Chapter V: Part 5

_a._ About 100,000 male seals of recognized killable age
were obtained from the hauling grounds each year from 1871
to 1889. The table of statistics given in Appendix I[39]
shows, on the whole, a progressive increase in the number of
hauling grounds driven and in the number of drives made, as
well as a retardation of the date at which the quota was
attained during a number of years prior to 1889.

_b._ In the year 1896, 28,964 killable seals were taken
after continuing the driving till July 27th, and in 1897
19,189 after continuing the driving till August 11th. We
have no reason to believe that during the period 1896 and
1897 a very much larger number of males of recognized
killable age could have been taken on the hauling grounds.

The reduction between the years 1896 and 1897 in the number
of killable seals taken, while an indication of decrease in
the breeding herd, can not be taken as an actual measure of
such decrease. A number of other factors must be taken into
consideration, and the real measure of decrease must be
sought in more pertinent statistics, drawn from the breeding
rookeries themselves.

We have already noted that in that portion of the period, 1871 to 1889, which falls prior to 1884, thirteen years in all, no difficulty was experienced in securing the full quota, and it may be added that this was completed not later than July 20th. A retardation of the date at which the quota can be filled is a direct indication of the degree of exhaustion of the hauling grounds. In marked contrast with these earlier years stand the conditions of 1896 and 1897, when greatly reduced quotas only were obtained, notwithstanding the unusual prolongation of the driving period.

The statement here made that the difference between the quotas of 1896 and 1897 is not an actual measure of decline in the breeding herd requires explanation. The quota of any year is dependent upon the birth rate of three years previous, killable seals being males of approximately three years of age. The difference noted, therefore, while not indicative of the actual decrease for the seasons 1896 and 1897, is a direct measure of such decrease for the seasons of 1893 and 1894, when the seals in question were born.

That the rate of decline as thus shown was greater in 1893-'94 than in 1896-'97 is explained by the fact that, whereas only 30,000 seals were taken at sea in 1893, 60,000 were taken in 1894; while in 1896 43,000 were taken as against only 25,000 in 1897. In other words, the pelagic catch of 1894 exceeded that of 1893 by one hundred per cent, while that of 1897 fell seventy-two per cent below that of 1896. It is not, therefore, strange that the quota of 1897 should show a reduction of thirty per cent as against one of twelve per cent in the breeding herd for the same year.

3. From these data it is plain that the former yield of the
hauling grounds of the Pribilof Islands was from three to
five times as great as in the years 1896 and 1897, and the
same diminution to one third or one fifth of the former
product may be assumed when we include also the results of
the hunting at sea.

This proposition needs little comment. It is a simple deduction from the conditions of the preceding paragraph. The minimum estimate of former conditions is the lowest possible figure that could be in any way defended. The larger figure is apparently more nearly correct. The quota of 1898, of which we now have the record also, was about 18,000. It is not so stated in this paragraph, but the inference is inevitable that what is thus given as the decline of the "yield of the hauling grounds" is equally the decline of the breeding herd. A breeding herd which yielded without difficulty annually 100,000 killable animals (superfluous males of three years of age) must be reduced to something like one fifth its former size when it is able only with extreme difficulty to yield a quota of 20,000 such animals.

4. The death rate among young fur seals, especially among
the pups, is very great. While the loss among the pups prior
to their departure from the islands has been found in the
past two years to approach twenty per cent of the whole
number born, and though the rate of subsequent mortality is
unknown, we may gather from the number which return each
year that from one half to two thirds have perished before
the age of three years--that is to say, the killable age for
the males and the breeding age for the females.

The maximum and minimum figures here represent a division of opinion. The larger figure of two thirds would even seem to be a conservative estimate. The birth rate of 1897, as we know from close estimate, was approximately 130,000; it must have been greater in 1894, approaching 200,000. From this larger birth rate only about 20,000 males survived (the quota of 1897). There was doubtless a like number of females, the sexes being equal at birth and subject to like causes of natural loss. This gives a total of 40,000 in all, out of a birth rate of 200,000, which survived to the age of three years. This is one fifth, and it is evident that the mortality exceeds rather than falls below the maximum of two thirds.

5. The chief natural causes of death among pups, so far as
known at present, are as follows, the importance of each
being variable and more or less uncertain:

_a._ Ravages of the parasitic worm _Uncinaria_; most
destructive on sandy breeding areas and during the period
from July 15th to August 20th.

_b._ Trampling by fighting bulls or by moving bulls and
cows, a source of loss greatest among young pups.

_c._ Starvation of pups strayed or separated from their
mothers when very young, or whose mothers have died from
natural causes.

_d._ Ravages of the great killer (_Orca_), known to be fatal
to many of the young, and perhaps also to older seals.

At a later period drowning in the storms of winter is
believed, but not certainly known, to be a cause of death
among the older pups.

The causes of death here enumerated are natural and inherent in the conditions under which the herd exists. That some of them were not known or fully understood until the investigations of 1896 and 1897 does not make them new or recent in their action. They have been constant factors, acting with greater intensity in the past when the herd was larger and more crowded upon its breeding grounds. Photographs taken in 1891 and 1892 show that the parasitic worm was then doing its deadly work, and more extensively in proportion as the herd was larger. For 1,495 pups dead from this cause counted by us on Tolstoi sand flat in 1896, 4,000 were counted on the same ground by the British commissioner of 1892. Moreover, the bones of innumerable pups on ground already abandoned in that year by the declining herd attest the existence of this cause of death prior to that time. We have no reason to suppose that it has not always preyed upon the herd. Death by trampling must at present be at a minimum on account of the scattered condition of the rookeries. The storms of winter and pelagic enemies must, of course, take toll in proportion to the number of animals.

But the significant fact shown by this proposition is that the gain of the herd must be small at best under such a natural death rate. We may suppose these natural losses to have been the checks which in a state of nature prevented the indefinite increase of the herd. When, therefore, to this total loss of from two thirds to four fifths of the entire birth rate before breeding age is attained, we add the tremendous artificial loss through the destruction of gravid and nursing females resulting from pelagic sealing, it is not to be wondered at that the equilibrium was broken and the herd sent on a rapid decline.

6. Counts of certain rookeries, with partial counts and
estimates of others, show that the number of breeding
females bearing pups on St. Paul and St. George Island was,
in 1896 and 1897, between 160,000 and 130,000, more nearly
approaching the higher figure in 1896 and the lower in 1897.

These figures are based upon counts of all the breeding families on both islands for each season. On certain rookeries the live and dead pups were counted. In this way an average size of family was obtained which was used to complete the census where pups could not be counted.

7. On certain rookeries where pups were counted in both
seasons, 16,241 being found in 1896 and 14,318 in 1897, or,
applying a count adopted by Professor Thompson, 14,743 in
the latter year, there is evident a decrease of nine to
twelve per cent within the twelvemonth in question. The
count of pups is the most trustworthy measure of numerical
variation in the herd. The counts of harems, and especially
of cows present, are much inferior in value. The latter
counts, however, point in the same direction. The harems on
all the rookeries were counted in both seasons. In 1896
there were 4,932; in 1897 there were 4,418, a decrease of
10.41 per cent. The cows actually present on certain
rookeries at the height of the season were counted in both
seasons. Where 10,198 were found in 1896, 7,307 were found
in 1897, a decrease of 28.34 per cent.

The important element in these special counts, undertaken with a view to determining the relative condition of the breeding herd for the two seasons, is the count of pups. All other classes of rookery population fluctuate from day to day, but the pups remain constantly on shore and near to the place of birth for the first six weeks of their lives, and it is merely a matter of patience and skill in counting them. Such a count on any rookery is an absolute record of the number of breeding females which has visited it for the season in question.

The minimum figure of nine per cent adopted by Professor Thompson is based upon a recount of a single rookery made by himself under conditions less favorable for accuracy than in the case of the official counts, which give the larger figure of twelve per cent, and which were made jointly by representatives of both commissions.

8. It is not easy to apply the various counts in the form of
a general average to all the rookeries of the islands. We
recognize that a notable decrease has been suffered by the
herd during the twelvemonth 1896 to 1897, without
attempting, save by setting the above numbers on record, to
ascribe to the decrease more precise figures.

This is a rather extreme statement of the uncertainty which may be assumed to attach to these figures. The problem is not an easy one at best and its factors are complex. This should always be borne in mind, but not to the extent of doubting the value of the figures. The areas counted were large enough to be fairly typical. The counts were carefully done, and are accurate enough for all practical purposes. The probable error for the 15,000 more or less pups counted would not exceed 500. But as the counting was done in exactly the same manner and by the same persons for the two seasons, such errors as may exist are common to both counts and the relative conditions are unaltered. The figure of twelve per cent, moreover, must be taken as in itself a minimum, since it is the result of a number of individual counts varying in accuracy; and all in a sense underestimates, inasmuch as more animals are always overlooked among the rocks than are counted twice.

But the exact percentage of decrease is immaterial. That it has been a "notable" decrease is sufficient, and this is unquestioned. It may be noted in passing that this unequivocal decrease occurs in two seasons during which there was perfect enforcement of the regulations of the Paris award.

9. The methods of driving and killing practiced on the
islands, as they have come under our observation during the
past two seasons, call for no criticism or objection. An
adequate supply of bulls is present on the rookeries; the
number of older bachelors rejected in the drives during the
period in question is such as to safeguard in the immediate
future a similarly adequate supply; the breeding bulls,
females, and pups on the breeding grounds are not disturbed;
there is no evidence or sign of impairment of virility of
males; the operations of driving and killing are conducted
skillfully and without inhumanity.

It was agreed by the commission of 1892 that "excessive killing by man" was the cause of the decline of the herd. As to the "man" in question the two sets of commissioners differed diametrically. The Americans placed the responsibility with the pelagic sealer; the British, with the lessees through their methods of sealing on land.

To any one who is at all familiar with the conspicuous part which the theories of close killing, and especially overdriving, played in the British contention before the Paris Tribunal of Arbitration, this full and frank vindication comes as a refreshing surprise. That it should be agreed to by British scientific experts ought to revive even Dr. Mendenhall's faith. It is true that the statement is carefully limited to the seasons under observation, but neither the principle nor the methods of land killing have been altered within the past half century except in so far as they have been improved. It was an absurd and foolish theory which ascribed to the treatment of the non-breeding and superfluous male life of a herd of polygamous animals responsibility for the decline of its breeding stock, but it served a purpose useful to Canadian interests before the Paris tribunal. It is now forever eliminated from the fur-seal question.

10. The pelagic industry is conducted in an orderly manner,
and in a spirit of acquiescence in the limitations imposed
by law.

This statement is true, though wholly irrelevant to the question of the efficiency of the regulations themselves. Moreover, it stands as an implied impeachment of the active and efficient patrol fleet constantly maintained by the United States and Great Britain for the enforcement of the regulations governing the pelagic industry. For example, there were in 1896 five American and three British vessels engaged in active patrol of the waters of Bering Sea. One would think it a foregone conclusion that the pelagic industry should be law-abiding, whether of its own volition or not. In addition to all this, however, the regulations are as admirably suited to the needs of the pelagic sealer as if he had himself prepared them. There is, therefore, no reasonable incentive to violate them. Viewed in this light, this statement seems ludicrous, but it has a justification not evident at first sight.

The British experts demanded this statement as a balm for the wounded feelings of the pelagic sealer, and, such being the fact, the American commissioners assumed that it could do no harm to place it on record that he has conformed to the requirements of the law. But from the American point of view this paragraph has a wider and deeper meaning. We have seen in the opening paragraph that the decline in the herd has been continuous and uninterrupted during the period of the Paris regulations. It is admitted in paragraph 8 that the decrease for this same period has been a "notable" one. The rate is specified in paragraph 7 as from "nine to twelve per cent" during two years when the regulations were rigidly enforced. It only requires the climax of paragraph 10, asserting the perfect observance of the regulations, to complete their condemnation.

11. Pelagic sealing involves the killing of males and
females alike, without discrimination and in proportion as
the two sexes coexist in the sea. The reduction of the males
effected on the islands causes an enhanced proportion of
females to be found in the pelagic catch; hence this
proportion, if it vary from no other cause, varies at least
with the catch on the islands. In 1895 Mr. A. B. Alexander,
on behalf of the Government of the United States, found 62.3
per cent of females in the catch of the Dora Sieward in
Bering Sea; and in 1896 Mr. Andrew Halkett, on behalf of the
Canadian Government, found 84.2 per cent in the catch of the
same schooner in the same sea. There are no doubt instances,
especially in the season of migration and in the course of
the migrating herds, of catches containing a different
proportion of the two sexes.

There are two ways and two alone whereby killing by man affects the fur-seal herd--namely, killing on land and killing at sea. Land killing has been vindicated in paragraph 9. We have here the necessary condemnation of pelagic killing expressed in equally full and frank terms. Land killing takes only males and leaves an adequate supply of bulls for breeding purposes; pelagic killing takes males and females alike, the latter sex constituting 62 to 84 out of every 100 killed.

It is not a vital matter that the female sex should be found to predominate in the pelagic catch, except in so far as it proves the falsity of the returns made so persistently by the Canadian sealing captain that the sexes are taken in virtually equal proportion at sea. The essential thing is that females are killed at all. That three fourths of all the animals taken at sea (during one season 140,000 animals were so taken) are of this sex only emphasizes the destructive nature of this industry.

12. The large proportion of females in the pelagic catch
includes not only adult females that are both nursing and
pregnant, but also young seals that are not pregnant and
others that have not yet brought forth young, with such
also as have recently lost their young through the various
causes of natural mortality.

This statement is put in the mildest possible form out of consideration for the old-time British contentions that the breeding females did not leave the islands while their young were dependent upon them, and that those taken at sea were "barren." The investigations of 1896 and 1897 proved conclusively that every female of two years old and over taken at sea was pregnant, and that those over two years of age when taken in Bering Sea were in addition nursing, having dependent pups on the islands. The manner of statement seems to imply an equality in importance between "young" seals and "adults." As females are never killed on land, they are naturally of all ages when found at sea, and the young animals (yearlings and two-year-olds) are necessarily vastly in the minority.

13. The polygamous habit of the animal, coupled with an
equal birth rate of the two sexes, permits a large number of
males to be removed with impunity from the herd, while, as
with other animals, any similar abstraction of females
checks or lessens the herd's increase, or, when carried
further, brings about an actual diminution of the herd. It
is equally plain that a certain number of females may be
killed without involving the actual diminution of the herd,
if the number killed does not exceed the annual increment of
the breeding herd, taking into consideration the annual
losses by death through old age and through incidents of the
sea.

This paragraph is really supplementary to 9 and 11. Neither the methods nor yet the principle of land killing are at fault. The animal being polygamous, a part of its male life can be removed with impunity. On the other hand, the killing of females leads to disastrous results.

The concluding sentence is a concession to diplomacy. It is true that a certain number of females may be killed without producing actual diminution. If pelagic sealing were stopped to-day the herd would naturally begin to increase. The measure of its increase would be the difference between the natural loss of adult breeders through old age and incidents of the sea, on the one hand, and the yearly accession of young breeders to bear their first pups, on the other. We can closely estimate the latter factor. It was equal, for example, to the quota of 20,000 in 1897, or sixteen and two thirds per cent of the birth rate. The quota was composed of males of approximately three years, and we may assume that a like number of three-year-old females entered the rookeries for the first time in the same season. We have then a gross gain to the breeding herd of sixteen and two thirds per cent.

We have no means of exact estimate for the loss of adult females because we do not know the period of life in the female. If, however, we estimate it at thirteen years, which seems to be a conservative figure, the animal would have ten years of breeding life. Then, from old age alone, ten per cent of the adult breeding females must die annually. This leaves a net gain of six and two thirds per cent with accidental factors unaccounted for. The killing of females which does not produce actual diminution must come well within this margin of six and two thirds per cent. It only remains to be stated that the pelagic catch of 1897, which was the smallest on record since 1884, exceeded fourteen per cent.

14. While, whether from a consideration of the birth rate or
from an inspection of the visible effects, it is manifest
that the take of females in recent years has been so far in
excess of the natural increment as to lead to the reduction
of the herd in the degree related above, yet the ratio of
the pelagic catch of one year to that of the following has
fallen off more rapidly than the ratio of the breeding herd
of one year to the breeding herd of the next.

This paragraph corrects possible erroneous implications which might be drawn from the truism in the preceding paragraph. A certain number of females may be taken, etc., but so many in excess of the safety limit have been taken that the herd has been reduced "in the degree related above"--that is, for 1896-'97, nine to twelve per cent, and for 1884-'97, fifty to eighty per cent.

Dr. Mendenhall said: "It will be impossible to know absolutely which group of scientific experts was right (in 1892) in regard to pelagic sealing." The admission made in this paragraph, taken together with other admissions made in paragraphs 11 and 12, effectually disproves this prediction. It ought to be a source of gratification to Dr. Mendenhall and to his colleague, Dr. Merriam, to find it thus clearly proved that they were right and their British associates wrong.

The final clause is here again a diplomatic concession to take the sting out of the real admission. The rapid fall in the pelagic catch as compared with the more even decline of the breeding herd is a natural phenomenon. Pelagic sealing not only destroys the herd, but it is necessarily self-destructive because it preys upon its own capital. The more successful it is the sooner it must cease. With the decline of the herd it is itself declining, and the rapidity of its fall proves the nearness of the end. For the years since 1894 the pelagic catch has been 61,000, 56,000, 43,000, and 25,000 respectively. It is a significant fact that in four years, under regulations which permit the pelagic sealer to take all he can get, the product of his industry has fallen to less than one half.

15. In this greater reduction of the pelagic catch, compared
with the gradual decrease of the herd, there is a tendency
toward equilibrium, or a stage at which the numbers of the
breeding herd would neither increase nor decrease. In
considering the probable size of the herd in the immediate
future, there remains to be estimated the additional factor
of decline resulting from reductions in the number of
surviving pups, caused by the larger pelagic catch of 1894
and 1895.

The two statements in this paragraph are not related. The first is a part of the preceding paragraph and is self-evident. Should the pelagic catch continue to decrease, as it must, it will eventually come within the margin of six and two thirds per cent. It has yet to fall far before this end is reached. Then will come that much-mooted "equilibrium," when the herd will be too insignificant to be worthy of attack--the equilibrium of ruin. There is no comfort in this prospect, either for the pelagic sealer or for the owner of the herd, and it takes no note of the injury which has been accomplished in the past, much less of possible restoration in the future. The equilibrium here suggested is purely a figure of speech, another concession to diplomacy.

The final statement of this paragraph is more important. The starvation of pups as a result of the killing of mothers at sea has been a fact strenuously denied from the first by the British side of the fur-seal controversy. After the actual counting of 16,000 of these starved pups in 1896, this position could no longer be maintained. At the same time a specific admission of the fact of starvation and of the destruction of unborn pups was too difficult a matter for the British experts to face. These facts are left to be inferred from the "reductions in surviving pups" here noted and from the admission that "nursing and pregnant females" are taken in the pelagic catch. Stated directly, it is here admitted that on account of "the larger pelagic catch of 1894 and 1895," numbers of pups starved to death on the rookeries or died unborn with their mothers which in the course of Nature should have reached the killable and breeding age.

16. The diminution of the herd is yet far from a stage which
involves or threatens the actual extermination of the
species, so long as it is protected in its haunts on land.
It is not possible during the continuation of the
conservative methods at present in force upon the islands,
with the further safeguard of the protected zone at sea,
that any pelagic killing should accomplish this final end.
There is evidence, however, that in its present condition
the herd yields an inconsiderable return either to the
lessees of the islands or to the owners of the pelagic
fleet.

The statements of this concluding paragraph must be taken in close connection, and the "ifs" must be carefully noted if they are not to prove very misleading. The opening sentence refers to the biologic extinction of the herd as contrasted with its commercial ruin. The former is as yet far off, the latter is a matter of history, as is admitted in the concluding statement--"an inconsiderable return." This means simply that the herd has ceased to be a commercial factor, and henceforth under present conditions sealing, whether on land or at sea, must be conducted at a loss.

This has an important bearing upon the suggested impossibility of bringing about the extinction of the species. It all depends upon whether present conditions are maintained. The breeding islands and the sixty-mile protected zone must be guarded. It cost the United States $175,000 for patrol in 1896. England's expense was less, but still considerable. It is beyond reason that this expensive protection should be continued at a loss or without hope of ultimate restoration of the herd. Remove the protection for a single season and the herd would be practically exterminated. A scattered remnant would doubtless escape to maintain a melancholy equilibrium, or perhaps to recuperate and again attract the cupidity of some adventurous sealing captain, but the herd as such would be at an end.

Stated without reference to diplomatic necessities, this concluding paragraph admits two important things: first, that the herd of fur seals resorting to the Pribilof Islands is commercially ruined; second, that its extinction as a species only awaits the abandonment of certain arduous and costly measures of protection now maintained solely in the hope of more adequate protection and the ultimate restoration of the herd.

Such was the work of the Conference of Fur-Seal Experts of 1897. The handwriting of diplomacy is mingled with that of science in its findings, but the resulting obscurity affects only minor matters. The important issues of the vexatious Bering Sea controversy are squarely met and finally settled. It is needless to say that there no longer exists a fur-seal question. It is merely a question of how to get rid of the destructive agency of pelagic sealing. This is a matter for diplomacy to adjust. Any odium which may have attached to the "man of science" as a result of the failure of the meeting of 1892 is effectually wiped out, and if the lesson is read aright by the nations, henceforth the scientific expert must be counted an essential factor in the settlement of governmental disputes.

FOOTNOTE:

[39] This table of statistics need not be quoted here in full. The following section, embracing the ten years prior to 1889 and including 1884, will suffice:

-------+------------+---------+-----------+-----------+----------
| | Hauling | | |
YEAR. | Date quota | grounds | Number of | Killed on | Killed at
| filled. | driven. | drives. | land. | sea.
-------+------------+---------+-----------+-----------+----------
1879 | 16 | 71 | 36 | 110,411 | 8,557
1880 | 17 | 78 | 38 | 105,718 | 8,418
1881 | 20 | 99 | 34 | 105,063 | 10,382
1882 | 20 | 86 | 36 | 99,812 | 15,551
1883 | 19 | 81 | 39 | 79,509 | 16,557
1884 | 21 | 101 | 42 | 105,434 | 16,971
1885 | 27 | 106 | 63 | 105,024 | 23,040
1886 | 26 | 117 | 74 | 104,521 | 28,494
1887 | 24 | 101 | 66 | 105,760 | 30,628
1888 | 27 | 102 | 73 | 103,304 | 26,189
1889 | 81 | 110 | 74 | 102,617 | 29,858
-------+------------+---------+-----------+-----------+----------

* * * * *

In a paper on the industrial applications of
electro-chemistry, Mr. Thomas Ewan points out as among those
that may yet be developed, that it is possible, by
compressing sulphur dioxide and air into separate carbon
tubes dipping in sulphuric acid, to cause the two gases to
combine to form sulphuric acid, and at the same time furnish
an electric current. "The alluring prospect," he says, "of
obtaining electric energy as a by-product in a chemical
works should be a sufficient incentive to efforts to
overcome the numerous difficulties in the way."

A SCHOOL FOR THE STUDY OF LIFE UNDER THE SEA.

(_Naples Aquarium._)

BY ELEANOR HODGEN PATTERSON.

To go deep down under the sea, in the warm waters of the south, where exist not only the varieties of fish with which we are familiar, but thousands of jewel-like forms of animal life never seen by us, has hitherto been impossible to any but the boldest fishermen and divers. But of late years in the small aquarium at Naples the sea has been brought up, so to speak, upon the earth for us to see these strange creatures as they exist in their homes under the water, as they eat their food, as they love and hate, and prey upon each other.

Small as the collection at first seems to be, there is no zoölogical station in the world to compare with it. Probably there never will be again. Because of its advantageous station on the shores of the Mediterranean, where it is claimed the waters which wash Italy and Sicily yield a greater variety of sea life than even tropical waters, and also its comparative accessibility to all countries, the scholars who come here from all over the world find that they are able to study here as they can nowhere else the strange habits of the tiny animals down at the bottom of the sea.

There is no superfluous room taken up in the Naples aquarium for the fish that may be studied in aquariums elsewhere. Only the rarest, the strangest, the most curious creatures are here to be seen.

But one room of the beautiful building devoted to the zoölogical station, which stands on that street of Naples running along the sea, is shown to the public. One walks into it from the level of the street, and the transition from the light outside to strange semi-darkness is as if one were to suddenly find himself walking upon the bottom of the sea.

The light comes only from above, shining through water of many hundreds of cubic feet, on to what seems at first a garden of moving flowers behind tanks of clear glass, which seem, so complete is the illusion, not like glass at all, but water. The visitor walks along dark alleys lined on both sides with these brilliant tanks, and the beautiful sea animals are so close that it seems easy to touch them. It is like being in a narrow, dark theater with the stage all around and about, strangely illuminated, not by footlights, but by a radiance from above.

There are about thirty tanks in all, and at the very first of these glass-walled vats we stopped entranced. Behind it were piles of rocks shining in the water, and from every crevice grew what seemed brilliant flowers, but of colors so soft and waxlike that they were almost more lovely than our flowers of earth.

"Surely these deep red ones that cover the rocks to the left are a species of aster, and these are cacti, and these, yes, these reddish-brown one are chrysanthemums and nothing else."

But even as we spoke we saw the petals of first one, then another, flower wave back and forth, and in and out, with curious curling movements, as none of our flowers do, even in the most various winds, and then from above a long pole was suddenly thrust down into the water, at the end of which was stuck a piece of raw red meat about as large as a walnut.

It was the keeper come to feed his strange charges. Again and again were the bits of meat thrust down into the hearts of the sea flowers, and then we discovered with a kind of shock that these asters and cacti and chrysanthemums were not flowers at all, but flesh-eating animals, and that each waving petal was a mouth, by which the creature sucked in the blood of the meat.

When all the juice had been extracted from the meat, the many mouths attached to each seeming flower, that had been tightly curled upon the raw flesh, now unfolded again into their petal-like positions in a circle, one over the other, and the meat, now but a tiny ball of dry pulp, slowly sank to the bottom of the tank. What the calyx was like, or whether it had any body at all, we could not see, so entirely hidden was it behind these many waving, armlike mouths.

In the next tank several sea horses were swimming merrily in and out of rocks that were covered by a growth of miniature trees. They were smaller than the tiniest hobbyhorse that has ever been seen, as small almost as the toy horses in a "Noah's ark." The resemblance of these small fish, not larger than smelts or minnows, that have come to be known as "sea horses," to real horses is in the head only. The rest of the body tapers off into the ordinary fishlike form. I wondered, as I looked at these small horses of the sea, if it was from them that the old myth of the existence of mermaids arose. "Half fish, half women" were the mermaids, but "half fish, half horses" are these fish.

They were lively little creatures, and swam in and out of the tiny forest as if they were playing a game of "tag." What a beautiful little forest it was to play in! The trees had brown trunks about the size of one's finger, and from the top a graceful, palmlike foliage branched out, but the foliage was not in greens, but deep, translucent reds, or coral pinks, or warm browns.

While I was admiring one of the little coral pink trees, one of the sea horses swam straight into its foliage, when, to my amazement, and evidently to the amazement of the sea horse also, the foliage instantly disappeared down into the tree trunk, leaving only the brown stem standing.

Aghast with surprise at the sudden revelation that this charming foliage, like the petals of the flowers in the last tank, was also a cluster of living suckers, I asked what name they were called by, and heard with disgust the answer "worms." These beautiful, curious creatures only the things we know by the loathsome word "worms!"

These sea worms, or annelids, as the scientific scholars call them, build up for themselves the brown tubes that resemble the rough stems of pines or palms, and from the top they send out their worm-like bodies in clusters, where they wave back and forth in the water, to sweep in any food that may be near, always holding themselves in readiness to withdraw into their holes at danger.

Whether the brilliant foliage of each tree was but the many tentacles of a single animal emerging from the tube, or whether it was a whole family of worms come up to the top of their home to gaze from the chimney, so to speak, we could not discover. But, strange to say, the grotesque little sea horse seemed to be trying to decide that question for himself, for, after swimming away a moment in fright at this sudden disappearance, he returned and appeared to be peeping down into the tube.

The next tank revealed even greater surprise than we had yet seen. Here in the water long white gauze ribbons were waving, as if hung from above, and so transparent that we could see quite through them, almost as if they were composed of the white of an egg. It was only by looking closely that up near the top we could see a tiny black dot, like a pinhead, in each fleecy scarf. This was the head of the animal, or its eye, or mouth, or whatever such a delicate dot might be called.

These are of the jellyfish family, and have only lately been added to the aquarium. Owing to the difficulty of procuring such pulplike masses, they are extremely rare specimens, and can be seen nowhere else. Surely nothing more frail, more delicately lovely exists on land or sea, in plant or animal life, than these gauzy living sashes of the sea.

But not all the denizens of the tanks are beautiful to look upon. There is a tank near the door of entrance filled with objects so hideous that one starts away from them with horror. These are the octopi, or devilfish. Imagine the ugliest, biggest black spider that you ever saw, and enlarge it to the size of the largest turtle you ever saw, and on the end of each of the spider's legs fasten a wicked-looking mouth, and you can form some idea of how frightful an octopus can be.

Several of these monsters were writhing near the glass wall, stretching out their long, boneless arms, and sometimes fastening their suckers upon the glass in the search for food, thus unconsciously showing off the ugliness of their mouths. It was now time for the keeper to come to them in his round of feeding. He put into the tank from above a number of crabs, when suddenly the whole tank seemed filled with octopi. They had been sleeping among the dark rocks, of which they were so much the color that we had not before observed them. The poor little crabs had probably been stunned, or perhaps killed, by the keeper, for they made no resistance when the octopi fastened upon them their long suckers in a death-grasp. The octopi fought with each other over the possession of the crabs, and for some moments there was a terrible waving to and fro of black suckers fully two yards in length.

Beside this tank was another of clear water in which were some peaceful cuttlefish. The keeper, for a few coins, stirred these out of their quiet by moving his long stick after them. They swam about in fright for a moment or two, and then we saw them no more, for the clear water had suddenly become a thick black fluid. The cuttlefish had discharged their bags of ink to escape the pursuing enemy.

The upper floors of the zoölogical station are seldom shown to visitors, but these are almost more interesting than the tank room below. Here the great scholars who make a life study of these strange inhabitants of the deep have their tables; here the dredgings of the sea are brought by fishermen and divers for them to assort; here sea animals are developed by them from the egg, and even from invisible germs.

Each investigator into the strange lower world is furnished with his own aquaria, suited to the special branch he may be studying, for nearly all are interested in a special branch of zoölogy. One man has come a long distance to pursue the study of sponges, and he is furnished with a perfect garden of them, for they are brought up from this part of the Mediterranean in infinite variety.

Another student is studying the habits of mollusks, and basins and jars of these and their eggs are near him. There are divers' costumes hanging on the walls in which the _savants_ may themselves descend to the bottom of the sea and study the inhabitants in their native houses.

There are laboratories and libraries here, adapted to the most exhaustive study, and a fleet of small boats is also kept exclusively for the use of the zoölogical station.

Fishermen constantly bring in baskets filled with what seems to be only wet rubbish, heaps of stones, and worthless bits of pulp. This is examined and assorted by trained eyes, and placed in tanks of water where siphons are constantly pouring fresh sea water, after which the rubbish is quietly left until accustomed to its new quarters. Then cautiously this rubbish begins to move, the stones stir, and the pulp opens into the beautiful colors, the plants, the gauzy scarfs, and the numerous other strange things afterward shown to the public in the aquarium below.

Along the walls of these upper rooms are jars wherein are preserved many curious denizens of the sea that have been killed by powerful chemicals, which have surprised the delicate animals before their sensitive tentacles have had time to close, thus preserving to science many rare creatures impossible to keep long in captivity.

The great cost of this establishment is maintained in several ways--by the issuing of publications and scientific papers in several languages, by the rents from the desks or tables used by the investigators, and by the unusually large price of admission demanded from the public at the aquarium entrance. In addition to this are the fees from the students who come from afar to study here. A payment of four hundred dollars each gives students the right to study in the Naples zoölogical station for ten months of the year.

SCIENCE IN EDUCATION.[40]

BY SIR ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, D. C. L., F. R. S.

When the history of education during the nineteenth century comes to be written, one of its most striking features will be presented by the rise and growth of science in the general educational arrangements of every civilized country. At the beginning of the century our schools and colleges were still following, with comparatively little change, the methods and subjects of tuition that had been in use from the time of the middle ages. But the extraordinary development of the physical and natural sciences, which has done so much to alter the ordinary conditions of life, has powerfully affected also our system of public instruction. The mediæval circle of studies has been widely recognized not to supply all the mental training needed in the ampler range of modern requirement. Science has, step by step, gained a footing in the strongholds of the older learning. Not without vehement struggle, however, has she been able to intrench herself there. Even now, although her ultimate victory is assured, the warfare is by no means at an end. The jealousy of the older _régime_ and the strenuous, if sometimes blatant, belligerency of the reformers have not yet been pacified; and, from time to time, within our public schools and universities, there may still be heard the growls of opposition and the shouts of conflict. But these sounds are growing fainter. Even the most conservative don hardly ventures nowadays openly to denounce Science and all her works. Grudgingly, it may be, but yet perforce, he has to admit the teaching of modern science to a place among the subjects which the university embraces, and in which it grants degrees. In our public schools a "modern side" has been introduced, and even on the classical side an increasing share of the curriculum is devoted to oral and practical teaching in science. New colleges have been founded in the more important centers of population, for the purpose, more particularly, of enabling the community to obtain a thorough education in modern science.

The mainspring of this remarkable educational revolution has, doubtless, been the earnest conviction that the older learning was no longer adequate in the changed and changing conditions of our time; that vast new fields of knowledge, opened up by the increased study of Nature, ought to be included in any scheme of instruction intended to fit men for the struggle of modern life, and that in this newer knowledge much might be found to minister to the highest ends of education. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that utilitarian considerations have not been wholly absent from the minds of the reformers. Science has many and far-reaching practical applications. It has called into existence many new trades and professions, and has greatly modified many of those of older date. In a thousand varied ways it has come into the ordinary affairs of everyday life. Its cultivation has brought innumerable material benefits; its neglect would obviously entail many serious industrial disadvantages, and could not fail to leave us behind in the commercial progress of the nations of the globe.

So much have these considerations pressed upon the attention of the public in recent years that, besides all the other educational machinery to which I have referred, technical schools have been established in many towns for the purpose of teaching the theory as well as the practice of various arts and industries, and making artisans understand the nature of the processes with which their trades are concerned.

That this educational transformation, which has been advancing during the century, has resulted in great benefit to the community at large can hardly be denied. Besides the obvious material gains, there has been a widening of the whole range and method of our teaching; the old subjects are better, because more scientifically taught, and the new subjects enlist the attention and sympathy of large classes of pupils whom the earlier studies only languidly interested. Nevertheless, it is incumbent on those who have advocated and carried out this change to ask themselves whether it has brought with it no drawbacks. They may be sure that no such extensive reform could possibly be accomplished without defects appearing somewhere. And it is well to look these defects in the face and, as far as may be possible, remove them. In considering how I might best discharge the duty with which I have been honored of addressing the students of Mason College this evening, I have thought that it might not be inappropriate if, as a representative of science, I were to venture to point out some of the drawbacks as well as the advantages of the position which science has attained in our educational system.

At the outset no impartial onlooker can fail to notice that the natural reaction against the dominance of the older learning has tended to induce an undervaluing of the benefits which that learning afforded and can still bestow. In this college, indeed, and in other institutions more specially designed for instruction in science, provision has also been made for the teaching of Latin, Greek, and the more important modern languages and literatures. But in such institutions these subjects usually hold only a subordinate place. It can hardly be denied that generally throughout the country, even although the literary side of education still maintains its pre-eminence in our public schools and universities, it is losing ground, and that every year it occupies less of the attention of students of science. The range of studies which the science examinations demand is always widening, while the academic period within which these studies must be crowded undergoes no extension. Those students, therefore, who, whether from necessity or choice, have taken their college education in science, naturally experience no little difficulty in finding time for the absolutely essential subjects required for their degrees. Well may they declare that it is hopeless for them to attempt to engage in anything more, and especially in anything that will not tell directly on their places in the final class lists. With the best will in the world, and with even, sometimes, a bent for literary pursuits, they may believe themselves compelled to devote their whole time and energies to the multifarious exactions of their science curriculum.

Such a result of our latest reformation in education may be unavoidable, but it is surely matter for regret. A training in science and scientific methods, admirable as it is in so many ways, fails to supply those humanizing influences which the older learning can so well impart. For the moral stimulus that comes from an association with all that is noblest and best in the literatures of the past, for the culture and taste that spring from prolonged contact with the highest models of literary expression, for the widening of our sympathies and the vivifying of our imagination by the study of history, the teaching of science has no equivalents.

Men who have completed their formal education with little or no help from the older learning may be pardoned should they be apt to despise such help and to believe that they can very well dispense with it in the race of life. My first earnest advice to the science students of this college is, not to entertain this belief and to refuse to act on it. Be assured that, in your future career, whatever it may be, you will find in literature a source of solace and refreshment, of strength and encouragement, such as no department of science can give you. There will come times, even to the most enthusiastic among you, when scientific work, in spite of its absorbing interest, grows to be a weariness. At such times as these you will appreciate the value of the literary culture you may have received at school or college. Cherish the literary tastes you have acquired, and devote yourselves sedulously to the further cultivation of them during such intervals of leisure as you may be able to secure.

Over and above the pleasure which communion with the best books will bring with it, two reasons of a more utilitarian kind may be given to science students why they should seek this communion. Men who have been too exclusively trained in science, or are too much absorbed in its pursuit, are not always the most agreeable members of society. They are apt to be somewhat angular and professional, contributing little that is interesting to general conversation, save when they get a chance of introducing their own science and its doings. Perhaps the greatest bore I ever met was a man of science, whose mind and training were so wholly mathematical and physical that he seemed unable to look at the simplest subject save in its physical relations, about which he would discourse till he had long exhausted the patience of the auditor whom he detained. There is no more efficacious remedy for this tendency to what is popularly known as "shop" than the breadth and culture of mind that spring from wide reading in ancient and modern literature.