BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 13 



tlie bays are more or less lined with bog iron ore wliicb has been depos- 

 ited from springs. I have seen it at Cedar Key, at Tampa, and I think 

 it is found all over the peninsula. Sulphur almost always is found 

 combined with all iron ores, and arsenic and jjhosphorus often, which 

 latter is as poisonous combined with hydrogen as either of the sub- 

 stances named. 



Now, during the dry season, when there is not much or any surface 

 water, the chemical reactions I have described would be going on, and 

 lakes of underground water (or pools, if you please) existing along the 

 w\atercourses, would become saturated with these poisonous gases. 

 When the rains come and force out into the sea this accumulated poison 

 the lish are killed. They are killed at every flood and they are not 

 killed except at a flood. Smack fishermen say that they sometimes 

 observe at sea a brownish spot or area of water, and sailing into it the 

 fish in their wells begin to die at once. In these last two mentioned facts 

 lies the objection to the volcanic theory, for it is difficult to see what 

 connection a flood can have with a submarine volcano, which, being 

 submarine, should be abundantly supplied with water. 



OsPREY, Manatee Co., Fla., December 3, 1885. 



6.-nATCHlNG 1.0B8TE:RS AND COD IIV IVORTFAY. 

 By G. ITI. DANNEVIG. 



[From a letter to Prof. S. F. Baird.*] 



I am now engaged in hatching lobster eggs, and seem to be succeed- 

 ing. During the past two days about 200 young lobsters have been 

 hatched, and they are very lively — rather too much so, as they eat the 

 other young ones as soon as these last come from the shell. I intend to 

 find out what else they will eat, as their present food is rather incon- 

 venient to furnish. The so-called artificial hatching of lobsters has often 

 been tried before this ; but in such cases simply lobsters with spawn 

 were put into a live-box and kept there till the young hatched out ; 

 while in my experiments I take the spawn from the parent lobsters and. 

 hatch it out in a specially-constructed apparatus. If this latter method 

 of hatching can be carried out on a large scale, of which I have no 

 doubt, many millions of lobsters could be hatched every summer. If we 

 could succeed in raising them for a while before planting them, so much 

 the better. I would like to know if anything in this line has been at- 

 tempted by the U. S. Fish Commission, and with what success. 



Some time ago I read an account of your trying to send lobsters by 

 rail from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. Instead of sending the lob- 

 sters, why do you not try sending well-developed spawn ? This could 



* For previous letters in regard to hatching lobsters, see F. C. Bulletin, 1885, pp. 

 §80,446. 



