
92 KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 

WOMAN’S SMILE. 

As when the rose we cherish’d 
Lies wither’d on the plain, 
Her leaves, tho’ pale and perish’d, 
Sweet odor still retain; 
As when a song is ended, 
Its music haunts the ear; 
As when the Sun’s descended, 
Light lingers o’er his bier; 
So Woman’s brow, when faded, 
Still shines on Memory’s stream : 
The smile that Time has shaded, 
Gilds Fancy’s darken’d dream. 
Ambition’s footsteps falter, 
And Passion’s waves expire ; 
Time strews the world’s dark altar 
With ashes of Desire. 
But Woman’s smile for ever 
Returns upon our dream: 
Once felt, the soul can never 
For vet Love’s morning beam! 

ILLUMINATION OF THE SEA. 

You GAVE us, Mr. Eprror, some very 
interesting particulars last month (page 27), 
about the various colors imparted at certain 
times to the waters of the great deep. 
Connected with the same subject, 1 observe 
some additional remarks recorded by Mr. 
Gosse, in his ‘‘ Rambles of a Naturalist.” I 
have copied them, and beg to crave a corner 
for their insertion in OUR JOURNAL :— 
I was coming down lately, says Mr. Gosse, 
by the steamer from Bristol to Ilfracombe in 
lovely summer weather. Night fell on us 
when approaching Lynmouth; and from 
thence to Ilfracombe, the sea, unruffled by a 
breeze, presented a phenomenon (of no rare 
occurrence indeed to those who are much 
on the water, but) of unusual splendor and 
beauty. It was the phosphorescence of the 
luminous animalcules; and though I have 
seen the same appearance in greater profusion 
and magnificence in other seas, 1 think I 
never saw it with more delight or admiration 
than here. 
Sparkles of brilliance were seen thickly 
studding the smooth surface, when intently 
looked at, though a careless observer would 
have overlooked them; and as the vessel’s 
bows ploughed up the water, and threw off 
the liquid furrow on each side, brighter 
specks were left adhering to the dark planks, 
as the water fell off, and shone brilliantly 
until the next plunge washed them away. 
The foaming wash of the furrow itself was 
turbid with milky light, in which glowed 
spangles of intense brightness. But the most 
beautiful effect of the whole, by far, and what 
was novel to me, was produced by the pro- 
jecting paddle-boxes. Each of these drove 
up from before its broad front a little wave, 
continually prolonging itself, which presently 
curled over outwardly with a glassy edge, and 
broke. 
It was from this curling and breaking edge 
—here and there, not in every part, that there 
gleamed up a blueish light of the most vivid 
lustre; so intense that I could almost read 
the small print of a book that I held up over 
the gangway. The luminous animals evi- 
dently ran in shoals, unequally distributed; 
for sometimes many rods would be passed, 
in which none or scarcely any light was 
evolved, then it would appear and continue for 
perhaps an equal space. The waves formed 
by the summits of the swells behind the ship 
continued to break, and were visible for a 
long way behind, as a succession of luminous 
spots. Occasionally, one would appear in 
the distant darkness, after the intermediate 
one had ceased; bearing no small resem- 
blance, as some one on board observed, to a 
ship showing a light by way of signal. 
While on this subject, I will mention the 
charming spectacle presented by some of the 
Sertularian zoophytes, in the dark. Other 
naturalists, as Professor Forbes, Mr. Hassal, 
and Mr. Landsborough, have observed it be- 
fore me; and it was the admiration expressed 
by them at the sight, that set me upon 
witnessing it for myself. I hada frond of 
Laminaria digitata, on whose smooth surface 
a populous colony of that delicate zoophyte 
Laomedea geniculata had established itself. 
I had put the frond into a vessel of water as 
it came out of the sea, and the polypes were 
now in the highest health and vigor in a 
large vase in my study. After nightfall I 
went into the room, in the dark ; and taking 
a slender stick, struck the frond and waved it 
toand fro. Instantly one and another of the 
polypes lighted up, lamp after lamp rapidly 
seemed to catch the flame, until in a second 
or two every stalk bore several tiny but 
brilliant stars; while from the regular manner 
in which the stalks were disposed along the 
lines of the creeping stem, as before described, 
the spectacle bore a resemblance sufficiently 
striking to the illumination of a city; or 
rather to the gas-jets of some figure of a 
crown or V.R., adorning the house of a loyal 
citizen on a gala-night ; the more because of 
the momentary extinction and re-lighting of 
the flames here and there, and the manner in 
which the successive ignition appeared to run 
rapidly from part to part. 
It has been a question whether the lumi- 
nosity of these polypes is a vital function, or 
only the result of death and decomposition, 
I agree with Mr. Hassal in thinking it atten- 
dant, if. not dependent, upon vitality. The 
colony of Laomedea, in the preceding experi- 
ment, was still attached to its sea-weed; and 
