horescence of the sea. With almost incredible swiftness, a mantle
of bluish-white fire had covered nearly all the dark water north of
us, and its clearly defined edge wavered and trembled for an instant,
like the arch of an aurora, within half a mile of the ship. Another
lightning-like flash brought it all around us, and we floated,
literally, in a sea of liquid radiance. Not a single square foot of
dark water could be seen, in any direction, from the maintop, and all
the rigging of the ship, to the royal yards, was lighted up with a
faint, unearthly, blue glare. The ocean looked like a vast plain of
snow, illuminated by blue fire and overhung by heavens of almost inky
blackness. The Milky Way disappeared completely in the blaze of light
from the sea, and stars of the first magnitude twinkled dimly, as if
half hidden by fog.

Only a moment before, the dark, still water had reflected vividly a
whole hemisphere of spangled constellations, and the outlines of the
ship's spars were projected as dusky shadows against the Milky Way.
Now, the sea was ablaze with opaline light, and the yards and sails
were painted in faint tints of blue on a background of ebony. The
metamorphosis was sudden and wonderful beyond description! The polar
aurora seemed to have left its home in the higher regions of the
atmosphere and descended in a sheet of vivid electrical fire upon the
ocean. As we stood, silent with amazement, upon the quarter-deck, this
sheet of bluish flame suddenly vanished, over at least ten square
miles of water, causing, by its almost instantaneous disappearance, a
sensation of total blindness, and leaving the sea, for a moment, an
abyss of blackness. As the pupils of our eyes, however, gradually
dilated, we saw, as before, the dark shining mirror of water around
the ship, while far away on the horizon rose the faint luminous
appearance which had first attracted our attention, and which
was evidently due to the lighting up of the haze by areas of
phosphorescent water below the horizon line.

In a moment the mate shouted excitedly: "Here it comes again!" and
again the great tide of fire came sweeping up around the vessel, and
we floated in a sea of radiance that extended in every direction
beyond the limits of vision.

As soon as I had recovered a little from the bewildered amazement into
which I was thrown by the first phosphorescent flash, I observed, as
closely and carefully as possible, the nature and conditions of th