188 Miscellanies. 



the sea became nearly as luminous as before. On the fifth night the 

 luminous appearance nearly ceased. 



Capt. B. is unwilling to attribute the above effect to living animal- 

 culae ; but suggests the idea that it depends upon some compound 

 of phosphorus suddenly evolved and dispersed over the surface of 

 the sea. In such a compound he conceives the phosphorus or phos- 

 phoric acid to be afforded by exuviae or secretions of fish, and the 

 other constituents to be in some way connected with those abundant 

 oceanic salts, tl\e muriate of soda and sulphate of magnesia. — Mem. 



3. Antarctic Expedition. — A letter from an officer of the Chanti- 

 cleer, dated at Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope, July, 1829, to J. 

 Barrow, Esq. F. R. S. has been published in the January number of 

 the Edinburgh Journal of Science. The Chanticleer has been on 

 an expedition in the southern oceans, for scientific purposes, since 

 1826. The writer, Capt. Webster of the Royal Navy, says he " is 

 happy to state that the ship has not lost a man since she was commis- 

 sioned." This, when compared with the sufferings of many early 

 navigators, is a striking evidence of improvements in nautical skill, 

 and in the methods for provisioning ships, and for the preservation of 

 health on ship-board. He does not mention any newly discovered 

 lands, but makes several interesting notices of the animal and veget- 

 able productions of Cape Horn and Staten Land, which is an island 

 near Terra del Fuego on the east. 



The vegetation of Cape Horn and Staten Land is composed prin- 

 cipally of evergreens, of which a species of beech ranks first for size 

 and frequency, and clothes the country with forests of perpetual ver- 

 dure. The wood is of small value, but the bark possesses the tannin 

 principle, and is employed to convert seal skins into leather, to which 

 it imparts an agreeable odor. This beech is incumbered with a para- 

 sitical shrub, but of what species the writer is ignorant. It is also 

 beset, on the trunk and large branches, with smooth globular orange 

 colored fungi, of the size of a small apple. Wherever these fungous 

 substances adhere to the tree it becomes knotted and tuberculated, 

 but the most singular property of this evergreen beech is the change 

 produced in the wood by decay. It becomes throughout of a bright 

 beautiful verdigris green color, which it retains against the action of 

 all acid and alkaline agents ; and in an equal degree resists the effects 

 of weather. It affords an excellent pigment, having been pulverized 

 and tried as a paint in various kinds of work, where it proved both 



