182 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII , No. 160 



the importance of further search after evidences 

 of ingulf ment. 



Regarding the age of the caldera, it would be 

 premature to offer any opinion, beyond the vague 

 and general statement, that it is certainly many 

 thousands of years old. There is abundant rea- 

 son to hope, however, that further examination 

 will throw some light on this question. We can- 

 not, indeed, expect to reach any estimate of its age 

 in terms of years and centuries ; and our hope 

 must be confined to that of fixing its relative age 

 in terms of the geological calendar. Viewed in 

 that relation, it may be said with equal confidence 

 that its age is not great. C. E. Dutton. 



THE FISH-CULTURAL STATION AT 

 GLOUCESTER, MASS. 



We are informed that it is the intention of Pro- 

 fessor Baird, the U. S. commissioner of fisheries, 

 now that methods and apparatus for hatching 

 successfully the buoyant eggs of the cod, halibut, 

 and other marine species have been devised, to 

 prosecute the work on as extensive a scale as the 

 means at the command of the commissioner will 

 permit. 



Gloucester, being the centre of the cod and 

 halibut fisheries, furnishes unusual facilities for 

 procuring an abundant supply of eggs within 

 easy and convenient reach of the station, and has 

 therefore been selected as the most advantageous 

 location, for the extensive fish-cultural work with 

 the marine species, now projected by the U. S. 

 commissioner. The commission steamer, the 

 Fish Hawk, thoroughly equipped for hatching- 

 work, has been ordered to Gloucester, and will 

 take her position in the outer harbor, at some 

 convenient point where the anchorage is safe, the 

 water pure and free from sediment, and of suffi- 

 cient density to insure the buoyancy of the eggs 

 during incubation. 



All the usual methods for collecting eggs will 

 be resorted to, and, in addition, it is expected to 

 interest the fishermen themselves in the work of 

 collecting by paying a reasonable price for im- 

 pregnated eggs delivered at the station. Experi- 

 mental investigations will also be made to deter- 

 mine the practicability of forwarding impregnated 

 eggs from Gloucester to Wood's Holl and other 

 stations to be hatched. The species which will 

 chiefly engage the attention of the experts of the 

 commission are the cod, halibut, haddock, herring, 

 and the mackerel. 



The results of the work witli the halibut will be 

 watched with special interest, both by fish-cul- 

 turists and by those who are engaged in the fisher- 

 ies. This fish is even more prolific than the cod- 



fish. Once in extraordinary abundance in Massa- 

 chusetts and Ipswich bays, it has, within the 

 memory of man, been almost exterminated in 

 the area referred to. Have the conditions changed 

 so as to determine the migration of the species to 

 more congenial waters, or has man, by his direct 

 agency in the fisheries, effected the extermination, 

 over a given area, of a marine species of such 

 marvellous fecundity? This is a question to 

 which the work of the commission promises, in 

 a few years, to furnish a satisfactory answer. 



GRE ELY'S THREE YEARS OF ARCTIC 

 SERVICE. 



The name and fame of Lieut. A. W. Greely of the 

 U. S. army now belong to the history of geographi- 

 cal research and of undaunted heroism. The pages 

 of this journal have so often referred to his arctic 

 explorations that it would be superfluous to review 

 again the thrilling incidents of his perilous voyage. 

 The scientific world is well aware that he was sent 

 by the U. S. government as the leader of an expe- 

 dition which was to co-operate with many kindred 

 parties in the observation of physical phenomena 

 in the extreme north ; that this arduous enterprise 

 was not for the gratification of personal or national 

 pride by extending the coast-lines of the northern 

 chart, or by carrying the flag a little nearer to the 

 pole than it had ever been borne before ; that it 

 was not for the purpose of adding renown to the 

 army, or glory to the explorers, but to help in 

 solving important problems in terrestrial physics 

 by a series of exact, patient, long-continued, and 

 carefully recorded observations in the ice-bound 

 regions of the north. 



As long ago as 1875, Lieutenant Weyprecht of 

 the Austrian navy, who had won experience and 

 distinction in arctic researches, succeeded in call- 

 ing the attention of the civilized world to the idea 

 that future voyages should not be planned with 

 reference to the increase of our knowledge of 

 geographical boundaries, but rather to the ascer- 

 tainment of scientific facts, by contemporaneous 

 observations in well-chosen stations at the north, 

 under the concerted actions of the most experienced 

 men and the most enlightened governments. As 

 a result of the acceptance of this idea, fourteen 

 stations were established by eleven co-operating 

 nations ; namely, Austria, Denmark, France, Ger- 

 many, Great Britain, Holland, Norway, Russia, 

 Sweden, and the United States. Many astronom- 

 ical observatories in different parts of the globq 

 lent their aid to the project, so that the number of 



Three years of arctic service. An account of the Lady 

 Fraukliu Bay expedition of 1881-84, and the attainment of 

 the farthest north. By Adolphus W. Greely. 2 vols. 

 New York, Scribner, 1886, 8°. 



