188 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[August 1, 1895. 



only how very imperfect are the maps of the Great North- 

 West, but how maccurate they are even in the details that 

 have been given. A very large portion of the interior of 

 the northern part of South America has, too, been very 

 cursorily explored. 



The imtraversed lands of the far north of North America, 

 with the adjacent islands and Greenland to the seventy- 

 fifth parallel, and even of Labrador and the North-East 

 Territory, ' are still so extensive that they give an 

 aggregate area of fully a million and a half of square miles 

 awaiting the explorer. 



In South America, Patagonia and Fuegia apart from 

 their coast lines are practically unknown lands, and so 

 may be included amongst unexplored areas, to which they 

 add half a million of square miles. 



Besides continental lacuna on our maps there are 

 the interiors of many large islands, as New Guinea and 

 Borneo, and the Arctic and Antarctic unexplored regions, 

 which add largely to the unknown areas of the earth's 

 surface. It will be safe to estimate such areas as are 

 insular and outside the Arctic and Antarctic Circles at half 

 a million of square miles. 



Arctic navigators have penetrated to 83° 24' N. lat., and 

 thus have reached a point about four hundred and fifty 

 miles only from the Pole, but it cannot be said that the 

 area enclosed by the seventy-fifth parallel has been explored. 

 There is, therefore, around the North Pole about three and 

 a half millions of square miles of unexplored region. 



The Antarctic regions have been much less explored 

 than the Arctic, for only on one side has any deep pene- 

 tration of the area within the Antarctic Circle been eii'ected. 

 Here 78° S. lat. was reached. Allowing for this, there 

 will still be about five millions of square miles of 

 unexplored region around the Southern Pole. 



Thus it appears that, leaving out of account the very 

 imperfectly known regions of Central Asia and the interior 

 of the northern parts of both North and South America, 

 as well as the similar areas of Africa and Australia, there 

 is an aggregate area of about twenty millions of square 

 miles of the surface of the globe as yet quite unexplored. 

 This aggregate is made up as follows : — • 



Africa ... ... 6,500,000 square miles. 



Australia 2,250,000 



North America 1,500,000 ,, 



South America 500,000 



Asia 250,000 



Islands 500,000 



Arctic Kegions 3,500,000 



Antarctic Eegions .. 5,000,000 



Total 



20,000,000 



When we add to this great total not merely the enormous 

 areas of only partially explored regions, but also those 

 that though explored are not yet accurately surveyed, it 

 will be seen that the field for further geographical explora- 

 tion and research is abundantly wide ; for the globe cannot 

 be said to be geographically conquered until all its physical 

 features are accurately known and mapped, and all its 

 habitable lands, at least, have been covered with the 

 network of a complete geodetic triangulation. This great 

 work, a work becoming increasingly more important to 

 mankind, cannot fail to be greatly promoted by such a 

 gathering of the world's foremost explorers as that now 

 assembled in London. 



* Sec " Explorations througli the Interior of the Labrador 

 Peninsula, 1893-4," by A. P. Low. The Geographical Juurnai, 

 June, 1895. 



THE NEW SEA-FISH HATCHERY AT DUNBAR. 



By L. N. Badenoch. 



THERE can be, unhappily, no longer any doubt 

 that a serious diminution has occurred amongst 

 the more valuable classes of our food-fishes, 

 especially on inshore grounds, and Ln comparison 

 with the increase in the machinery of capture. 

 The evidence of all those interested, whether trawlers or 

 linesmen, whether smack owners or fishermen, whether 

 scientific experts or statisticians, tends to prove the fact ; 

 and, moreover, the scarcity is becoming much greater 

 than it was even a few years ago. Such falling off in the 

 supplies of certain kinds of fish is not peculiar to the 

 Scottish or British coasts, since, for a considerable length 

 of time, complaints of the depletion of the inshore fisheries 

 have been heard in almost all countries where sea- 

 fisheries are extensively prosecuted ; and active measures, 

 by restrictive regulations, have in many instances been 

 taken. 



This unfortunate failure must be attributed to over- 

 fishing by trawlers. In Scotland the regulative measures 

 respecting beam-trawling are more extensive than in any 

 other country ,'and have been longer in force ; yet, although 

 the area from which this mode of fishing has been 

 excluded is very large, it cannot be said, with the informa- 

 tion at present available, that the anticipations formed of 

 the results have been realized, for investigations indicate 

 a continued diminution in the average abundance of the 

 fish within these protected waters. In some parts of the 

 world, however, as in the United States, Norway, Canada, 

 and Newfoundland, another means has been adopted to 

 meet the unsatisfactory conditions — each year to stock 

 the exhausted grounds with millions of the young of fish, 

 and, with this object in view, marine hatcheries have been 

 erected for the artificial propagation of fish on a large 

 scale. The readers of Knowledge are probably aware 

 that, in carrying out the same policy, the Fishery Board 

 for Scotland have recently established a similar institution 

 at Dunbar. A short account of the institution may 

 possibly be found of interest. 



It has been modelled after the manner of the well-known 

 one at Flodevig, near Arendal, Norway, and since its 

 completion, early in the spring of last year, operations in 

 the hatching of fishes have been in progress in it, under 

 the supervision of Mr. Harald Dannevig, an expert from 

 the Norwegian establishment. It stands chiefly within 

 the park of the old castle of Dunbar. Dunbar was selected 

 as a suitable site for several reasons, the principal of which 

 were that the water was found to be well adapted for the 

 hatching of buoyant fish-eggs, and natural sea-creeks, 

 necessary for the full sue iess of the undertaking, existed in 

 the neighbourhood. This locality is likewise within 

 convenient distance of important fishing-grounds, and 

 of the sea-areas where most of the scientific fishery 

 experiments have been made, and where, therefore, the 

 influence of fish-hatching may best be ascertained. 



I wiU aim merely at giving a general idea of the most 

 interesting portions of the hatchery. First of all there 

 comes the spawning-pond, where the spawning fishes are' 

 lodged when the work is going on. No observer can fail to 

 be struck with the strength of this structure, which is 

 formed of concrete, at a higher level than the other 

 buildings, and sunk in the ground. Pumps, which draw 

 from the harbour and the tidal-pond, supply it with sea 

 water ; its capacity is more than 10,000 cubic feet, 

 or about 62,000 gallons. It is enclosed by substantial 



