3G0 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[JuxE 15, 1883. 



THE DOLPHIN AT THE BRIGHTOX 

 AQUARIUM. 



IN a letter to the Jiri'jhton E.nwiiner, Mr. Henry Lee 

 writes as follows : — By the courteous invitation of the 

 authorities of the Brighton Aquarium, I have paid a visit 

 to the dolphin recently placed in one of the largo tanks 

 tliere. It is a full-grown specimen of the common dolphin 

 {Delphums del phis), and is about 10 ft. in length. It was 

 found, early on Saturday morning last, stranded in Selsea 

 Bay, eight miles from any railway station ; and by means 

 of much toil, care, and skilful treatment, it was brought 

 safely to Brighton by Mr. Lawler, the curator, after being 

 out of water for twenty hours. This is the third species 

 of the whales that have been exhibited in this aquarium. 

 The other two have been the common porpoise {Phocccna 

 comnntnis) and Eisso's grampus (Grampus ij7'isei(s). 



The opportunities of observing closely the habits of the 

 cetacea are so rare, and the average duration of their lives 

 in captivity is so brief, that any one who feels interested 

 in the movements, structure, and mode of life of these 

 great sea-beasts should not lose a chance of improving his 

 acquaintance with them. In this instance, the diflerence 

 between this dolphin and the porpoises previously seen in 

 the Brighton tanks should be noted. It is of larger size, 

 weighing about half a ton ; its snout, instead of being 

 rounded ofl' like that of the porpoise, is lengthened out in 

 form of a beak, both jaws of which are filled with simple, 

 pinnate teeth ; and the dorsal fin rises much higher, and 

 the tail is rather wider across, than in the common por- 

 poise. Those who have not seen one of these creatures 

 under such favourable circumstances should notice, 

 also, its mode of locomotion. This is effected entirely by 

 an up-and-down motion of the tail (unlike that of fishes, 

 in which the movement of the tail is from side to side, 

 except in the flat fishes), and the flippers, or " paddles," as 

 they have been called, do not contribute to its progress in 

 any way ; they are only used as rudders and poisers. As 

 the water in the tank has been lowered so far as to allow 

 the dolphin to be seen when it rises to the surface of the 

 water, the action of the blow-hole and the absence of all 

 •" spouting" should be remarked. In fact, by two minutes' 

 intelligent observation of this interesting animal a grand 

 practical lesson in comparative physiology is to be learned — 

 one a thousand times more impressive than can be obtained 

 from the most careful explanation in print. We have before 

 us a warm-blooded animal of great brain capacity, full of 

 intelligence, breathing atmospheric air by lungs, like our- 

 selves, and the female of which suckles her young one, and 

 attends to it with the greatest maternal aflection. This 

 highly organised creature, instead of walking on four legs 

 •on land, has to live and move in water ; and, so, its shape 

 is adapted to its necessities, and it is made in the external 

 forui of a fish. But it has to breathe air through its lungs, 

 and not the oxygen contained in water through gills. If 

 it were to inhale the air in the ordinary way — through its 

 mouth — the water would enter with it, and choke it. To 

 meet this difficulty, its windpipe is carried up to the top 

 of its head, and is fitted with a valve which allows the 

 exhausted air from the lungs to pass out, and frssh air to 

 he drawn in, whilst it effectually excludes the water. 



The Jfonitt'ur Industricl (Paris, May 17) says that at 

 the present time, a little over 700 miles of subterranean 

 t(^legraph lines are actually completed in France. About 

 1,.300 miles more are in course of construction, and will be 

 finished by the end of the year. 



BfbiflijS. 



SCIENCE AS AN AID TO FAITH.* 



By Eichard A. Pboctob. 



THIS work is remarkable among works of its kind for 

 fairness of tone. The subject is dealt with almost 

 throughout with a calm gravity well suited to it — 

 at least, as viewed by those for whom the author is 

 writing — those, namely, who regard the Book of Genesis 

 as written by Moses under Divine inspiration. The work 

 is not meant for those who doubt this— or rather (for that 

 is the real position of many men of science referred to 

 in its pages) for those to whom such a view of the 

 Book of Genesis does not present itself as reasonaVjle, 

 except in the very limited sense indicated by Sir George 

 Airy in his little treatise on the Hebrew Scriptures. 

 Occasionally Dr. Cotterill forgets for the moment that 

 Ha'ckel, Tyndall, Airy, and others occupy this position, and 

 adopts a tone which would only suit them if their criticisms 

 related to a book which they regarded as directly inspired 

 by the Almighty. Thus he finds something amusing in the 

 candour and condescension with which " Professor Ernst 

 HKckel confers his admiration on " the Jewish lawgiver," 

 apparently not noticing that as Ha;ckel has not the least 

 trace of any idea that the book of Genesis was an inspired 

 work, there is no more condescension in his recognition of 

 the keen insight of the older writer than there would be, 

 for example, in my dwelling on the success with which 

 Wright, of Durham, anticipated the views of modern astro- 

 nomers about the structure of the stellar heavens. In like 

 manner, he speaks of Prof. Tyndall's Belfast address as 

 inconsistent with reverence for religious truth, not noticing 

 that the ofience of which he accuses Prof. Tyndall is one 

 of which no man can easily be guilty. What a man holds 

 to be religious truth he necessarily respects. Prof. Tyndall 

 may or may not have implied that what Dr. Cotterill 

 regards as religious truth is not so in Prof. Tyndall's eyes ; 

 but even if he did he was not guilty of irreverence for reli- 

 gious truth, whether Dr. Cotterill's views are right or wrong. 

 It sounds, no doubt, to many altogether profane when 

 Sir George Airy writes that the geology of the book 

 of Genesis may be fairly good, but the astronomy 

 is all wrong ; yet there is no more real profanity 

 in such a remark from one to whom the book is simply a 

 curious record of ancient ideas, than there would be in a 

 similar remark applied to passages in the Koran or the 

 Talmud. \\'hat Dr. Cotterill might have attacked in 

 Hteckel, Tyndall, and others would have been their reasons 

 — had he known them — for not accepting certain books as 

 being the word of the Almighty. These reasons he pro- 

 bably does not know, because, so far as I know, they have 

 never been published — and, in fact, in no way concern the 

 public. Yet, for those whom he was addressing. Dr. 

 Cotterill might without impropriety — and perhaps with 

 advantage — have dwelt on the evidence which is regarded 

 as establishing tlie Book of Genesis in the position assigned 

 to it by Jewish and Christian theologians. Doubtless, the 

 difficulty is that those for whom he writes need no evidence 

 on this particular point ; while those men of science for 

 whom he is not writing, have no time to spare for an 

 inquiry in which few of them take any interest, except as 

 it might form part of a chapter in such a work as Tyler's 

 " Primitive Culture." 



*" Does Science aid Faith in regard to Creation?" By the 

 Right Rev. Henry Cotterill, D.D., F.R.S.E., Bishop of Edinbtu-gh. 

 (London : Hodder & Stoughton.) 



