NOTES. 
125 
“Phenomenon. — Some accounts which we have just re¬ 
ceived from our friends, who are sojourning for the summer 
in the immediate neighbourhood of the ocean, are at once so 
singular in themselves, and respectable as to their sources, 
that we have no hesitation in laying them before the public. 
It is stated that as well our whole seaboard as the waters 
which bound and intersect it are at present strewed with 
carcasses of fish. Not only the kinds which are usually 
caught there are seen in great variety and immense abun¬ 
dance, but some species are occasionally found with which 
our fishing gentry have never before had an acquaintance. 
The appearances thus presented are at once interesting and 
mournful. Although the fish are in general, when met with, 
perfectly dead, this is not always the case ; and when those 
who still retain signs of life are from motives of curios¬ 
ity thrown again from the shore into deep water, the only 
use they appear to make of their remaining powers of mus¬ 
cular action is to escape from the element for which nature 
designed them, and to regain the beach from which they have 
been cast. About three weeks ago, five or six large fish, of 
the whale species, were discovered dead upon the beach, with¬ 
in a few miles of the entrance of our harbour. This unusual 
occurrence excited much surprise at the time, and it is more 
than probable that it was produced by the same cause which 
is now operating so fatally upon the lesser fish. With re¬ 
gard to what this cause is, much difference of opinion will 
doubtless exist. It is remarked that the surface of the sea is 
frequently coated over with an extraneous substance of a dark 
and oily appearance. The existence of these two phenomena 
at the same time forms the belief that they are in some way 
connected with each other. We will submit them, however, 
to the curiosity of those who have enjoyed better opportuni¬ 
ties than we have of informing themselves on such subjects, 
after venturing to support the only explanation that has hap¬ 
pened to occur to us. For the last six weeks the wind has 
blown, with little or no change, and almost without intermis* 
sion, from the southward and westward. The consequence 
is known to be that a strong and steady current has for some 
