At night, when all but the watch were sleeping, how gaunt and weird stood forth those tall, black sentinel rocks, past which we were gliding so silently, while overhead was spread the broad firmanent of space, dimly lighted by heaven’s distant lamps! How suggestive the dark, mysterious shadows! how active the imagination! Was the atmosphere indeed peopled with the invisible spirits of bygone ages? Did the air-waves vibrate with the history of the long, long past, the unknown story of these silent fjords and deep water gorges? Is it only thousands, or tens of thousands, of years since the first human beings appeared and disappeared among these now wild, untrodden shores? The inlets which are found at the head of the Gulf of Georgia, northeast of Vancouver Island, are miniature Norwegian fjords, deeper and darker than the sombre Saguenay; a hundred and eighty fathoms of line will not reach the bottom. They are from forty to sixty miles in length, with an average width of nearly two miles, being walled by abrupt mountains from four to seven thousand feet in height. A grand elevation, whose name has escaped us, stands eight thousand feet above the sea at the head of Butte Inlet, while Mount Alfred, at the head of Jarvis Inlet, is still higher. A remarkable feature of these elongated arms of the sea is their great depth, some of them measuring over three hundred fathoms. It is a popular idea that the phosphorescence of the sea is exhibited in its strongest effect in the tropics; but we have seen in the Gulf of Georgia, after sunset, so brilliant an illumination from this cause that it was only comparable to liquid fire, quite equal in intensity to anything the author has witnessed in the Indian Ocean or the Caribbean Sea. It is impossible to convey by the pen an idea of the novel splendor of the scene. A drop of this flame-like water, dipped from the sea in equatorial or Arctic waters and placed under the microscope is found to be teeming with the most curious living and active organisms. These myriads of tiny creatures are so minute that, were it not for the revelations of the microscope, we should not even know of their existence. Nor are these infinitesimal objects the smallest representatives of animal life; glasses of greater power will show still more diminutive creatures. Persons who are accustomed to make sea-voyages do not forget to supply themselves with a good but inexpensive microscope, for use on shipboard. The abundant specimens of minute animal and vegetable life which the sea affords, form a source of instructive amusement by which many otherwise monotonous hours are pleasantly beguiled. A little familiarity with the instrument enables one to profitably entertain a whole ship’s company with its powers.