"■V 



])ecember 



iRi. 18%^ >vn*^ KNOWLEDGE 



221 



:¥^ 





^ 



.:-^^ 



^^ AN ILLUSTRATED "^^ 



MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE 



SIMPLY WORDED— EXACTLY DESCRIBED 



LONDON: DECEMBER 1, 1893. 



CONTENTS. 



PAOE 



Antarctic Seals. Br William S. Bruce 221 



The Coffin of the Builder of the Third Pyramid. By 



F. W. Bb.\d 223 



Curious Cocoons — II. By E. A. Butler 225 



Science Notes 228 



Shooting Stars and their Trails. By A. C. Eanyabd. 229 



The Solar Faculae. By Monsieur H. Deslandees ... 230 



Letters: — Geoege E. Hale; .1. Eteeshed; Robert R. 



Letinostox ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 232 



Our Rainfall in Recent Years. By Alex. B. MacDowall, 



M.A ■•• 235 



Nitrogen as Food for Animals and Plants. By 



Vaughan Coenish, M.Sc,, F.C.S .. 237 



Chess Column; By 0. D. Locook, B.A.Oxon 239 



ANTARCTIC SEALS. 



By William S. Bruce, 

 Naturalist to the Antarctic Expedition, 1892—3. 



AFTEE a period of dormancy extending over more 

 than half a century, the Antarctic is again being 

 opened up to scientific investigation and to com- 

 merce. Scotland and Norway sent out five vessels 

 last year, and Norway is again to the fore this 

 year ; New Zealand also is said to be eager to join the 

 chase. It seems also likely that work of a more purely 

 scientific nature will be undertaken in the Antarctic during 

 the coming year. Some readers may, therefore, be inter- 

 ested to hear something about the southern seals, which 

 differ very considerably from those of the north. 



In the Antarctic only two of the great families of seals 

 are represented : they are the sea-Uons and sea-bears, or 

 eared seals {Otariida), and the more specialized true seals 

 [Vhocida) ; the intermediate family of walruses [Triche- 

 chida) being entirely absent. In recognizing nine different 

 species of Otariida, Mr. -J. A. Allen divides the family into 

 five species of sea-lions and four species of sea-bears, and 

 three of these five sea-lions and three of the four sea-bears 

 belong to southern seas. The true seals he divides into 

 sixteen species, and five out of these sixteen species of true 

 seals belong to southern seas. It is from the sea-bears of 

 the Otariidce family that ladies' sealskin jackets are made ; 

 the under skin, to which the long, rigid hairs are attached, 

 is shaved off, and the long hairs fall out, leaving the upper 

 skin with the soft under fur alone. The Falkland Islands' 



fur-seal (Arriitrcphalm falldnndifux) is noted, however, for 

 the evenness, shortness and elasticity of the fur. Tlie fur 

 is soft enough to wear as a rich fur without the removal of 

 the longer hairs, which are always removed in the other 

 fur-seals. The skins of all other seals, whether sea-lions 

 or true seals, are used for making leather. The tens of 

 thousands of seals that are slaughtered annually off New- 

 foundland and Greenland supply us with patent leather, 

 and similarly the twenty to thirty thousand seals' hides 

 that the Dundee whalers brought home from the Antarctic 

 last spring will eventually be used for the same pui-pose. 

 Crocodile leather, which we see in such vast quantities 

 nowadays, is also said to be largely m.ide from seals' skins. 

 Besides skins, seals provide a great quantity of oil. During 

 the recent trip to the south, the Dundee vessels secured 

 from seven hundred to one thousand tons of seal oil ; this 

 is largely used in the jute manufactory for moistening the 

 fibres, and this fact possibly accounts for Dundee not only 

 being "Juteopolis" but also practically our only remaining 

 sealing and whaling port. But now mineral oils, which are 

 so cheap, are taking the place of animal oils in the jute 

 factory as they have in other branches of industry, and 

 the masters and owners of sealers and whalers are begin- 

 ning to think it hardly worth while fishmg seals and 

 whales for oil alone. 



Concerning the sea-bears, or fur-seals, and the sea-lions, 

 or hair-seals, of the Antarctic very little is known. The 

 former have an abundant soft, silky under fur, are 

 black when young, and ultimately yellowish or whitish- 

 grey colour ; and the latter, the sea-lions, have no under 

 fur, but only coarse, hard, stiff hair ; they are yellowish or 

 reddish-brown, dark when young, but become lighter as 

 age advances. The groups generally live apart, but have 

 the same geographical distribution. They are gregarious, 

 polygamous, and the males are from three to five times as 

 large as the females. They differ very markedly from true 

 seals in having the power to turn their hind limbs forward, 

 and thus use them for locomotion on land : the presence 

 of a small external ear is another characteristic. Of the 

 Alaskan seal herd, Mr. H. W. Elliott gives the following 

 graphic description, which may be extended to the southern 

 herds : " The fighting between the old males for the cows 

 is mostly — or, rather, entirely — done with the mouth. 

 The opponents seize one another with their teeth, and 

 then, clenching their jaws, nothing but the sheer strength 

 of the one, and the other tuggiug to escape, can shake 

 them loose, and that effort invariably leaves an ugly 

 wound, the sharp canines tearing out deep gutters in the 

 skin and furrows in the blubber, or shredding the flippers 

 into ribbon-strips. 



" The bulls generally approach each other with comically 

 averted heads, just as though they were ashamed of the 

 rumpus which they are determined to precipitate. When 

 they get near enough to reach one another, they enter 

 upon the repetition of many feints or passes before either 

 the one or the other takes the initiative by gripping. The 

 heads are darted out and back as quick as a flash ; their 

 hoarse roaring and shrill piping whistle never cease, while 

 their fat bodies writhe and swell with exertion and rage ; 

 furious lights gleam in their eyes ; their hair flies oft' into 

 the air, and their blood streams down. All this combined 

 makes a picture so fierce and so strange that, from its 

 unexpected position and its novelty, this is one of the most 

 extraordinary brutal contests man can witness." 



Mr. J. A. AUen has done much to simplify the classifi- 

 cation, but the utmost confusion exists in most of the 

 attempts made to classify them. Many attempt to divide 

 them into a great many genera, but Mr. Beddard considers 

 that if " the genus be split up at all it should be divided 



