342 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



JENNY LIND. 



From an old music sheet published in New York in 1847, 

 shortly before she began singing in Castle Garden. 



private scientific association with a member- 

 ship of 1,644. 



The number of persons who entered the 

 building while it was called Castle Garden 

 must have been very great. As an Aquarium 

 the attendance for the lo years ending Decem- 

 ber 31, 1906, amounted to 17,103,328, — an 

 average of 4,685 visitors a day. The at- 

 tendance for the year 1906 was 2,106,569, — an 

 average of 5,771 a day. 



A WHALE ENTANGLED IN A SUB- 

 MARINE CABLE. 



EARLY in November, last, an officer of the 

 Central and South American Telegraph 

 Company called at the Aquarium with a 

 letter from Mr. Kingsford, the electrical engi- 

 neer of the company, in regard to the interrup- 



tion of the sub-marine cable between Iquique 

 and Valparaiso, Chili. 



The interruption, which occurred on the 

 14th day of August, was caused by a large 

 whale, that was afterward drawn to the sur- 

 face by the repair steamer "Faraday," from a 

 depth of 400 fathoms. 



The engineer desired to know to what depth 

 a whale can descend, and whether an air- 

 breathing mammal could stand a water pres- 

 sure of nearly half a ton to the square inch. 



The cable in which the whale was entangled, 

 weighed in air, while wet, 1,715 tons per nau- 

 tical mile, and had a breaking strain of 6.06 

 tons. The cable's weight in salt water was 

 1,005 tons per nautical mile. If the whale 

 came to the surface to blow, he must have held 

 two or three miles of cable in suspension. 

 This, however, is unlikely, since it had four 

 turns of the cable around its body, one being 

 in its mouth. 



When the trouble with the cable was discov- 

 ered, tests from A^alniraiso and Iquique placed 

 the break about thirteen miles from the latter 

 place. ( )n August i6th the "Faraday" left 

 Iquique for the position of the break, and 

 commenced grappling in 342 fathoms with 500 

 fathoms of rope out. 



The cable was "hove up," cut and tested to 

 Iquique. The end was buoyed, and the ship 

 grappling farther out, picked up the cable, 

 which came in badly twisted and with increas- 

 ing strain. A large whale was brought to the 

 surface completely entangled in the cable. The 

 stench being unendurable, the cable was cut 

 close to the whale and the vessel moved to 

 windward. Tests were made and Valparaiso 

 spoken. The ship made four soundings in 

 the vicinity which showed a depth of 415 

 fathoms (2,490 feet, nearly one-half mile). 



It is extremely doubtful whether an air 

 breathing animal can go as deep as 400 

 fathoms, and as that depth is much below the 

 limit of pelagic life on which most whales feed, 

 it is not likely that the whale would penetrate 

 such a depth. Total darkness, moreover, pre- 

 vails in depths of 400 fathoms. 



According to the records of whalemen, 

 whales have been known to stay under water 

 over an hour, and after being harpooned, to 

 have carried out a mile of line before reappear- 

 ing at the surface, although this does not nec- 

 essarily mean that the line was carried down 

 vertically. 



During the work of the Bering Sea Com- 

 mission, when an exhaustive study was made 

 of the food of the fur-seal in Bering Sea, we 

 found that seals fed almost exclusivelv on 



