Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/92

82 in this part of the ocean, from being modified by the land breezes.

I had kept ome bottles of the ea-water, which I had collected the night before, during its phophorecence, for the purpoe of examining the mall luminous ubtances which occaion this phenomenon. Having incloed ome of this water in a vial, I agitated it in the dark, and preently oberved luminous globules ariing within it, which appeared perfectly imilar to thoe that are een in the agitated water of the ocean. I tried the imple experiment of eparating thee particles from the water, in order to learn whether it would till retain its phophorecent quality. Upon filtrating it, by means of a piece of blotting-paper, a number of minute tranparent particles, gelatinous in their conitence, and of a globular form, were left upon the filtre. The water had now entirely lot its phophorecent quality, which I again retored to it by mixing it with thoe particles. If thee mall animalcula be expoed for any coniderable time to the air, they loe their phophorecent properties.

I have frequently repeated the ame experiment upon water collected in different parts of the ocean, and have uniformly found it to contain the ame ort of animalcula, which I therefore conider to be the principal caue of the pho- phoreence