192 
After mentioning several circumstances which did not contribute to this 
appearance, this Father observes, that it depends very much upon the quality 
of the water ; and he was pretty sure that this light is the greatest when the 
water is fattest, and fullest of foam. For in the main sea, he says, the water 
is not every where equally pure; and that sometimes if linen be dipped in 
the sea, it is clammy when it is drawn up again: and he often observed, that 
when the wake of the ship was the brightest, the watei was the most fat and 
glutinous, and that linen moistened with it produced a gieat deal of light, if 
it was stirred or moved briskly. Besides, in some parts of the sea, he saw a 
substance like saw-dust, sometimes red and sometimes yellow; and when he 
drew up the water in those places, it was always viscous and glutinous. The 
sailors told him, that it was the spawn of whales; that there are great quan¬ 
tities of it in the north ; and that sometimes, in the night, they appeared all 
over of a bright light, without being put in motion by any vessel or fish pass¬ 
ing by them. 
As a confirmation of this conjecture, that the more glutinous the sea-water 
is, the more it is disposed to become luminous, he observes, that one day 
they took a fish which was called a ionite , the inside of the mouth of which 
was so luminous, that without any other light, he could read the same charac¬ 
ters which he had before read by the light of the wake of the ship ; and the 
mouth of this fish was full of viscous matter, which, when it was rubbed upon 
a piece of wood, made it immediately all over luminous; though, when the 
moisture was dried up, the light was extinguished. 
The abbe Mollet was much struck with the luminousness of the sea when 
at Venice in \JAO>\ and, after taking a great deal of pains to ascertain the 
circumstances of it, concluded that it was occasioned by a shining insect; and 
having examined the water very often, he at length did find a small insect, 
which he particularly describes, and to which he attributes the light. The 
same hypothesis had also occurred to M. Vianelli, professor of medicine 
inChioggia near Venice; and both he and M. Grizellini, a physician in 
Venice, have given drawings of the insects from which they imagined this 
light to proceed; 
The abbe was the more confirmed in his hypothesis, by observing, some 
time after, the motion of some luminous particles m the sea. For, going into the 
watei, and keeping his head just above the surface, he saw them dart from the 
bottom, which was covered with weeds, to the top, in a manner which he 
