B14 THE OCEAN. 
watch her breasting the waves. The mass of water 
rolled from her bows as white as milk, studded with 
those innumerable sparkles of blue light. The 
nebulosity instantly separated into small masses, 
curdled like the clouds of marble, leaving the water 
between of its own clear blackness; the clouds soon 
subsided, but the sparks remained. Sometimes one 
of these points, of greater size and brilliancy than 
the rest, would suddenly burst into a small cloud of 
superior whiteness to the mass, and to be then lost 
in it. The curdling of the milky appearance into 
clouds and masses, and its quick subsidence, were 
what I had never observed elsewhere. 
Many very interesting observations have been made 
on these luminous appearances, and there seems no 
doubt that to a very large extent they are produced 
by living animals; but as many species, varying 
greatly from each other, and belonging even to differ- 
ent classes of the animal kingdom, have been recog- 
nized as contributing to the luminousness, we need 
the less wonder that there should be variations in its 
aspects. Dr. Baird, in some quotations from a jour- 
nal kept during a voyage to India, furnishes some 
interesting notes of the origin of the light. The 
writer speaks of “the broad bright flash, vivid enough 
to illuminate the sea for some distance round, while 
the most splendid globes of fire were seen wheeling 
and careering in the midst of it, and by their bril- 
liancy outshining the general light.”. On drawing a 
bucket-full of water the narrator “allowed it to re- 
main quiet for some time, when, upon looking into it 
in a dark place, the animals could be distinctly seea 
