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.