174 



NA TURE 



[December 25, 1902 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[Tie Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejectea 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.] 



Volcanic Dust Phenomena. 



The phenomena connected wilh the volcanic dust are under- 

 going distinct changes. In common wilh observers in the 

 south of England, I noted the fresh appearance of the dust 

 phenomena in the end of June, especially on June 26, but they 

 were not very striking until August 1. At first the most 

 decidedly volcanic feature was the great corona round the fun, 

 known in the case of the Krakatoa effects as " Bishop's Ring." 

 Whether this name should be applied to the corona this year is 

 doubtful, as its radius has been fully double that of the Krakatoa 

 corona, having until recently averaged about 70°, measured from 

 the sun to the middle of the reddest part. Yesterday and this 

 morning, however, it averaged only about 40°, and its reddest 

 part was a yellowish-brown rather than a red. The colour of 

 the corona this year has always been much less decidedly pink 

 than was the case with Bishop's ring ; indeed, it has sometimes | 

 been an absence of blueness in that part of the sky rather than 

 any positive redness. 



The pink glows after sunset were very strong in the end of 

 June, but stronger still in November, and on November I, 17 

 and iS there was also a faint second glow, a phenomenon I had 

 not previously seen since the Krakatoa sunsets. 



It was not until October 30 that the colouring became very 

 magnificent, and it reached its height about November 1, when 

 the chief feature was an intense fiery orange sky near the west 

 horizon. This was of an unmistakably volcanic character, 

 different from anything that has appeared here since the Krakatoa 

 sunsets, though not equal to those in splendour. Since that 

 maximum, the colouring has been gradually lessening. Yester- 

 day and to-day it was remarkably weak, the chief feature being 

 the dust-wisps, which were more conspicuous than I have 

 previously seen them during this apparition ; indeed, I should 

 have at first taken them for clouds had I not previously seen 

 them in feebler form. They were plainest a little after 

 sunrise and before sunset, when they were very bright and of a 

 steely white. 



The above descriptions apply to Sunderland ; but in visits 

 to Torquay from November 6 to 10 and to Dundee about 

 December 1, the sky effects were not very different, only at 

 Torquay I did not see the fiery orange. 



Sunderland, December 16. T. W. Backhouse. 



T.S. — December 22. The fiery orange has reappeared. 



The Methods of Investigating the North Sea Fisheries. 



Many of the readers of Nature are interested in the inter- 

 national scheme of scientific investigation of the North Sea; but 

 some at least are not convinced that the methods which are 

 being employed are capable of yielding results of value as 

 regards the condition of our fisheries. 



The essential part of the scheme formulated at the conference 

 at Christiania, at which the British delegates were Sir Colin 

 Scott Moncrieff, Prof. D'Arcy Thomson, Mr. Garstang and Dr. 

 Mill, is that each nation should fit out one or two specially 

 equipped steamers, which should work along definite lines, and 

 by means of which investigations as to the state of the fisheries, 

 as well as hydrographical and biological investigations, should 

 be conducted. The British Government agreed to participate in 

 the prosecution of this scheme 



But it has been repeatedly pointed out that, if conclusions as 

 to the fisheries are to be drawn from the work of these steamers, 

 two assumptions have to be made. 



( 1 ) That the take per steamer or per capturing unit is a measure 

 of the abundance of fish, and 



(2) That samples taken from small areas are representative of 

 adjacent districts. 



Buth these assumptions have been severely criticised, and we 

 had hoped that before now Mr. Garstang would have fulfilled 

 the promise made by him in his letter to the Times of April 14 

 of this year ; when he said, in reply to certain criticisms made 



by others and myself, that he "could see no reason for antici- 

 pating the reply which in due course and in the proper place 

 will be made to the real authors of the criticism he (i.e. the 

 present writer) adopts." 



It will be remembered, (1) that the criticism referred to is 

 that made by the Inspectors of Fisheries in their Report for 

 1900 upon the method of estimating variations in the density 

 or abundance of fish by variations in the take per capturing 

 unit, which was employed by Mr. Garstang in his " Impoverish- 

 ment of the Sea." (2) That that criticism was published at 

 least eighteen months ago, and that it is still unanswered by 

 Mr. Garstang. 



It was expected that at the meeting of the British Asso- 

 ciation at Belfast he would have taken the opportunity of 

 meeting these criticisms. But he does not seem to have done so. 

 For in reply to a letter asking him if he could refer me to any 

 published refutation of these criticisms, he writes under date 

 December 8, 1902, " I am unable to refer you to any published 

 replies by me to the ' criticism ' you quote, other than the Times 

 reports of the Belfast meeting of the British Association and 

 the Grimsby Conference of the National Sea Fisheries Pro- 

 tection Association (September 30 and October 1)." 



The summaries of his communication at Belfast in the Times 

 of September 13 and that in the Times of October I of his 

 remarks at Grimsby give no indication that he dealt with 

 the criticism, a criticism which, if it is valid, renders the results 

 of the investigations recorded in his "Impoverishment of the 

 Sea " of no value, and — what is of greater importance — throws 

 grave doubts on the results to be expected from the inter- 

 national investigations at present in progress. 



The publication of the Report of the Departmental Com- 

 mittee on Ichthyological Research, which has just been pre- 

 sented to Parliament, must be looked forward to with interest, 

 since the Committee must necessarily have given some expression 

 of opinion upon the questions touched upon in this letter. 



D. Noki. Paton. 



22 Lynedoch Place, Edinburgh, December 14. 



Carved and Perforated Antlers. 



In Nature for November 20, p. 55, there is a reference to 

 the probable use of the carved and sometimes perforated antlers, 

 by some called "batons de commandement." By Mr. A. W. 

 Franks and others, in the " Reliquia; Aquitanicae," the simpler 

 forms are recognised as the "Pogamagan " (striker) of the 

 North American Indian (pp. 40, 50, 1S9, 200, and pp. 30, 102, 

 159 and 180, of description of the plates iii. and iv., xv. and 

 xvi. , xxx. and xxxi.). It seems to me important to mention 

 that in Westminster Abbey a Pogamagan is sculptured as being 

 held in the right hand of a North American warrior on Colonel 

 Townshend's mural tombstone (dated near the end of the 

 eighteenth century), on the south side of the nave. 



December 13. T. RUPERT JONES. 



St. Elmo's Fire during Snow Storm. 



[Mr. W. N. Shaw, secretary to the Meteorological Council, 

 has kindly forwarded to us the following letter received at the 

 Meteorological Office. — Editor.] 



It may be interesting to your Society to know that we find 

 in a report received from our local committee at Margate 

 relative to the launch of one of our lifeboats there, viz. Eliza 

 Harriet, on December 3 and 4, that it is stated that about 2 a.m. 

 a bright light was observed on the top of each of the lifeboat's 

 masts, also one on the lee foreyard, which remained quite three- 

 quarters of an hour and lit up all the wire pennants, making 

 them perfectly clear. The lights in question appeared to be of 

 the size of a small lantern. At the time it was blowing very 

 hard and a heavy sea was running, and during the whole time 

 it snowed so hard that it was impossible to see a yard in front 

 of the boat. These lights continued until nearly 4 a.m. and 

 finally disappeared on the snow lifting. It could not possibly 

 have been a reflection from any light on the lifeboat, as they had 

 none showing. It seems to us that this was probably a case of 

 St. Elmo's fire, occasionally seen in a highly electrified state of 

 atmosphere. Charles Dip.din, Secretary. 



Royal National Lifeboat Institution, 

 Adelphi, London, W.C., December 12. 



NO. 173O, VOL. 6/] 



