Ixxx 



CLIMATE AND CHANGES. 



ditions. One instance only I give, but not from any poverty of these, 

 viz. : surely it is of historic meteorological interest to know, or re- 

 member, that in 1743 Patrick Murray of Ochtertyre had his haycrop 

 all saved by the 15th May (old style), and at the same time six pints 

 of ripe strawberries were placed upon his table, which were raised in 

 his open garden. The exact date was the 29th May. Such observa- 

 tions are still worthy of remembrance and record and of imitation in a.d. 

 1905. And indeed there is a good opening for a properly instituted 

 inquiry into all such phenomena by a properly constituted Committee 

 or Department — not necessarily a Eoyal Commission, which is costly 

 and often too transient, except in some cases, to divulge ideal results 

 — unless indeed the scattering of much cash, some of which does stick 

 somewhere, be a genuine and good result. 



I can well believe that the investigation lately initiated and now 

 being carried out by the " International Committee for the Investi- 

 gation of the North Sea " will result in valuable additions to our 

 actual scientific knowledge of the movements (migrations) of fishes 

 — as, for instance, of the various forms of the herring, not to speak 

 here of many other species. And if as yet these investigations are 

 in an embryonic stage, and the discoveries not yet fixed quantities, 

 the beginnings already evidenced in the Eeports of the Committee 

 show that a good deal has already been accomplished. It may be at 

 least temporarily accepted that these movements or migrations of 

 (say) herrings of several forms (species) or races, are dependent to a 

 large extent upon hydrographical conditions ; or, in other words, that 

 the hydrographical conditions of the North Sea, in conjunction with 

 the flow and ebb of the Atlantic currents, give the clue to, or 

 dominate, these migrations. 



But I do not in this place propose to enlarge upon this question 

 of the migration of fishes and the interdependence of these with 

 hydrographical conditions and alterations. I speak of them here 

 only to illustrate that these hydrographical investigations and 

 various observations which for years back have been carried 

 out— regarding sea- temperatures at varying depths, degrees of 

 salinity, and directions and force and annual variations in the 

 surface-flow of the Gulf Stream, and the normal and abnormal 

 occurrence of the southerly drift of icebergs, and other natural 

 phenomena — have yielded results. I mention these matters to 



