and that linen moistened with it produced 

 a great deal of light, if it was stirred or moved briskly. Besides, 

 in some parts of the sea, he saw a substance like saw-dust, some. 



Il 



