“WHITE WATER” AND LUMINOUS ANIMALS AT SEA.
Captain Kingman, of the American clipper-ship Shooting Star, in lat. 8° 46′ S., long. 105° 30′ E., describes a patch of white water, about twenty-three miles in length, making the whole ocean appear like a plain covered with snow. He filled a 60-gallon tub with the water, and found it to contain small luminous particles seeming to be alive with worms and insects, resembling a grand display of rockets and serpents seen at a great distance in a dark night; some of the serpents appearing to be six inches in length, and very luminous. On being taken up, they emitted light until brought within a few feet of a lamp, when nothing was visible; but by aid of a sextant’s magnifier they could be plainly seen—a jelly-like substance, without colour. A specimen two inches long was visible to the naked eye; it was about the size of a large hair, and tapered at the ends. By bringing one end within about one-fourth of an inch of a lighted lamp, the flame was attracted towards it, and burned with a red light; the substance crisped in burning, something like hair, or appeared of a red heat before being consumed. In a glass of the water there were several small round substances (say 1/16th of an inch in diameter) which had the power of expanding and contracting; when expanded, the outer rim appeared like a circular saw, the teeth turned inward.
The scene from the clipper’s deck was one of awful grandeur: the sea having turned to phosphorus, and the heavens being hung in blackness, and the stars going out, seemed to indicate that all nature was preparing for that last grand conflagration which we are taught to believe will annihilate this material world.