242 



SCIENTIFIC NEVSAS. 



[Mar. 16, 1 S 



themselves to manufacturing establishments as " volun- 

 teers," i.e., without pay, and we recently saw in a German 

 technical paper, the offer of a bonus of ;^5 to anyone 

 who would procure the advertiser — a chemist — any 

 suitable appointment. Among German statesmen the 

 conviction is spreading that there is danger of higher 

 education being overdone, and that the inability to find 

 employment will lead to a superfluity of discon- 

 tented citizens of the middle-class. Hence we in 

 Britain, whilst granting full scope for the development of 

 special and exceptional talent in any rank of life, should 

 beware of seeitingto force a mere technical training upon 

 the entire population. 



SCIENTIFIC TABLE TALK. 



By W. Mattieu Williams., F.R.A.S., F.C.S. 



In No. 6 [New Series) of The Scientific News is an 

 interesting article on the Norwegian Fisheries, containing 

 a narrative of facts that may surprise many of our 

 readers, but is correct nevertheless — rather under than 

 over stated. As an example of the abundance of cod 

 fish, I may mention one fact. 



On the occasion of my last visit to Arctic Norway, the 

 packet made a halt opposite the North Cape, in order 

 that we might contemplate and sketch that noble and 

 notable headland, a dark, frowning perpendicular cliff 

 overhanging in some parts, and rising sheer from the 

 sea to a height of 1,000 feet with no beach or shore below, 

 but plunging perpendicularly into deep water at its foot. 



During the halt of about half an hour, three fishing 

 lines were obtained and used. The lines were provided 

 with a leaden plummet and a double hook without bait. 1 

 was one of the anglers, but soon resigned my line to 

 another, as the effort of hauling up the fish from the 

 deep water and over the ship's side made my arms ache. 

 When the half-hour had elapsed, the fore-deck was 

 covered with fish weighing from 10 to 15 lbs. each. 



There is, however, a small error on page 133, where 

 we are told that, " so numerous are the fishes, and so 

 eager to be caught, that they will bite at a naked hook." The 

 Norwegian method of fishing demands no biting. The 

 double hook is appended to a fish-shaped piece of white 

 metal. The angler drops the line until he feels the 

 bottom, and then suddenly snatches it back with a full 

 length sweep of the arm. After a few repetitions of 

 this, a sudden resistance is felt, and thejine is hauled up 

 with a captured fish attached ; but usually there has 

 been no swallowing of the hook. It is not vulgar vora- 

 city, but the pursuit of knowledge, to which the victim 

 has become a martyr. He sees a strange glittering 

 creature and proceeds to investigate ; while doing so the 

 jerk of the line buries the barb of the hook somewhere 

 about the head, commonly in the gill plates. One of my 

 captures was startling, demanding all my strength to haul 

 him to the surface. It was a hallibut hooked near the tail. 



The catch of 1878 was estimated at sixty-two 

 millions of full-sized cod ; this was a good year. About 

 150,000 people are entirely supported by the Norwegian 

 coast fisheries, besides those engaged around Iceland. 

 The salted fish are partly exported to the Mediterranean 

 for consumption by Catholics on feast days, and partly 

 consumed at home. 



While there, I naturally studied the question of why 



should there be so great an abundance offish in this parti- 

 cular region, and succeeded in finding an answer which I 

 think is satisfactory. 



All the fisheries are on what are called " banks." 

 These banks, as the plummet proves, are deposits of 

 dark stiff clay, and they all — so far as I can learn — 

 occur just where great glaciers have, during the glacial 

 epoch, poured down to the sea, and the banks are sub- 

 marine moraines or deposits of //// (see "The Great Ice 

 Age and the Origin of the Till," in " Science in Short 

 Chapters.") I have examined such deposits of dark slate- 

 coloured stiff clay at Bodo, Tromso, and other places, 

 where they are bared or very shallow at low tide, and 

 find them richly strewed with molluscs such as are 

 commonly found in the stomachs of these cod-fish ; the 

 molluscs themselves feeding on the abundant marine 

 vegetation of this submarine soil. 



The mode of fishing above described is also adopted 

 by the French fishermen whose boats leave Boulogne 

 and Dunkerque early in the year, for Iceland, and 

 return in the autumn. I detected this when going over 

 one of them at Boulogne, by observing the grooves worn 

 on the bulwark by the friction of the lines. In some 

 places there were little pulleys. The men were very 

 reticent, evidently regarding their method of fishing as a 

 sort of trade secret. 



"A peck of March dust is worth a king's ransom." 

 This valuation by the old saw is interesting when we 

 remember that such proverbs are usually expressions of 

 practical experience. Why should dry, windy weather 

 be so valuable just now ? Is there really any rational 

 foundation for the assertion. 



I think there is. In the ordinary course of the seasons 

 the soil is fully saturated by the winter rains at the 

 season in question, and the decay of fallen leaves is 

 nearly completed. The grass and all other desirable 

 vegetation is starting into growth. If we have much wet 

 weather in March, it is evident that the rain will wash 

 away the soluble salts that are on or near the surface of 

 the soil, whether these are due to the natural decay of the; 

 leaves, etc., or to the manuring of the agriculturist. This 

 will especially happen to the ordinary spring top-dress- 

 ing of the farmer. If much rain follows, he loses largely 

 just that which his infant crops require, and his harvest 

 will suffer accordingly. 



" Up-rubbed water " (Aufreibwasser) is a curious ex- 

 pression, but really a good one. It describes what occurs 

 on some tropical coasts. The deep sea has nearly the 

 same temperature all the world over, while the surface 

 of the ocean takes its temperature from the air, and 

 thus in tropical regions the difference between the tem- 

 perature of the surface water and that below is consider- 

 able. This is rendered curiously evident when the wind 

 blows steadily for a while off the tropical shore and then 

 changes for a steady wind off the sea. Thus at Cape 

 Guardafui the North-west monsoon blows off shore, and 

 then the water near the land is cold. When the north- 

 east monsoon is fairly established, the water becomes 

 warm. This is due, in the first case, to the up-rubbing 

 of the warm surface water and its oversliding outwards, 

 leaving the cold water to flow shorewards and take its 

 place. With the opposite wind the warm surface water 

 is swept shorewards and constitutes the whole quantity 

 of the shallow water of the coast. 



Even in our own latitudes the action is observable. 



