Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1908 by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 A Year. :0 Cts. a Copy. I NEW YORK SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1903. | No. 846^Blj;ADwk;f^NEW York. 
Six Months, $2. j ' ' ' ^ 
IN THE DAYS OF OLD NEW YORK. 
The citizens of New York have just been celebrating 
the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its establish- 
ment as a government. Like St. Louis, Chicago, St. Paul, 
Winnipeg and many another, New York had its origin 
in a fur-trading post; and the chronicles of its beginning 
are for the most part records of barter with the Indians 
for peltries. In the annals of the first years of New York 
the antiquarian who is something •more than a dry-as-dust 
delver in the musty records of the past may find abundant 
interest in the chronicles which have come down to us 
of the wild people, the wild animals and the wild ways 
of those times. The first traders came here not long after 
Henry Hudson's landing; and for many years thereafter 
the traffic in peltries was the life and substance of the 
place. Daniel Denton, who was here in 1670, and whose 
"Brief Description of New York" is one of the rarest 
and most prized of the early books relating to the city, 
gives us many quaint descriptions of the settlement, the 
Indians, and. the game as he saw them. 
"The inhabitants," he tells us, "consist most of English 
and Dutch, and have a considerable Trade with the In- 
dians for Bevers, Otter, Raccoon skins, with other Furrs ; 
As also for Bear, Deer and Elke skins; and are supplied 
with Venison and Fowl in the Winter and Fish in Sum- 
mer by the Indians which they buy at an easie rate." 
"The commodities vended from thence is Furs and 
Skins before-mentioned ; As likewise Tobacco made within 
the Colony, as good as is usually made in Mary-land: 
Also Horses, Beef, Pork, Oyl, Pease, Wheat, and the 
like." 
The rivers he found "very well furnished with Fish, as 
Bosse, Sheepsheads, Place, Perch, Trout, Eels, Turtles, 
and divers others." And of the Long Island shore he 
relates that there was there a store of "Whales and 
Crampasses," of which the inhabitants were beginning to 
make a successful fishing industry. In further descrip- 
tion of the Long Island country adjacent to New York, 
he writes : 
"For wild beasts there is Deer, Bear, Wolves, Foxes, 
Raccoons, Otters, Musquashes and Skunks. Wild Fowl 
there is great store of, as Turkies, Heath-Hens, Quailes, 
Partridges, Pidgeons, Cranes, Geese of several sorts, 
Brants, Ducks, Widgeon, Teal, and divers others : There 
is also the red Bird, with divers sorts of singing birds, 
whose chirping notes salute the ears of Travellers with 
an harmonious discord, and in every pond and brook green 
silken Frogs, who warbling forth their untun'd tune strive 
to bear a part in this musick." 
Which goes to show that Denton had music in his soul 
and was a very good sportsman in his day. Certainly he 
had the art of seeing things, of picturing his world in 
colors so charming that it has attractions for us as we 
see it with him. Here is one of the enticing bits of his 
review of the inducement New York and its surroundings 
held out for the European : 
"And how prodigal, If I may so say, hath Nature 
been to furnish the Countrey with all sorts of wilde 
Beasts and Fowle, which every one hath an interest in, 
and may hunt at his pleasure; where besid«s the pleasure 
in hunting, he may* furnish his house with excellent fat 
Venison, Turkeys, Geese. Heath-Hens, Cranes, Swans, 
Ducks, Pidgeons and the like: and wearied with that, he 
may go a Fishing, where the Rivers are so furnished, 
that he may supply himself with Fish before he can leave 
of¥ the recreation." 
Of the Indians of New York and Long Island, Denton 
naively remarks, "it is to be admired [i. e., wondered at] 
how strangely they have decreast by the Hand of God, 
since the English first settling of those parts. * * * 
And it hath been generallj'- observed that where the Eng- 
lish come to settle, a Divine Hand makes way for them, 
by removing or culling off the Indians either by Wars 
one with the other, or by some raging mortal Disease." 
One less pious and not so ready to see the working of the 
"Divine Hand" might find as one potent agency of the 
decrease the thrifty traffic of the traders in drink. 
Wooley, another New "ifork chronicler of lliat day, tells 
us of the Indians and their love of liquor : 
■'The Skins of all llieir Beasts, as Bears, Bevers, Rac- 
koons, Foxes. Oilers, Musquashes, Skmiks, Deer and 
Wolves, they bring upon their backs to New York, and 
other places of trade, which they barter and exchange for 
Duffles [blankets] or Guns, but top often for Riim, 
Brandy, and other strong Liquors, of which they afe so 
intemperate lovers that after they have once tasted, they 
will never forebear, till they are inflamed and inraged 
* * * as if they were metamorphosed into the nature 
of those beasts whose skins they barter." The long story 
of the Indian and the white man's drink began very early 
in this country and the melancholy record is not yet com- 
pleted. 
That the New York Indians were no mean hunters, 
Wooley bears testimony when he writes : 
"They lived principally by Hunting, Fishing and Fowl- 
ing. Before the Christians especially the Dutch came 
amongst them were very dexterous Artists at their Bows, 
insomuch I have heard it affirm'd that b Boy of seven 
years old would shoot a Bird flying : and since they have 
iearn'd the use ' of Guns, they prove better marksmen 
than others and more dangerous too (as appear'd in the 
Indian War with New England)." 
Wooley is the chronicler of early New York who 
must always be held in grateful memory by sportsmen for 
his cheerful little story of an adventure with a bear in 
Mr. Robinson's orchard, a plot which is supposed to have 
extended irom Cedar street to Maiden Lane, in the finan- 
cial district where the ground is covered with twenty- 
story skyscrapers. 
"I was one with others," he relates, "that have had 
very good diversion and sport with them in an Orchard 
of Mr. John Robinson's of Nezv York; where we follow'd 
a Bear from Tree to Tree, upon which he could swarm 
like a Cat; and when he was got to his resting place, 
perch'd upon a high branch, we dispatc'd a youth after 
him with a Club to an opposite bough, who knocking his 
Paws, he comes grumbling down backwards with a thump 
npon the ground, so we after him again." Whether he 
got the bear or whether the game was lost in the wilder- 
ness which is now City Hall Park, Wooley neglects to 
tell. 
MYSTERIES OF THE DEEP SEA. 
To THE average man or woman there is perhaps noth- 
ing less known or more mysterious than the sea. We 
behold it from some little point and follow it with the 
eye for a short distance till its surface meets the horizon, 
but we know nothing of what is on it or beneath it. or 
where its waters come from or whither they go. Less 
than a generation ago our knowledge was much less than 
it is to-day, but even still we are only at the beginning. 
The subject is one which must continue to fascinate us, 
and we may now learn much more than is generally 
known about it by a recent contribution from the pen of 
Mr. C. H. Townsend, the Director of the New York 
Aquarium. 
The most extensive inquiries into the mysteries of the 
sea have been made by the Governments of the United 
States and of Great Britain, but others of the European 
powers and an individual — the Prince of Monaco — have 
conducted important investigations. 
The two questions about the sea that most immediately 
present themselves concern its depths and the life which 
inhabits those depths. Up to about the year 1872 the 
work of making soundings was difficult, and those made 
were untrustworthy, because they were made with hempen 
rope which did not sink easily and was greatly drifted b^' 
currents. In 1872, however, on the British vessel Chal- 
lenger, Sir William Thompson devised a means of sound- 
ing by which wire was substituted for rope, and by this 
means the erroneous results previously made were cor- 
rected. 
The sounding wire sinks rapidly and presents but small 
surface either for friction or to be affected by currents. 
With the wire are sent to the bottom several instruments, 
a thermometer for temperature, a self-closing cylinder to 
bring up bottom water, and a cylinder to bring up the 
bottom mud. The weight is usually a 60-pound iron shot, 
which detaches itself when the bottom is reached. To 
the reel on tile deck of the vessel is attached an indicator, 
showing the number of fathoms of wire that have run 
.out. When the sounding has been made, the wire is reeled 
in again by steam. 
riie greatest depth at present known was discovered 
in the year igoo by the United States cable survey ship 
Nero, near the Island of Guam. Here the sounding was 
5,269 fathoms, or nearly 6 miles. Previous to that, depths 
Ija^i begn fovind north of New Zealand considerably more 
than 5,000 fathoms, and there are many other depths in the 
Pacific Ocean only slightly less. 
It is, of course, well understood that the surface of the 
sea nearly everywhere carries an abundance of small ani- 
mal and plant life. This life is the cause of the phos- 
phorescence so often seen in the sea. These minute 
plants and animals are continually dying and falling to 
the bottom, and their remains constitute a large part of 
the mud which forms portions of the bottom of the deep 
sea. 
From every body of land there is continually being 
carried into the sea through the erosive influences of air 
and water by brooks, rivers, tides and currents a vast 
quantity of matter which forms the floor of the sea near 
to the shore. Much of this suspended matter is carried 
a long way out from the shore, but deposits formed of 
this material do not commonly extend into the ocean more 
than 100 or 200 miles from the shore. These are the ter- 
rigenous deposits. Beyond this what are called pelagic 
deposits are made by the sea instead of by the land, and 
consisting largely of the remains of the minute plants and 
animals just referred to, and known as diatoms, radio- 
larians and globigerince. Beyond these so-called oozes, in 
the still deeper portions of the ocean, are the red clay 
deposits which are practically destitute of life or of the 
remains of life. These deposits lie so deep that the shells 
of surface organisms which fall toward the bottom are 
dissolved by the water before they reach it. 
Most of the knowledge which we have of the life of the 
deep sea comes from dredging by vessels especially fitted 
up for this purpose, and of such vessels none has done 
more than the United States Fish Commission Steamship 
Albatross, which is no doubt the best equipped deep sea 
dredger in existence to-day. From this vessel have been 
made a vast number of soundings and dredgings, some 
of them from a depth of over 4,000 fathoms, which have 
added enormously to our knowledge of the life of the deep 
sea. The operation of dredging may take but two or 
three hours for moderate depths, or, as in the case of the 
deepest dredge haul— that from 4,173 fathoms — ten hours 
was required to take in the line. Besides the dredge, there 
is used the tangle, of loosened strands of rope, which is 
dragged over the bottom and frequently brings up great 
numbers of invertebrates. The Prince of Monaca has de- 
vised a deep sea fish trap in which fishes have been taken 
two miles below the surface and gill nets set far below 
the surface have also captured fish, and promise to yield 
good results. 
In the great depths of the sea it is always cold, the 
temperature being near, to the freezing point. It is also 
known that at great depths the pressure of water is some- 
thing tremendous, and that the deep sea animals can only 
exist there because their tissues are so permeated by 
fluids that the pressure is balanced, while if brought to 
the surface, and the pressure which keeps them firm is 
withdrawn, they almost fall to pieces. 
Practically no light is found at a depth greater than 
200 fathoms, yet many of the animals are brilliant in 
color, red, yellows, purples and greens predominating. 
There is an entire absence of blue. Although sunlight 
is absent at these great depths, many of the animals — 
both fishes and invertebrates — are phosphorescent and 
produce their own light. Some of the deep sea animals 
are wholly blind, and those which have eyes very likely see 
by the light of the phosphorescence which is being emitted 
by themselves and so. many others of the creatures that 
are found in these depths. 
Dr. A. P. Knight, Professor of Animal Biology in 
Queen's College,' Kingston, Ont., has conducted a series of 
dynamite explosions in water to determine the effect upon 
fish. The results show, for one thing, that such explo- 
sions are more destructive in deep water than in shallow 
water, where the pressure resulting from the explosion is 
not sufficiently great to rupture the swim bladder. The 
most significant fact brought out was that when dynamite 
cartridges are used for fishing, in addition to the fish 
which come to the surface and float and are taken, a 
much larger number may be merely stunned and escape, 
or be killed outright and sink to the 'bottom. Among 
those which come to the surface are so many immature 
that not one-third of the number killed is marketable. 
Dynamiting is one of the most wasteful of all the modes 
of fishing, 
