254 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



whales in a similar position. It is not known whether they were car- 

 ried there or washed up by the tide. Many of them are so bulky, as to 

 make it improbable that they were transported by hand. They are 

 covered with moss, and bear marks of great age. None of the inhabit- 

 ants in the vicinity are acquainted with their history. They are possi- 

 bly the remains of whales captured by the Royal Fishing Company of 

 Miscoe in the seventeenth century. 



Mr. Perley stated that on the north side of the island of Grand Ma- 

 nan the land is very high, and there is but one harbour, known as 

 " Dark Harbour." A century since, this harbour was accessible to ves- 

 sels. Of late years the entrance to it has been cut off by a natural sea 

 wall, which has formed across it, say fifty yards wide and forty feet 

 high. Three years since an opening was cut through it by the British 

 government for the admission of vessels. Before this was done, the 

 water within the wall was eight feet lower than it is now. Excellent 

 fishing is found in the harbour. The water, which was salt at the time 

 the opening was made, has shoaled so much as to make it necessary to 

 deepen the passage. Proc. Nat. His. Soc., Dec. 



RELATIVE LEVEL OF THE CASPIAN AND BLACK SEAS. 



THE Comptes Rendus for May 6 contains a letter from M. Struve, 

 the well-known Russian astronomer, detailing the results obtained by 

 him from an examination of geodetic and astronomical observations 

 made in 1836 and 1837, with great care and very accurate instruments, 

 for the purpose of ascertaining the relative level of the Caspian Sea, 

 which is without any visible communication with the ocean, and the 

 Black Sea, which has such a communication through the Mediterra- 

 nean. A solution of this problem has been attemptecl several times be- 

 fore, but the results obtained are so discordant as to be entitled to little 

 confidence, and the present investigation was undertaken with a view 

 of finally settling the question. The result arrived at is, that " for Oc- 

 tober, 1837, the mean level of the Caspian Sea was 84.45 English feet 

 below that of the Black Sea, and that this result is subject to a proba- 

 ble error of 0.83 of a foot." 



ORIGIN OF THE GENERAL FEATURES OF THE PACIFIC. 



PROF. DANA, in his work on the Geology of the Pacific, which forms 

 one of the series of the publications of the Exploring Expedition, gives 

 a theory of the origin of the general features of the Pacific, with the 

 bearing of the facts upon the physiognomic peculiarities of the globe. 

 His theory is enunciated in seven propositions. 



First. This theory supposes a gradual solidification of the surface of 

 the earth after the fluid material had lost its fluidity. Secondly. Con- 

 traction, as a consequence of solidification, was attended by a diminu- 

 tion of the earth's oblateness. Thirdly. There were fissures and dis- 

 placements of the crust, owing to the contraction below it drawing it 

 down into a smaller and smaller arc ; also from a change in the earth's 

 oblateness. Fourthly. There would be escapes of heat and melted 



