598 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. I., No. 21. 



The principle adopted is tliat of condensing moist- 

 ure upon the inside of a polislied cylinder the outside 

 of which has been cooled. This instrument described 

 in the Journal de physique, April, 1883, consists es- 

 sentially of a brass cylinder, nickel plated, and highly 

 polished on the inside, provided with two fine tubes 

 near its ends. Through one of these, by means of a 

 rubber tube conducted to the exterior air or to any 

 point at whicli it is desired to obtain the hygrometric 

 state, the air is drawn into the polished cylinder 

 by using an aspirating-bulb attached to the other. 

 At the first extremity is placed a ground-glass plate, 

 which permits light to enter. Tliis light appears as 

 a bright annulus enlarged three times, as viewed by a 

 magnifier at the other end. 



The cylinder is supported in a box, through the 

 centre of which it passes horizontally. This box is 

 provided with two openings, as in an ordinary con- 

 densing-hygrometer, through which, by aspiration or 

 by blowing, ether contained in the box may be evapo- 

 rated, thus lowering the temperature, which is indi- 

 cated by a properly adjusted thermometer. 



In observing, air is drawn into the cylinder by an 

 aspirating-bulb, and at the same time the ether is 

 evaporated. The moment dew appears on the inside 

 of the cylinder, which is easily seen, the reading of 

 the thermometer gives the dew-point. This may be 

 readily obtained again and again with an error less 

 than 6.1° C, or 0.18° F. 



Some of the advantages claimed, are the possibility 

 of guarding against varying air-currents ; the delicacy 

 of adjustment; the ease and accuracy of observation 

 with the magnifier; the easy manipulation of a 

 uniform light, so difficult to obtain in the ordinary 

 form; and the use of the apparatus in the house for 

 determining the dew-point of the outer air. 



In regard to the last advantage claimed, it may be 

 said, that if accurate results can thus be obtained 

 when the air-temperature is from — 40° to — 60°, or 

 when there is a diiference of forty or more degrees 

 between the air-temperature and the dew-point, the 

 instrument will be of great service ; but there should 

 be some means of aspirating the outside air through 

 the ether, and the apparatus should be very carefully 

 isolated by non-conductors of heat, as the heat of 

 the room would make a sufficient cooling impossible 

 under the conditions just named. The possibility of 

 easily securing such isolation without interfering 

 with the working of the apparatus seems the most 

 important advantage to be derived from its use. 



H. A. Hazen. 



THE RIGHT WHALE OF THE NORTH 

 A TLANTIC. 



The four plates devoted in Dr. Holder's recent 

 paper on this subject ^ to the external and osteological 

 characters of the right whale of the North Atlantic 

 (Balaena cisarctica Cope = B. biscayensis of Euro- 

 pean cetologists), and the seventeen pages of text 

 descriptive of the same, form a welcome and valua- 

 ble contribution to the history of a species possessing 

 peculiar interest. Its habitat being the temper- 

 ate waters of the North Atlantic, — extending from 

 the coast of Florida and the Bay of Biscay, north- 

 ward to southern Labrador and Iceland, — it was 

 pursued ofE the coast of Europe for centuries before 

 the Greenland whale (B. mysticetus), the basis of 

 the great northern whaling industry of modern 



1 Ball. Amer. mus. not. hist., vol. i. no. 4, pp. 99-137, pi. .';. - 

 xiii., May 1, 1883. 



times, became known to Europeans. It was hunted 

 by the Basques and Norwegians as early as the 

 ninth and tenth centuries, was the basis of the 

 whale-fishery of the fifteenth and sixteenth centu- 

 ries, and was already approaching extinction in 

 European waters, when the great arctic or Green- 

 land whale first attracted the attention of whalers, 

 early in the seventeenth century. The latter, from 

 its greater size, easier capture, and larger numbers, 

 its greater yield of oil and superior quality of baleen, 

 became at once the chief object of pursuit; and the 

 earlier known species was quickly lost sight of as a 

 commercial animal, except on this side of the Atlan- 

 tic. Here it was the species chiefly hunted by 

 American whalemen down to about the middle of the 

 last century, when from its rarity its pursuit was grad- 

 ually abandoned for that of the arctic species. The 

 cisarotic animal was early known to the French as 

 the ' sarde; ' to the Norwegians, Dutch, and Germans, 

 as the ' nordkaper; ' and to the Icelanders as the ' slet- 

 bag.' To Americans it was known under the various 

 names of ' northcaper,' 'Graud Bay whale' (in refer- 

 ence to the Bay or Gulf of St. Lawrence, where it was 

 chiefly hunted), ' seven-foot-bone whale,' and 'black 

 whale.' Under these names it was briefly described by 

 various early non-scientific writers, and, in the works 

 of the early systematists, was very inadequately char- 

 acterized under various systematic names. It is the 

 Balaena glacialis of Klein (1741) and Bonnaterre 

 (1789), the B. islandica of Brisson (1756), and the B. 

 nordcaper of Lac^pMe (1804). It was, however, prac- 

 tically unknown to science, till the researches of 

 Eschricht and Reinhardt, published in 1861, led to its 

 rediscovery, having been, until then, generally con- 

 founded with the B. mysticetus. During recent years 

 it has several times been taken off the coast of south- 

 ern Europe and in the Mediterranean. These speci- 

 mens have formed the basis of important memoirs, 

 and given rise to additional specific names. It is, 

 however, now commonly known in Europe as Balaena 

 biscayensis, the name originating really with Gray, 

 although almost universally ascribed to Eschricht, 

 who merely designated the species by an equivalent 

 vernacular name. It was redescribed by Cope in 

 186.5 as B. cisarctica, from a specimen taken at 

 Philadelphia, the skeleton of which is now in the 

 museum of the Philadelphia academy of natural 

 sciences. Euling out the name ' islandica ' of Brisson, 

 on the ground that it antedates the binomial sys- 

 tem, and ' glacialis ' of Bonnaterre as untenable from 

 its misleading tenor, we have left, of the earlier 

 names, 'nordcaper' of Lac(3p6de, which is objectiona- 

 ble only from its barbarous character, but no more 

 so than hundreds of other names currently employed 

 in zoology, save by a few purists who admit nothing 

 that is unclassical. 



Dr. Holder describes and figures, 1°. The external 

 characters of a male specimen taken off the New- 

 Jersey coast in the spring of 1882; 2°. The skeleton 

 of a specimen (sex unknown) stranded some years 

 since on Long Island; 3°. Through notes furnished 

 by Dr. G. E. ilanigault, a specimen captured in the 

 harbor of Charleston, S.C, in January, 1880. Pro- 

 fessor Cope's specimen, and two of the three here 

 mentioned, are more or less immature. There is, 

 however, the skeleton of a fully adult example, 

 taken at Provincetown in 1865, in the Museum of 

 comparative zoology, of which, as yet, no description 

 has been published. The New-Jersey example not 

 having been preserved, there exist at present four 

 skeletons of this species in American museums. Dr. 

 Holder figures the skull of the Charleston, the 

 external characters of the New-Jersey, and the 



