196 AT SUA. 
found upwards of twenty fathoms. As we were anxious to ascer- 
tain the cause of this very singular appearance, a bucket was let 
down into the water, by which we obtained a considerable 
quantity of the substance floating on the surface. It proved to 
be of a jelly-like consistence, composed of a numberless multitude 
of very small moUusca, each of which having a small red spot 
in the centre, formed, when in a mass, a bright body of colour, 
nearly allied to that produced by a mixture of red lead with water. 
Our sailors were so forcibly struck with the extraordinary efl*ect it 
produced on the water, that they cried out, " this is, indeed, the 
Red Sea and our boatswain in his coarse way observed, it is 
as red as the blood from a butcher's shambles ; if w e were to tell 
this in England we should not be believed." 
In the evening, as it grew dark, the mollusca (which we had 
intentionally preserved) became luminous, having, when undis- 
turbed, that kind of appearance which quicksilver assumes when 
spread on the back of a looking-glass ; on their being agitated 
they emitted a bright silvery light, and being taken out with the 
hand and thrown on the deck, or any other object, they retained 
their highly luminous appearance for more than half a minute. 
This circumstance appears to me very satisfactorily to account for 
many extraordinary appearances of the sea that have been 
noticed in former voyages, particularly in the neighbourhood of 
Cape Fartak, on the coast of Arabia, of which mention has been 
made in several journals of our ships which have frequented that 
coast ; the general observation has been, that the sea looked at 
night as white as milk,'' which fact is also noticed by Agathar- 
chides, (De mare rubro, p. 58) who remarks, that hereabouts 
