Joseph Banks - Endeavour Journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 - No. 0106
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[Page 106]
To Brasil
Novr.
Fathoms of Line About noon long ranges of a yellowish colour appeard upon the sea many of them very large one (the largest) might be a mile in lengh & 3 or 400 yards wide The seamen in general affirmd roundly that they were the spawn of fishes & that they had often seen the same appearance before upon taking up some of the water so coloured we found them it to be causd by innumerable small atoms each pointed at the end & of a yellowish colour none of them above a quarter of a line in lengh in the microscope they appeard to be fasciculi of small fibres interwove one within the other not unlike the nidi of some Phryganeas which we call caddices what they were or for what purposes designd we could not even guess nor so much as distinguish whether their substance was animal or