466 ZOOLOGY. 



Fish epidemics in the Gulf of Mexico. 



In different years, at considerable intervals, an unusual mortality has 

 occurred among the animals of the Gulf of Mexico around the peninsula 

 of Florida, and fishes in large numbers and of many species could be 

 then found floating, dead or dying, at the surface or stranded on the 

 shore. The years 1844 and 1854 are especially remembered ou account 

 of the fatality among the inhabitants of the Gulf. In the fall of 1878 

 there was also a notable epidemic. (Jefferson, &c., in Proc. U. S. Nat. 

 Mus., V. 1, pp. 244-246, 363, 364.) In the fall of 1880, likewise, occurred 

 a destructive epidemic. These epidemics ensue on the presence and 

 diffusion of bodies of discolored "poisoned water," which appear "in 

 long patches or 'streaks,' sometimes 100 yards wide (and probably 

 sometimes much wider), drifting lengthwise with the flow of tide," 

 and which can be readily distinguished from the natural clear blue 

 water of the Gulf. The sponges and other animals living near the 

 bottom seem to be among the first to suffer, and profitable sponging 

 grounds have been ruined by the poisoned stream. According to Mr. 

 IngersoU the epidemic of 1880 "began suddenly, and immediately 

 followed the terrible hurricane which is known as the 'August gale,' 

 the fish and all other ocean life suddenly dying in hordes all along the 

 southern (eastern) shore of Tampa Bay, in Egmont Keys, at its mouth, 

 which was the most northern point, and thence southward as far as 

 Shark River, in Whitewater Bay, on the coast. Thence fatal localities 

 were to be found in the currents that set southward through Bahia 

 Honda passage, through the Northwest Passage beyond Key West, and 

 even out in the neighborhood of the far isolated Tortugas." Not only 

 are these masses of deleterious water fatal in their course, for numerous 

 fishermen are compelled to cross it in going from their fishing grounds 

 to their markets, and lose their cargoes on account of the transit. 

 Various attempts at explanation have been made of the phenomena. 

 The most popular seems to be a hypothesis that the dirty water is due 

 to an overflow from the everglades or swamps of "fresh water poisoned 

 by a decoction of noxious acids, &c., leached from the roots which had 

 been soaking for years in the pent-up floods " (P. N. M., iv, p. 78), or which 

 had been saturated with the dogwood ( Cornus florida), especially. (P. N. 

 M., iv, p. 122.) Another quite prevalent opinion attributes the unclean 

 water to the eruption of a submarine volcano or "eruptions of volcanic 

 gases which may have taken place through the bottom of the sea along 

 a line stretching from Tampa Bay to the Tortugas and through the 

 western half of the Florida Keys." (IngersoU, P. N. M., iv, pp. 79, 80.) 



In order to determine if possible the truth in a case which affects 

 such large interests, both in labor and capital, the United States Fish 

 Commissioner sent Mr. Ernest IngersoU to Florida to collect evidence 

 in the matter, and referred samples of the "poisoned water" to Dr. F. 

 M. Endlich for chemical examination, and to Dr. W. G. Farlow for 

 microscopical investigation. 



