The author stated, that this phenomenon seems scarcely to be noticed in the writings of Aristotle or of Pliny which have reached us, though Pliny was familiar with the light emitted by certain shell-fish, and by the Sea Lung or Medusa.

Mr Boyle gives an account, from the journal of a shipmaster, of the luminousness of the sea; and it is particularly detailed, from personal observation, in the Indian voyage of Father Bourzes, in 1704.