Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/590

574 quantity of luminous particles pressed closely one upon another, the most brilliant ones being those which had been in contact with the bottom. The water when taken up in a bucket appeared to be full of phosphorescent bodies, from a half to three quarters of an inch long, which sparkled when they were brushed about by the hand. Nearly four hundred of them were counted in a bucket holding ten quarts. When taken from the water and examined by the light of a lamp, they were seen to be formed of a gelatinous substance which dried up quickly in the air and disappeared, leaving a dark globule a millimetre in diameter (see figure), which could be made lively again, and capable of becoming luminous, by putting a drop of water upon it. When rubbed in the hand, the bodies left a bright train which soon went out, leaving no odor. The globules under the compound microscope were transparent, filled with eggs of an ovoid shape, and were continually agitating their fins and tentacles. The organism is ellipsoidal

and full of eggs, which are contained in an internal sac; the internal tentacles, t, always in motion, keep the eggs in circulation. The exterior tentacles, b, have a motion like that which we make in stretching out the arms, drawing them back and bending the elbows. The object marked n is a comb shaped fin, with twelve or fifteen bones. The epidermis is striated in the direction of the major axis of the ellipse. When kept till daylight and examined in a dark room, the water gave no light; it was of no use to shake or stir it, the bodies had lost their phosphorescent property. Fresh water, drawn up in the daytime and stirred in the dark, likewise showed no phosphorescence, although the color of the waters, a dirty-blue bordering upon gray, indicated that the ship was still close to the milky sea. On the next evening the milky tint came on again, all at once, at about seven o'clock, an hour and twenty minutes after sunset and an hour after dark. The beautiful appearances of the preceding night were again observed, but the whitish reflection in the horizon more resembled a fog which obscured it and made it seem nearer. Drops of water examined by themselves in the microscope revealed filaments of marine plants and numerous proliferous vegetable cells. The animalcules were the same as before, and were the only luminous objects. The nights of the 9th, 10th, 12th, and 13th of February were thus adorned with the splendor of the milky sea; during this time the ship had passed through six hundred and sixty miles, or two hundred and twenty marine leagues, in a mean latitude of 12° north, between the sixty-first and fifty-first meridians of east longitude. The atmosphere was in its normal condition, as was also the sea; the moon was new, the sky was clear, the barometer and thermometer were steady. No storm was near; no change was observed in the hydrometric condition of the air; the monsoon had been blowing a light breeze from the northeast for a considerable period. Several officers on board had previously witnessed this interesting spectacle in different places, as the Gulf of Aden, the Bay of Bengal, the Sea of Java, in hot latitudes, and during the months of January and February, but none of them had observed it when it was so bright, or had noticed it for so long a time.—La Nature.

The Health-Cure as a Remedy for Adversity.—The "Lancet" suggests that more account ought to be taken than is taken of the condition of health in estimating the causes of success or failure in life. The habit of failing is formed in some families, and seems to be transmitted by inheritance; the same is the case with constitutional peculiarities, and often with certain morbid conditions. It would be an interesting and profitable study to examine how far what is called ill luck or bad fortune is induced by such peculiarities. Accepting this view, "so far from its being strange that failure or success should 'run in families,' it