The Central And
Intertropical Parts Of The Atlantic Swarm With Pteropoda,
Crustacea, And Radiata, And With Their Devourers The Flying-
Fish, and again with their devourers the bonitos and albicores;
I presume that the numerous lower pelagic animals
feed on
The Infusoria, which are now known, from the
researches of Ehrenberg, to abound in the open ocean: but
on what, in the clear blue water, do these Infusoria subsist?
While sailing a little south of the Plata on one very dark
night, the sea presented a wonderful and most beautiful
spectacle. There was a fresh breeze, and every part of the
surface, which during the day is seen as foam, now glowed
with a pale light. The vessel drove before her bows two
billows of liquid phosphorus, and in her wake she was followed
by a milky train. As far as the eye reached, the crest
of every wave was bright, and the sky above the horizon,
from the reflected glare of these livid flames, was not so
utterly obscure as over the vault of the heavens.
As we proceed further southward the sea is seldom
phosphorescent; and off Cape Horn I do not recollect more than
once having seen it so, and then it was far from being
brilliant. This circumstance probably has a close connection
with the scarcity of organic beings in that part of the ocean.
After the elaborate paper, [8] by Ehrenberg, on the
phosphorescence of the sea, it is almost superfluous on my part
to make any observations on the subject.
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