The Abbe Nollent was convinced, by a series of experiments, that this phenomenon is caused by small animals, either by their luminous aspect, or by some liquor or effluvium which they emit. He did not, however, exclude other causes; and among these, the spawn or fry of fishes is deserving of attention. M. Dangelet, in sailing into the bay of Antongil, in the island of Madagascar, observed a prodigious quantity of fry, which covered the surface of the sea for the extent of more than a mile, and which he at first, on account of its color, mistook for a bank of sand. This immense accumulation of spawn or fry exhaled a disagreeable odor; and it should be remarked that the sea had, for some days before, appeared with uncommon splendor. The same accurate observer, perceiving the sea remarkably luminous in the road of the cape of Good Hope, during a perfect calm, remarked that the oars of the canoes produced a whitish and pearly kind of luster: when he took in his hand the water, which contained phosphorus, he discerned in it, for some minutes, globules of light as large as the heads of pins. On pressing these globules, they appeared to his touch like a soft and thin pulp; and some days after the sea was covered with entire banks of small fishes, in innumerable multitudes. From all these facts it may be deduced, that various causes contribute to the light and scintillation of the sea; and that the light which the Cayenne naturalist attributed to agitation and friction, differs from that which is extended far and near, seeming to cover the whole surface of the ocean, and producing a very beautiful and striking appearance, particularly in the torrid zone, and in the summer season. TIDES AND CURRENTS. Alternate tides in sacred order run.—BLACKMORE. Among the most wonderful phenomena of nature may be reckoned the tides of the sea. They were but little understood by the ancients, although Pliny, Ptolemy and Macrobius, were of opinion that they were influenced by the sun and moon. The former expressly says, that the cause of the ebb and flow is in the sun, which attracts the waters of the ocean; and he adds, that the waters rise in proportion to the proximity of the moon to the earth. The phenomena of the tides have been ascribed to the principle of innate gravitation; but Sir Richard Phillips, in his theory of the system of the universe, refers them to that general law of motion which he considers as the primary and proximate cause of all phenomena, operating, in a descending series, from the rotation of the sun round the fulcrum of the solar system, to the fall of an apple to the earth. This motion being transferred through all nature from its source, serves as the efficient cause of every species of vitality, of every organic arrangement, and of all those accidents of body heretofore ascribed to attraction.