looking through a prism of Iceland spar at the sunset light reflected from the windows of the Luxembourg Palace, noted its disappearance and reappearance as he rotated his prism. (To be continued.)

THE RIGHT WHALE OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC.

AS every one knows, right whales were

once very

common in the Gulf of Gascony, the dwellers along which, in France as well as in Spain, appear to have been the first Europeans to raise the fishery of these monsters of the deep to the rank of a great industry. Upon the coast of Cantabria are still to be seen the ruins of the towers where watchers were stationed to give notice of the approach of the numerous whales that visited these shores during winter, and the remains of the furnaces where the fat was melted. Official documents and royal edicts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries speak of the whale fishery as an already ancient industry. The majority of the cities of the Spanish coast - Fontarabia, Guetaria, Motrice, &c.—have figures of whales or of fishing implements on their coat-of-arms. The Basques were soon no longer content to fish for whales on their coasts, where they were becoming scarcer and scarcer, but pursued them into the English Channel and North Sea, and as far as to Iceland. Later on, at the close of the fourteenth century, they did not hesitate to sail out upon the broad sea toward the quarter where Cabot, a hundred years afterward, discovered Newfoundland, and where they found the cetacean very abundant during the summer months. Their success made rivals for them, and in 1578 there were, on this part of the ocean, three hundred ships-French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

Fishing upon the high sea is scarcely applicable to any but the sperm and true whales-those whose back is even, finless, and without a hump-the "right whales" of fishermen (Balana, L.; Eubalaena, Gray; Leiobalana, Eschricht). The other cetaceans the "finbacks" and "humpbacks" of fishermen, and Balenoptera and Megaptera of naturalists--almost always sink when killed, and are thus lost to the captors unless they are driven into a bay, where the carcass, upon making its appearance on the surface in a few days, can be towed to the shore and cut up. It is very probable, then, that the cetaceans that the old Basques fished for were sperm and right whales, and especially the latter, which were much commoner than the former in temperate or cold water.

As a consequence of the war against it, the whale became more and more rare. In the seventeenth century the seas in the vicinity of the pole, where navigators in search of a north-east passage to India had sighted a large number of the animals, which were remarkable for their gigantic size, became the scene of the fishery. A century later, the scene shifted to Baffin's Bay. Did these whales and those that were formerly fished for n the temperate part of the Atlantic belong to the same species? Upon the authority of Cuvier, when cetology was scarcely beginning to get out of its swaddling-clothes, zoologists answered in the affirmative, giving as the reason why whales were no longer found in the temperate zone that they had taken refuge amid the ice of the poles in order to hide themselves from pursuit! This is a gross error, which was perpetuated for a long time, which is still found re

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peated in many books, and which has been mitted not only concerning the right whales of the North Atlantic, but also the various species of true The whales distributed through the different oceans. same causes have everywhere produced the same effects the almost entire disappearance of the large, utilisable cetaceans. No longer than thirty years ago the whaling industry still occupied whole fleets; and the Americans, who had almost the entire monopoly of it, repeated with pride that their whaling vessels placed in a line in sight of one another, would occupy more than half of a great circle of the globe. In 1856 they still had 655 ships on the sea, but to-day the industry is almost completely abandoned for lack of whales. Fishing is no longer done except by a few rare ships from the ports of Scotland, that go out to the Polar Sea for seals, and fish for whales incidentally. In the large seas of the temperate zones, the South Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian Ocean, where fifty years ago a load of oil was obtained in a very short time, whales are now so rare that it may almost be said that there are none. It has been said that the whales of these seas fled towards the poles in order to escape man; but it is now well ascertained that the different species of right whales are quartered in spaces in which they accomplish, according to the season, periodical navigations that are necessitated by need of food and the parturition of the females, and which their organisation does not permit them to leave. If no more of them are found, it is simply because they have been destroyed. Moreover, the frosts of the poles have proved no more of a barrier to whalemen than the heat of the tropics; every corner of the globe has been explored whither ships could venture, even at the risk of a thousand dangers. Just as soon as a new field was made known as productive, everybody flocked thither, and it was soon exhausted- -a result that is explicable without recourse to the theory of flights or migrations en masse.

While regarding the polar whale, Balana mysticetus, L.) as the same as was formerly fished for in the temperate North Atlantic, naturalists (Cuvier among them) catalogued, under the name of B. glacialis, another species which differed from B. mysticetus in its much smaller size, its slenderer body, its much smaller head, and its shorter mouth-plates ("whale-bone"), and which inhabited the shores of Iceland and Norway. The Icelanders called it Sletbak, the Dutch, Nordkaper, and the French, Sarde-a name that the Basques gave to the whale of the Gulf of Gascony. It is astonishing that this name did not attract the attention of naturalists, and that they did not ask whether the Sletbak of the Icelanders, the Nordkaper of the Dutch, and the Sarde of the Basques was the same animal. A discussion of the old fishery narratives and of documents derived from the Dutch and Norsmen answers yes. A Norse MS. of the twelfth century, the Royal Mirror, teaches us that the Icelanders fished in the entire North Atlantic, and they perfectly distinguished two species of right whales-one at the north and the other at the south. They knew besides that these animals never frequented the same waters, and that the northerly limit of the one was the southerly limit of the other.

If representatives of the southern species remained, they must have been very rare, for one could traverse and retraverse the North Atlantic without meeting a single one of them. The case is cited of a right whale stranded upon Re Island, in February, 1680, and in 1783 a whaleman harpooned one between this island and Newfoundland. Cod fishermen have spoken much

of whales in the vicinity of this island, but science has not pronounced upon it. The whale of the Basques was regarded as extinct, when, on the 14th January, 1854, a specimen, accompanied by a calf, showed itself opposite San Sebastian. The mother succeeded in escaping, but the calf was captured. Its external form and a study of its skeleton convinced Eschricht that it belonged to a peculiar species, differing completely from B. mysticetus-hence the apellation B. Biscayensis, introduced by him into the nomenclature.

Five Balenidæ, either stranded or captured upon the Atlantic coast of the United States between 1862 and 1883, and considered at first by Prof. Cope as belonging to a new species (B. cisarctica), have been found to differ in nowise from the San Sebastian specimen.

The cetaceans that were called palaiva by the Greeks and balance by the Romans were doubtless large balænoptera that entered the Mediterranean, and, perhaps, also sperm whales (which are sometimes met therein), and not right whales, since these do not seem to have ever frequented this sea, at least regularly. At all events, their presence there had never been authentically announced since historic times until February 9, 1877, when, to the great joy of cetologists, a female was captured in the Bay of Taranto. The length of this was about forty feet. Its relatively slender form, the small size of its head (one-fifth the length of its body), and the shortness of its mouth-plates (numbering 240 on each side), the largest of which was only thirty inches, its falcate pectorals, and its black colour separated it widely from B. mysticetus. Its stomach was entirely empty, and it appeared to have suffered from a long fast. In consequence of this peculiarity, and from its resem

blance to the whales of the southern hemisphere, Prof. Capellini, of Bologna, believed that it came from this latter region. To him it was, perhaps, a representative of the Indian Ocean species, one nearly unknown to naturalists, and one that no European museum had the remains of.

Among other objections to this manner of viewing it, there is one that is very important, viz., it has been well proved that the right whale never passes from one side of the equator to the other, this being for it like a circle of insuperable fire, and that, except in very rare cases, it even keeps outside of the tropics. It was more natural to see in the Taranto whale a North Atlantic species that had strayed into the Mediterranean, and this was proved by a comparison with the San Sebastian calf and other skeletons, and by a very complete study by Prof. F. Gasco. According to the latter, the animal could not have been more than three or four years old, judging by its size, and assuming that the female of B. biscayensis (as shown by several examples) was fifty feet in length. A female of this size, taken by the harpoon off the coast of New Jersey, was towed to New York in the spring of 1882. This also had a wholly black body. From the figure of it given in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History (May 1, 1883), it appears to have been more massive than the Taranto specimen. This relative heaviness is, perhaps, attributable to a difference of age between the two individuals. In short, compared with known examples, it does not exceed the limits of individual variation. Thus the whale of the Basques (Sarde, Nordkaper, Sletbak, Balana biscayensis, Esch., B. cisarctica, Cope) still exists, although represented,

it is true, by a small number of individuals. It inhabits the North Atlantic, and in winter frequents the coasts of Europe, and in summer those of North America, where probably the females are delivered. Iceland is its northerly limit. It appears nearly certain that its migrations take place entirely along the course of the Gulf Stream.

For some time past the number of individuals has sufficiently increased on the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia to make it an object to fit out vessels for capturing them, and the operations of these have given results that are satisfactory to the eyes of the promoters, but deplorable to those of naturalists. As its restoration

has been nipped in the bud, will not the species for ever disappear?-H. JONAN, in "Science et Nature."

Gossip.

BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR.

THE following illustrates Burns's "O wad some pow'r the giftie gie us, To see oursels as others see us!" :

"The Edinburgh Reviewer of Spencer's First Principles,' in January, 1884, thinks that something like the following must have been omitted at the end of the column on unconscious mistakes in writing and proofcorrecting, at p. 253, last week":"Yet I myself, last year, first charged the reviewer of a pet of mine with intentionally making nonsense of a quotation by omitting one of two lines which both ended with the same four words; and then, when I confessed that I ought not to have said that, I added that he could not be acquitted of gross carelessness in passing over such a mistake in the proofs-or words to that effect. I suppose I found the temptation to dispose of a whole article in the Edinburgh by one good kick irresistible, and then I had to let myself down easy when I saw that first kick would not do. I never write hastily, as I was once accused of doing.'

HERE we certainly have a curious illustration of unconscious cerebration either by my correspondent or by myself; for if he is right, then in the interval which has elapsed since the events above referred to took place, my mind, unconsciously modifying them, I suppose, has presented them to me in a very different aspect. My recollection presents the matter as follows:-To begin with, I by no means charged, or even thought of charging, the Edinburgh Reviewer, with intentionally making nonsense of a quotation by omitting two lines. My impression after reading the review was that a strong sense of dislike of Mr. Herbert Spencer's doctrines, had so far influenced the mind of the reviewer, that he had not been careful to understand fully what Mr. Spencers doctrine's were. know how it is myself in such cases. Having once adopted the idea that a writer's views are utterly incorrect, I should be apt to misread and misjudge any work of that writer's across which I might afterwards come.

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HERE is a case in point,-my friend Mr. Neison, in letters to me had shown such want of knowledge about elementary mathematical matters that I had (justly, be it noticed) learned to regard his opinion on such things as not likely to be correct. A short time after, he published his excellent book on the "Moon," in which calculations of a more or less abstruse character were introduced or referred to as of his own making. I was so possessed

with the notion (originally correct) that Mr. Neison was unable to conduct such inquiries correctly, and so far from imagining that he had in the meantime got through work and study which would fairly have occupied thrice the time, that with the fairest intentions-I misjudged his work, and wrote of it unfairly and unjustly.

I MAY cite another case where I am myself interested, but in another way. I wrote a fortnight or so ago an article on the "New Star in Andromeda" for the Times, which appeared with a promptitude implying that it had pleased the Editor (I did not even have a proof of it). When I read it myself, I was satisfied with it, as it seemed to me at once correct and compact, as well as happily worded and (I thought) effective. I was confirmed in the belief that it was not bad, by letters from friends who had recognised it as mine, and one letter from a friend who had always carefully refrained from expressing an opinion about my writings, but who on this occasion said he had been moved to do so, as he thought it my best bit of work yet, or words to that effect. While I was thus being led to view the article somewhat complacently (it appeared in last week's KNOWLEDGE chiefly because of these expressions of opinion), I received a letter from a much-regarded friend, whose opinion has always been of great weight with me, in which the article was casually referred to as obviously by So-and-So (So-and-So being a person he loves not), with the comment "He can write more unparalleled rot about astronomy than any living man." On this, considerably tickled-though I felt that if my friend had known the article was mine, and had found it atrocious, he would have been heartily grieved to have seen bad work from me I wrote to another friend, equally valued, who had recognised the article as obviously mine, asking him for his frank opinion. His judgment went with those who liked the article. He specially dwelt on the correct and concise yet clear way in which astronomical facts were, in his opinion, presented. Hence, though not necessarily regarding the article as quite so satisfactory as I had at first considered it, I attribute its appearing as "unparalleled to my friend as the effect of his preconceived opinion that it was written by a person who usually does write considerable nonsense about astronomy, this opinion being based on external evidence. Certainly it was most unlikely that I, being in Scarborough, on Saturday when the news appeared (in the Times) to which my article referred, and having, as my friend knew, much literary and lecturing work on hand, should have found time to write an article to appear in the Times of Tuesday. Therefore, I think my friend did not read that article very carefully, especially as there were some passages in it which Mr. So-and-So would never have written,while the closing paragraph presents the precise views, maintained hitherto (with the same fulness) by no other, which I had presented at the close of my lecture on "Star Clouds, Star Mist, and Star Drift," at the Royal Institution, in 1870.

rot

I JUDGED that the Edinburgh Reviewer, one of the friends I esteem and value most, had read "First Principles" with a feeling of prejudice which had prevented his recognising the real value of Mr. Spencer's philosophy. With this feeling, he might readily have so misunderstood the passage which was accidentally garbled, as not to recognise the importance of the omitted words. Their omission certainly made nonsense of the passage; and therefore there was some degree of carelessness in overlooking the printers' mistake. If the

reviewer had really grasped Mr. Spencer's meaning, and had been considering that meaning when correcting proof, he could not have overlooked the mistake. But, I am as sure as I am of my own existence, that I did not use the words " gross carelessness" or words to that effect, knowing as I do that my remarks on the review were written with a strong feeling of regret that a friend whom I esteem and whose powers I admire, should so misinterpret and undervalue the philosopher whose doctrine has been worth more to me and to many others than that of any teacher who has drawn the breath of life.

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IF my friend thinks that in describing my own mistakes I intended to acquit myself of "carelessness," as he implies by using the word "yet" in the remarks he imagines me making-he is quite mistaken. blunder is a blunder, explain it how one may my mistake in "Saturn" would not have been made if I had kept my attention alive, and would have been corrected if I had gone a second or third time over all my marginal directions to the printers. So with the curious blunder repeated page after page in my "Transits of Venus" (First Edition). I ought to have detected and corrected it.

Ir has not been to acquit myself of carelessness, but to show how readily mistakes may be made, and how abundantly precautions should be used in writing and correcting what one has written, that I described my own experience. I believe a man may derive useful lessons from his mistakes. And if his experience happens to be exceptional (as my experience in scientific writing has been) he may do good service by communicating such lessons to others.

I BELIEVE, too, that it is useful to show by example, as well as to inculcate by precept, the advantage of a little frankness in admitting mistakes. Prof. Sylvester, the mathematician, once laid down in Nature the principle, as his in practice, that when any one has pointed out an error or what he supposes to be an error in another's writing or teaching, the passage so dealt with should either be silently corrected or silently maintained. I reject this principle as unworthy of the true student of science. If any man, no matter what his standing or position may be-were it even Mr. John Hampdenpoints out an error in anything I have written, I mean to acknowledge openly that he is right and that I have blundered. Where any man points out what he deems an error, but what I either know or believe to be right, I do not undertake to maintain my position by argument (for all men cannot understand reasoning), but I mean in such cases to state openly that in my judgment my original statement was sound and just.

THE idea that there is dignity in silence in such cases, I regard as absurd. There is no more dignity in such silence than there is in the silent tenacity of the bull-dog, or of the Tasmanian Devil. Though animal comparisons are not always satisfactory, one may in this case say that the animal which remains silent till he sees his way to a grip, is a less generous and a less dignified creature than the animal who frankly announces his opinion, even though it be by a roar. Silence is fit company for Treachery or for Dishonesty, not for Truth.

Ir has been said that controversy is always degrading. It always is where on either side, or on both sides, it is

maintained with any other object but to get at the truth. So also controversy is always idle, when one or other is unable to understand his opponent. This applies even where both are eminent and able. For example a controversy between a Newton and a Shakespeare about astronomy or about the drama would be idle, as would a controversy between a Handel and a Huxley about music or about the Eohippus. A controversy, again, between Mr. Mattieu Williams and myself about the manufacture of iron or about coal-mining would be idle; because he knows much and I know little about those subjects: and, in like manner, a controvery between him and me about geometrical optics (as about the "Ruddy Eclipsed Moon") could be but of little use.

THE Controversy between Messrs. Herbert Spencer and Frederick Harrison about the Unknowable was another case in point, for the latter never understood even what it was about, as he showed by his every argument and his every suggestion. Yet controversy between men who know their subject, and who wish to learn if possible the truth, is neither idle nor degrading, but very much the reverse of both.

IN passing, I may note that, whatever my regard for Mr. Spencer's philosophy may be, whatever the debt of gratitude I personally owe to him for the meaning and the value which his philosophy have given to my life, it cannot be said that I have been blindly ready to accept all he has taught. I have rejected as unsound the nebular hypothesis of Laplace, which Mr. Spencer values; I have, in these columns, pointed out the objections which, in my opinion, invalidate the theory that the minor planets are the fragments of an exploded world-a theory which Mr. Spencer has advocated; and in the very discussion with my friend, the "Edinburgh Reviewer," I dwelt strongly on a view respecting the Laws of Motion which, to say the least, is not that disciple, following him in all he teaches, that I have maintained by Mr. Spencer. It is therefore as no mere expressed my sense of the value of his philosophy. Of this I might say, were not the words likely to be misapprehended, that with many for years it has been a religion. As a philosophy, I hold it worthier of the dignity of reasoning man-at once clearer and profounder, kinder and more considerate, braver in upholding right and resisting injustice, and better calculated if steadily followed-to make men happier and better, than any which hitherto has been propounded to the world.

I FIND from several letters that my remarks about our public schools in a recent number have been very much misunderstood. I was there speaking entirely of the system of fagging, and its associated bullying and sneaking. In some schools fagging does not exist, but bully ing and sneaking do; in others, fagging exists but bullying and sneaking are kept sternly down. Yet fagging unquestionably encourages both. The system is a curious relic of old times, when the public schools were utterly unlike what they are now. Every trace of it ought long since to have been swept away. No harm may in individual cases arise from it; but in many instance it affords direct incentives to meanness on the one hand and to bullying on the other.

Of course I know that, as many correspondents point out, our public schools have done excellent workdespite, however, not because, of those absurdities of

system which are so obstinately maintained. Under a strong and manly head-master, with a well-chosen staff, a public school even where the fagging system is in full swing, becomes a place where bullying must be done in secret and where meanness hides its head ashamed. But unfortunately not all head-masters are strong and resolute.

I FEEL bound, in justice to Mr. Mattieu Williams, to state that he has explained to me his idea that I had adopted, or accepted, his doctrine of the heated condition of the giant planets [without one word of acknowledg ment]. He had not seen any earlier reference to that view in my books than in an essay of mine published in 1872, whereas the first edition of his "Fuel of the Sun" appeared in 1870. I have explained to him, in turn, that the theory is maintained in the first edition of my "Other Worlds," written in 1869, and published early in 1870. This was preceded by my lectures at the Royal Institution, Manchester, in November and December, 1869, wherein the same views were presented. I have no doubt that the Syllabus of the series is still obtainable. In saying this, I am not at all anxious about priority being assigned to me. The general idea was Buffon's, as I have always been careful to explain. What I objected to was being pointed to as one who could be guilty of the meanness of presenting another man's theory as his own, and by omitting all reference to the real author. I should not care to deserve such contempt as I feel for any one capable of doing this.

WHAT an odd mistake that experte credo of mine, for experto crede was! It was not so far from my meaning -after all-though a sheer accident (whether of printers' or of mine own I know not).

HERE is a rather odd coincidence. In Truth, for Aug. 27th, the following little paragraph (intended, I make no doubt, for truth, but there is little truth, in truth, in this paragraph in Truth) appeared :

Since the Deluge, life has not been long enough for long whist, except for maiden ladies wintering in watering-places. But now short whist is threatened, since in Mr. Proctor's hands it has become so painfully scientific as to be no longer a pastime. Mr. Proctor could only find one decent player in America, nor is he confident about that one. This speaks well for the comfort of life in the States; for there is but one individual who is more intolerable than the bad player, and that is the man who plays well and criticises his partner.

On the self-same day, the following paragraph from my pen appeared in KNOWLEDGE :

"Cavendish" and his school seem determined to prove that those are mistaken who have said of Whist, "Age cannot wither nor custom stale its infinite variety"; for they try to substitute a series of cut-and-dried Cavendish rules for that beautiful variety which is the charm of the game. If Whist developments as developed in this book are adopted by Whist players generally, then Whist will no longer be a game. It may be a mental exercise, just as walking along a pavement is bodily exercise; but there will be no game in it.

Of course, I have never said I could only find one decent player in America. On the contrary, I said in the New York Tribune, that, in the only sitting I ever had in New York I had met with several excellent players. That these players showed severally a fault or two of style did not prevent their being good players. I mentioned (in the New York Tribune also) that the best of them had the habit of holding up his Ace when King was led by an opponent from King, Queen, and others. It may seem, to those who do not know the game, very "painfully scientific" to point out that this is bad play; but there

can be no doubt it is so. "Cavendish " says, "It is seldom good play," which certainly means that to do it systematically is bad play. But a man who has this bad habit may be a fine player, all the same.

I AM at any rate free from one of the faults condemned -very justly-in Truth. I do not have enough practice to play well, or at any rate to my own satisfaction; but, whether or no, I never criticise a partner, or express an opinion on the play unless asked to. I think I may truthfully say that I have never at the whist table said one word at which any player present has even been disposed to take exception.

THE logic of the last sentence quoted from Truth is rather odd. Truth seemingly says that if all players, except in America, are bad, life in America must be very comfortable; for there is scarcely any one (only in fact just one person) more intolerable than the bad whistplayer.

A CORRESPONDENT asks whether the reviewer was not mistaken who said recently in these columns that Mr. Mivart was a believer in evolution: had not Mr. Mivart opposed Darwin's theory? Both statements are right. Mr. Mivart has opposed the theory of natural selection; and Mr. Mivart is a believer in the doctrine of evolution.

ANOTHER Correspondent calls my attention to the perfectly preposterous article about the "New Star" which recently appeared in the Daily Telegraph,—in which the idea that the new star is a new world is dealt with as the true scientific teaching. It is absurd—but did not Prof. Pritchard write in Good Words of the new star in Corona, in 1866, as a "World in Flames"? I should say that for one person who knows that no star is a world-let it be what else it may-there are ten who think the stars are all worlds. Let not any one be so evil-disposed as to suggest here that probably ever star is a whirled body.

THE following remarks appear in the London correspondence of several county papers :

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The astronomers are discussing whether or not the "new star in the Andromeda nebula has changed since it made its appearance two or three weeks ago. They write of the process as now going on," forgetful of the astronomical theory that the light of the "new star" must have taken thousands of years to reach us. This theory is propounded in every book on astronomy. Have Mr. Proctor and the other astronomers forgotten it, or can it be that they reject the orthodox notion that the changes in the new star are not taking place now, but took place a few thousand years ago? A correspondent has already raised this interesting point, but so far no answer is forthcoming.

It is hardly necessary for me to remind readers of KNOWLEDGE that in my article about this star (Sept. 11) I dealt with the time question. Probably a hundred years ago would be nearer the mark though than thousands of years ago.

THE following is from my "Popular Science Column" in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle:-"My friend and near kinsman, Mr. Thomas Foster, wrote a paper making fun of the modern fashion of finding nature myths in every ancient story, from the story of Adam and Eve down to that of Cinderella and the glass shoe. In this paper Mr. Foster suggested that the poem beginning, Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon,' related in all probability to a long since forgotten nature myth. He connected the

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