WHY THE SEA LIGHTS UP.

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 124, 29 May 1922, Page 3

WHY THE SEA LIGHTS UP.

Luminosity is an exceedingly widespread phenomenon among the forms of animal life that exist in the sea, though, curiously, no fresh-water forms have the power of glowing ... (writes Professor George F. Sleggs, B.Sc, in the Daily Mail). Green is the prevailing colour of phosphorescent light; it is never inclined to be reddish. Phosphorescence has a profound significance in Nature. It must be borne in mind that there is nothing in the life of the ocean comparable to the production and reception of sound utterances among its inhabitants. ; Land-living creatures communicate with each other, express their emotions, warn enemies, court tho opposite sex, largely to the accompaniment of cries and vocal sounds^ But marine organisms lead silent lives. They are invariably devoid of anything corresponding to ears, though possibly they are sensitive to the duller, low-pitched vibrations in the water. Therefore, Nature has endowed them with tho power of producing light where, and "for the purposes that, terrestrial creatures utter sounds. Strange as it may seem, the scintillating of a swarm of animaleulae in the sea is the analogue of the cawing of the rookery at eventide. The glowing of the waters as the ship forges through them corresponds to the cries and yells of the wild life when the express train dashes through the forest. . ,