THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



335 



but facilities are freely afforded for the 

 prosecution of purely scientific studies; 

 and it may be noted that an unusually 

 large number of able investigators have 

 availed themselves of the advantages 

 which the laboratories of the Commis- 

 sion afford. Among the recent acts of 

 Congress pertaining to the scientific 

 work have been the appropriation of a 

 liberal sum for special experiments and 

 investigations regarding the clam and 

 lobster; the establishment of a new 

 marine laboratory at Beaufort, North 

 Carolina, and the creation of the posi- 

 tion of fish pathologist. 



The results of the early investiga- 

 tions by the Commission soon led to the 

 institution of artificial propagation as 

 the most feasible and effective form of 

 aid that could be rendered by the Fed- 

 eral Government for the maintenance of 

 the food-fish supply ; and for many years 

 fish-culture has been the leading branch 

 of the Commission's work. Thirty-five 

 hatching stations in twenty-five States 

 were operated in 1900, and new hatch- 

 eries are established at nearly every ses- 

 sion of Congress. The output of young 

 and adult fishes reached the extraor- 

 dinary number of 1,164,000,000, which 

 represent practically all the important 

 food and game fishes of our rivers and 

 lakes, and several marine species, those 

 receiving most attention being the 

 shad, the salmons of both coasts, the 

 various trouts, the whitefish, the wall- 

 eyed pike, the black basses, the cod, 

 the winter flounder and the lobster. 

 The important feature of this work 

 is that a very large proportion of 

 the ova which are handled, being 

 taken from fish that have been caught 

 for market, would have been lost but for 

 the Commission's efforts; in the year 

 covered by the report, fully nine-tenths 

 of the output were from this source. 

 The Commission is one of the most pop- 

 ular of the Government bureaus, and its 

 popularity will undoubtedly increase as 

 the objects, methods, limitations and 

 results of its work become more gener- 

 ally known. 



Students of economics are familiar 

 with the apparently far-fetched hy- 

 pothesis that periods of economic crises 

 or hard times may be related to the 

 fluctuations of the sun-spots. There is 

 now reason to believe that the hypoth- 

 esis is not a rash guess based on some 

 specious coincidences. Sir Norman Lock- 

 yer and Dr. W. J. S. Lockyer have in- 

 vestigated the connection between sun- 

 spots and the weather, and claim, in a 

 paper read before the Royal Society on 

 November 22, that increased and de- 

 creased areas of the spots on the sun 

 may be indicative of fluctuations in the 

 heat it gives out and that the solar con- 

 ditions they indicate are approximately 

 contemporaneous with pulses of greater 

 rainfall. The Lockyers found that when 

 the area of spots was greatest the un- 

 known lines of the spectra of the sun- 

 spots were widened; when the area was 

 least the known lines were widened. 

 From this they infer that a maximum 

 area of sun-spots goes with a great 

 increase of temperature. They thus find 

 periodic changes of solar temperature, a 

 maximum being followed by a mean 

 condition, and that by a minimum. The 

 years 1881, 1886-7 and 1892, for instance, 

 would be, according to these spectrum 

 records, years of mean temperature con- 

 dition. The fluctuations in rainfall in 

 India, Mauritius, Egypt and elsewhere 

 were then compared with the spectrum 

 records. Heavy rains generally occurred 

 in India in the year following the mean 

 condition, that is in dates near but 

 somewhat earlier than the maxima and 

 minima for sun-spots. The fall of snow 

 followed the same rule. Between these 

 pulses of great rainfall there are periods 

 of drought, which correspond to the in- 

 tervals between the maxima and mini- 

 ma of solar temperature indicated by 

 the fluctuations in the spots. All the 

 Indian famines since 1836 have occurred 

 in such intervals, if we assume that 

 maxima have appeared every eleven 

 years. The famines of 1836, 1847, 1860, 

 1868-69, 1880 and 1890-92 fit almost ex- 

 actly with the central points or mean 

 conditions between minima and maxima 



