191 
When In the light of the sun, he examined, with a microscope, a small 
piece of a fish which had shined very much the night before, he found 
nothing remarkable on its surface, except that he thought he perceived 
what he calls a steam, rather dark than luminous, arising like a very 
small dust from the fish, and here and there a very small and almost 
Imperceptible sparkle. Of the sparkles he had no doubt; but he thought 
it possible that the steam might be a deception of the sight, or some dust 
in the air. 
Finding the fish to be quite dry, he moistened it with his spittle; and 
then observed that it gave a little light, though but for a short time. The 
fish at that time was not fetid, nor yet insipid to the best discerning palate. 
Two of the fishes he kept two or three 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 1/04, took particular 
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 dis¬ 
tinguish, 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 diameter; and others 
as big as one’s head. Sometimes they formed themselves Into squares of 
three or four Inches long, and one or two broad. Sometimes all these differ¬ 
ent figures were visible at the same time; and sometimes there were what 
he calls vortices of light, which at one particular time appeared and disap¬ 
peared immediately 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 
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 when the particles fell 
upon any thing that was solid, it would continue shining for some hours 
together. 
