30 



fish he had opened, and had also found the marks of the teeth 

 of the Galjoen in pieces of soap. The stomach of a Galjoen I 

 examined contained no soap or gun-cotton, and the pieces 

 of soap seen had no marks on them which might not have been 

 caused by dashing against the rocks. This same fisherman, 

 who fives near the beach, had first seen some dead fish on 

 Monday afternoon, but most on Wednesday, when three or 

 four cartloads (each of about 300 to 400 fish) were taken from 

 the beach, there being about a thousand fish in all. They 

 were mostly bought by Jewish fishmongers and sold in Cape 

 Town, and no injurious effects were reported from the con- 

 sumers. The fisherman himself had eaten them without any 

 ill effect." 



The fish were mostly Galjoen, many of them exceptionally 

 large, and Hottentots {Cantharns hlochii). Klip-fish {Clinus 

 spp.) also occurred among them, and large white Steenbras 

 {Pagellus lithognathns) and a few Dogfish. One beach-searcher 

 also stated that there were some large Kabeljaauws {Sciaena 

 hololepidota). 



The temperature of the water on Friday was 57° F., but one 

 witness stated that on Monday he noticed that the water was 

 particularly cold. No great change had been observed in the 

 temperature of the sea at St. James in False Bay, 

 at or near this time in observations taken three times a day. 



In attempting to co-ordinate these various observations 

 and to discover some cause or causes of such occurrences 

 many difficulties arise. Some narratives are set down from 

 memory several years after the event, and many may be 

 influenced by preconceived ideas as to the causes of the pheno- 

 mena. On the whole, however, they are so circumstantial, 

 and deal with such well-marked incidents, that they them- 

 selves are well worthy of permanent record, and, maybe, are 

 of more value in this enquiry than any deductions which may 

 at this stage be drawn from them. They point to certain 

 biological and physical characteristics of the South African 

 seas which require further investigation on account of their 

 practical as well as their purely scientific importance. 



We may in the first place eliminate most of the alleged 

 causes of the diminutions of the fish supply mentioned in the 

 previous sections (1-13) as insufficient at least to account for 

 any such sudden and wholesale destruction of marine life as 

 is described in the preceding instances. 



We may further narrow the enquiry by considering first 

 those cases in which "red water" appears. This phenomenon 

 is of such a striking nature that it can scarcel}^ fail to be ob- 

 served. The most definite instance of this is that occurring 



