128 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO 1781. 



under, not a little contributing to hasten the fatal effects. The natives also 

 died in great numbers. 



In the month of November that year, the dry season having then exceeded its 

 usual period, and the s. e. winds continuing with unremitting violence, the sea 

 was observed to be covered, to the distance of a mile, and in some places a 

 league from shore, with fish floating on the surface. Great quantities of them 

 were at the same time driven on the beach or left there by the tide, some quite 

 alive, others dying, but the greatest part quite dead. The fish thus found were 

 not of one but various species, both large and small, flat and round, the cat-fish 

 and mullet being generally the most prevalent. The numbers were prodigious, 

 and overspread the shore to the extent of some degrees; of this I had ocular 

 proof or certain information, and probably they extended a considerable way 

 farther than I had opportunity of making inquiry. Their first appearance was 

 sudden; but though the numbers diminished, they continued to be thrown up, 

 in some parts of the coast, for at least a month, furnishing the inhabitants with 

 food, which, though attended with no immediate ill consequence, probably con- 

 tributed to the unhealthiness so severely felt. No alteration in the weather had 

 been remarked for many days previous to their appearance. The thermometer 

 stood as usual at the time of year at about 85°. 



Various were the conjectures formed as to the cause of this extraordinary phe- 

 nomenon, and almost as various and contradictory were the consequences 

 deduced by the natives from an omen so portentous; some inferring the con- 

 tinuance, and others, with equal plausibility, a relief from the drought. With 

 respect to the cause, I must confess myself much at a loss to account for it satis- 

 factorily. If I might hazard a conjecture, and it is not offered as any thing 

 more, I would suppose, that the sea requires the mixture of a due proportion of 

 fresh water to temper its saline quality, and enable certain species of fish to 

 subsist in it. Of this salubrious correction it was deprived for an unusual space 

 of time, not only by the want of rain, but by the ceasing of many rivers to flow 

 into it, whose sources were dried up. I rode across the mouths of several per- 

 fectly dry, which I had often before passed in boats. The fish no longer 

 experiencing this refreshment, necessary as it would seem to their existence, 

 sickened and perished as in a corrupted element. 



