104 



where instead of small fragments at intervals, there were large 

 patches, sev r eral square yards in extent, with thousands of fish 

 in one continuous sheet of putrefaction — a crust of bacterial 

 scum covering and connecting the bodies. It took 10 minutes 

 steaming at 5| knots per hour to get clear of this fearful- 

 smelling area, but 5 minutes later an unbearable stench, worse 

 than before, greeted us from still more extensive patches of 

 putrefaction which we passed at intervals for twenty minutes 

 before the worst was over. The largest continuous sheet, a 

 fragment of the Sahara in appearance, was from 60 to 70 yards 

 by some 20 yards wide. The stench was so bad that several of 

 those aboard were either sick or on the verge of being so Not 

 till 10 a.m. when we were off Mulki, two hours from the time of 

 seeing the first dead fish, did we get clear of putrid fragments. 

 They extended for a distance of between 10 and 11 miles 

 parallel with the coast on either side of the steamer which 

 passed up the coast at a distance of about 1J mile from land. 

 As on the previous day a dead oily calm prevailed, and the 

 water remained fairly wholesome in appearance all the way. 



85. From the fact that we saw sardines freshly dead in 

 ochreous looking water to the southward of Mangalore on 15th 

 November, that the next day we saw sardines actually dying in 

 similar water to the northward of the port, and that the succeed- 

 ing day, 17th November, we passed through a gradation in 

 putrefaction, from freshly dead to putrescent bacterial scum, on 

 our way from Mangalore northwards to Mulki, it would appear 

 as though the source of the mortality lay to the south off the 

 mouth of the Mangalore river and was travelling very slowly 

 northwards with the inshore drift. 



86. A somewhat similar strange mortality among fishes was 

 noticed from December 19th to 23rd, 1S99, by the officers of 

 the I. M.S. " Investigator " and recorded by Dr. Thurston in 

 " The Sea Fisheries of Malabar and South Canara " (Madras 

 1900;, page 127, as having affected all descriptions of fishes off 

 Kundapur over an area of several square miles. No mention 

 however of the colour of the water over the affected area 

 is made, neither is the specific gravity of the water recorded. 



87. From a cursory examination of the plankton collected 

 on 16th November together with the fact of the yellowish tint 

 of the water and its abnormally low density, it seems to me 

 probable that the source of this foul water is to be sought for 

 within the estuaries of the rivers emptying into the sea between 

 Mangalore and Mount Dilli. How it beeame contaminated is 

 difficult to explain unless it be as Mr. Sherman, Assistant 



