A STRANGE PHENOMENON.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 11578, 14 October 1901, Page 4

A STRANGE PHENOMENON.

The San Pedro correspondent of the , "San Francisco Chronicle" wired to that paper on July 24th:—" For the past three ■weeks the sea for many milas up and down ■the coast has been a mass of cloudy water by day and a great pool of fire by night. | lEarly in the morning of the Bth a slight .shock of earthquake was felt along the f. shore about here. A few hours later tne fishermen putting out to sea observed only ■ " a few miles out, great streaks of muddy ■water. The muddy water lay in patches, - and contained a. great deal of loosened sexi. -weed. Launches crossing the zones of apparent disturbance would pass through a '- quarter' of a mile or more of the cloudy "~" -waters, and. then there would be an in--tervening clear space. It .was discovered that the turbid water by night was a - gleaming mass of fire. Every ripple was ahmingTike a star, and the breaking of the -wares produced a marvellously brilliant -- scene. A.jar full of the sea water, when ajptated in a ? dark room, produced light "- «nough for people near the water to recogadse one another. Even the sands on_ the - beaches sparkled when disturbed. .ocopical and other examinations of the animals which causes the unusual conditions of the sea have been made at the biological laboratory for marine studies during the summer months established in San Pedro under the State University. H. B.

Torrey, irho has conducted investigations jof the little animal at the San Pedro laboraiorv, pronounces the turbid and phos- '\ -phorescent conditions as having been produced by the organism known to science .as the Periclinium. 'The presence of that - animal, or one very much like it,' he says, *has been observed in a number of cases.' Probably the plague of blood in Egypt, ■ -when the water was turned red at the command of Moses, was due to the presence of these animals, which in certain stages of their employment are blood red - and extremely phosphorescent. The or- . .ganisms may be seen with the naked eye as minute red particles. These animals multiplv so rapidly that thejr have a very bad effect oa the fish and other organisms ■ in. the water."