A Gigantic Holocaust l6l 



But early in 1882 vessels amving at the North- 

 Eastem American ports reported passing large numbers 

 of dead or dying fish floating over an area of many 

 miles, of which the majority were Tile-fish. It very 

 soon became apparent that an awful destruction of 

 fish had taken place, for vessels reported having sailed 

 through floating fish for forty, fifty, and sixty miles. 

 And in one case, the schooner ' Navarino ' reported 

 having sailed for one hundred and fifty miles through 

 v,'aters covered from horizon to horizon with dead 

 and dying fish. There were no signs of disease on 

 the victims, or deadly parasites, and conjecture was 

 busy as to the cause of this wholesale destruction of a 

 newly discovered and valuable food-fish ; whether 

 submarine volcanoes, with their concomitants of heat 

 and poisonous gases, or a sudden fall in the temperature, 

 was responsible. Finally, through the researches of 

 Professor Verrill, it was decided that owing to the 

 prevalence of heavy northerly gales and the presence 

 of much coast ice in the north, the normally high 

 temperature of the Gulf Stream and its vicinity had 

 been suddenly lowered, bringing death to countless 

 millions of its sensitive inhabitants. And this theory 

 pressed for acceptance, as there had been no indications 

 of any submarine volcanic disturbances. 



So complete did the destruction of the Tile-fish 

 appear to be, that a chapter was devoted to it by 

 Mr. Lucas in the Report of the National Museum 

 (Washington) for 1889, on ' Animals Recently Extinct.' 

 For all attempts made by the Fishery Commission 

 vessels to obtain even a single specimen were fruitless. 

 But in 1892 several specimens were obtained in its 

 old haunts, from a depth of between seventy and 

 eighty fathoms of water, thus restoring the Tile-fish 

 to its place on the lists of existing fish of the American 



II 



