XII NOTES BY THE EDITOR. 



ing extracts of a letter recently published in the London Athenceum. 

 This observer savs : 







" I divide, for brevity sake, all the phenomena into physical and meta- 

 physical, a division which, if not strictly philosophical, will be suffi- 

 ciently understood by those who have been present at any so-called 

 sitting. My testimony, then, is this : I have seen and felt physical 

 facts wholly and utterly inexplicable, as I believe, by any known and 

 generally received physical laws. I unhesitatingly reject the theory 

 which considers such facts to be produced by means familiar to the 

 best professors of legerdemain. I have witnessed also many very sur- 

 prising and extraordinary metaphysical manifestations. But I cannot 

 say that any of those have been such as wholly to exclude the possibil- 

 ity of their being deceptive, and indeed, to use the honest word 

 required by the circumstances, fraudulent. This is my testimony 

 reduced to its briefest possible expression. 



" If it be asked what impression, on the whole, has been left on my 

 mind by all that I have witnessed in this matter, I answer, one of per- 

 plexed doubt, shaping itself into only one conviction that deserves the 

 name of an opinion, namely, that quite sufficient cause has been shown 

 to demand further patient and careful inquiry from those who have 

 the opportunity and the qualifications needed for prosecuting it ; that 

 the facts alleged, and the number and character of the persons testify- 

 ing to them, are such that real seekers for truth cannot satisfy them- 

 selves by merely pooh-poohing them." 



Interesting Report on Fisheries. An interesting instance of a 

 governmental inquiry, under scientific auspices, into a branch of natu- 

 ral industry, has been presented to us during the past year, in a re- 

 port to the British Parliament, of a commission appointed to consider 

 and investigate the subject of the herring fishery, particularly as it 

 is connected with British interests. This commission consisted of Col. 

 Maxwell, Dr. Lyon Playfair, and Mr. T. Huxley ; and the following 

 is a resume of the more important features of the report in question. 

 The conclusion is arrived at, that the herring does not, as some natu- 

 ralists have affirmed, migrate to the seas within the Arctic circle, but, 

 probably, on disappearing from the shores of the British Islands, passes 

 into dejep water near them. The herring is found under^four different 

 conditions: 1st, Fry or Sill; 2d, Maties, or Fat Herring; 3d, 

 Full Herring ; 4th, Shotten, or Spent Herring. It is extremely diffi- 

 cult to obtain satisfactory evidence as to the length of time which the 

 herring requires to pass from the embryonic to the adult or full con- 

 dition. The commissioners, after considering all the evidence obtain- 



