[45] HISTORY OF THE TILE-FISH. 281 



substance rose to the surface which was apparently composed of earthy- 

 matter, showing signs of having been heated or fluxed." 



Mr. George E. Emory hekl the same opinion, and seemingly not 

 aware that such a theory had been previously advanced, writes as fol- 

 lows in the Boston Daily Advertiser of April 5, 1882 : 



" I conclude these fish were not destroyed by any of the agencies 

 lately suggested. Those floating thousands seen only represent the 

 myriads left untouched by the local disaster and destruction. Probably 

 a submarine disturbance of a volcanic character, set free mephitic gases 

 which, reaching the fishes, produced a fatal asphyxia. This sort of 

 fish-killing agency has been observed repeatedly in the vicinity of vol- 

 canic islands, as about Iceland and many other localities. A line of 

 volcanic stress extends from Mount Erebus far below Terra del Fuego, 

 through sea and land, away northwardly to the Aleutian Islands and 

 the regions southward from Behring Strait. This line is intersected 

 in Mexico by another line of pressure, extending away beneath the At- 

 lantic Ocean to the Azores, thence to Franz-Josef Land, northeastward 

 of Spitzbergen. Here is the old volcano of St. Thomas, now inactive, 

 but known well in the fourteenth century. Tracing southwardly, we 

 find the volcano Esk on Jan May en Island, and farther south is Hecla, 

 in Iceland. At the west of the outer Hebrides the liokol cliff and 

 shoals are the remains of a great volcanic island, partly destroyed by 

 an eruption in 1446. Thus extends the volcanic line of the Atlantic, 

 and over a large part of the sea bottom along this line the mud is full 

 of volcanic ashes. Deep-sea dredging has demonstrated the realitj^ of 

 the vast ash deposit." 



This may have been the correct theory, but there were no reports of 

 phenomena, which would lead us to suppose there had been anything 

 like a submarine volcanic ernption near the locality where the Tile-fish 

 were seen. 



The following paragraph, which was extensively copied in the press, 

 was thought by some to offer a possible solution of the problem, and to 

 strengthen the jjosition of those who had advanced the opinion that the 

 fish mortality was due to volcanic action: 



" Baltimore, April 17, 1882. 



"Capt. G. H. C. Horner, of the German ship Stella, which arrived last 

 Saturday from Bremen, gives an account of a singular phenomenon 

 which he witnessed while on the way to this port. On the morning of 

 March 18, Chief OflBcer Deboer had charge of the morning watch. The 

 weather was serene and clear and the sea smooth and calm. The ship 

 was going along at a rate of 2 miles an hour by the wind. At about 

 5.30 o'clock the vessel suddenly halted in her course, quivering from 

 keel to keelson, and conveying the impression to those below that the 

 ship had struck a rock. Captain Horner, who was below, looking over 

 his chart, at once ran on deck to ascertain the cause of the shock, and, 

 finding the weather clear and the sea tranquil, was puzzled. Neither 

 the chief mate, who was on the quarter-deck at the time, nor the look- 



