trouble has been that the boundless for- captain of a merchant vessel who has ests of the north-west promised to endure brought down several cargoes of this forever, and there seemed no incentive to wood I learned that fish placed in tubs any care of the original growth of timber. made from it and filled with water would Now a more sensible idea begins to die in a very short time. From experiprevail. It is seen that east of the Ap-ments made by him he found that crabs palachian range the forest has almost placed in one of these tubs filled with disappeared; while in many parts of the salt water died in two hours. Smelts only west, the wholesale waste of timber carried lived twenty minutes. A tree that has on for years has had a sensible effect upon been found to do well in the state of Calithe face of the country. In the Southern fornia is the eucalyptus, or blue-gum States the system of exhausting land with tree, so well known in Australia. The cotton and tobacco, and then throwing it rapidity of its growth is something reinto old fields, has resulted in a thick markable, and for this reason many pergrowth of worthless scrub pine on the sons in the vicinity of San Francisco are abandoned lands. To the tourist these cultivating them for the sole purpose of fields at a short distance have the look of firewood. The scarcity of large trees in a good pine forest, but one who has had this immediate neighborhood will always any experience in southern agriculture make wood for fuel valuable. The culknows their utter worthlessness. The tivation of the almond-tree has also been fine old forests of the south have been attended with success. In the country more shamefully ill-used than those of the near San Jose there are about three hunnorth; the negro has so little regard for dred and fifty acres planted this year in trees that he never fails to cut down the almond-trees. The growers claim that it young saplings because they yield fire- is the best-paying industry in that part of wood with less trouble than other trees." the country, the profits derived being larger than are obtained from any other enterprise. In the state of New York, where this error of a total clearing away was first observed, the replanting of forest trees has been attended with very good results. In one belt of country where replanting was general, the rainfall has largely increased, and the rain is more evenly distributed throughout the season than in a neighboring district almost completely denuded of timber. On the prairies of Kansas and Nebraska, where a good natural growth of wood is lacking, the results obtained from the planting of forest trees were even more strikingly illustrated. The planted forest serves as a good windbreak, and the influence of the wood's growth was seen in lessened periods of drought and an increase in crops. What is demanded, however, is accurate information about the varieties of trees adapted to particular soils and localities, and to provide this the government has set apart an appropriation, and placed in charge of the work Charles Sargent, professor of arboriculture in Harvard College. Among the peculiar trees of Oregon is one knows as the Port Orford cedar. It is used for building and other purposes, also in making buckets, tubs, and such like. The trees when tapped emit a liquid corresponding to turpentine, but which possesses the odor and flavor of the cedar wood, and is called oil of cedar. Fresh water put in a new bucket made of this wood will in a few minutes become so tainted as to be unfit to drink. From the From The Scotsman. NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HERRING. ALTHOUGH in fishermen's parlance a local fish, the herring, unfortunately, does not always keep to its recognized localities. It will suddenly disappear from places long frequented by it, and as unaccountably reappear after the lapse of years. A good instance of its uncertain habit in this respect was recently recorded by the British consul at Gothenburg, who stated in a report to the Foreign Office, that the herring shoals which had suddenly disappeared from that neighborhood in 1809, taking with them a flourishing industry, had reappeared at Christmas, 1877, "when whales were seen following the shoals of herring to the coast." The Swedish fishermen, according to Bertram, attributed the disappearance of the herring to the frequent firing of the British ships at the time in the neighborhood of Gothenburg. That much more peaceful sounds might suffice to scare away the shoals would seem to have been the belief of the fishermen of St. Monance, who used, it is said, to take down the church bell during the fishing season. Fishes are certainly not devoid of hearing power, and from recent investigations made by the Meteorological Society of Scotland, | whales and porpoises. Hugh Miller tells thunderstorms, whether from their ac- of Cromarty Bay being on one occasion companying noise or their electrical dis- literally covered with herrings and birds, charges does not appear, would seem to while no fewer than seven whales, apparhave a scaring effect on the herring; for, ently of large size, were seen within the although a good "take" may be expected short space of half a mile. The late Mr. on the day when such a storm prevails Mitchell, in his excellent work on the along our east coast, few or none need be herring, states, on the authority of two looked for on the following day, unless on intelligent and trustworthy fishermen of the confines of a deep part of the sea, to Newhaven, that "the herrings take conwhich the frightened fish would appear to siderable flights out of the sea," and he be retreating. While thus, at times, dis- suggests that in the cases noticed by appearing suddenly from particular locali- those fishermen the herrings were probaties, in other cases they take leave more bly being pursued by the fiercest of their gradually; thus they do not enter the foes-the dog-fish. firths on the east of Scotland in such The herring, as might be supposed numbers as formerly, and this is notably from its numbers, is very prolific, the roe the case, with the Firth of Forth, where of a single female containing nearly forty the summer fishing is now entirely aban- thousand eggs. To deposit these it seeks doned. At Wick, also, herring have of the shallow water of our coasts, and there late years been caught in much smaller the eggs attach themselves to whatever numbers than formerly, while on the object they may chance to light upon. Aberdeen and Forfar coasts, and espe- These are said to get hatched in two or cially at Fraserburgh, the "take" has three weeks after deposition, after which been enormously increased. The de- the young fish-known during its juvecrease in such cases has been attributed nility as "whitebait' grows rapidly, by some to overfishing. This, however, attaining, according to Mayer, a length of was not the opinion of the commissioners two-thirds of an inch during the first who lately took evidence on this and month, and measuring nearly three inches other questions connected with the her- long by the end of the fifth. The imporring fishery, and who stated in their re- tance of the herring harvest is seen in port that "nothing that man has yet done, the fact that, exclusive of the enormous and nothing that man is likely to do, has quantity of these fish consumed in this diminished, or is likely to diminish, the country, the value of the herrings annually general supply of herring in the sea.' exported is about one million sterling. The number of herring taken by our fish- The Meteorological Society of Scotland, ermen is trifling compared with the multi- recognizing its importance, have for sev tudes which fall a prey to whales and eral years past been endeavoring to proseals, to the cod, the ling, and the dog-cure such information as might enable fish, and to gulls, solan geese, and other them to ascertain what connection may sea birds. The annual "take" of herring exist between the condition of the atmoon the Scottish coast is about a million sphere and the water, and the appearance barrels, or about eight hundred million herrings. The commissioners already referred to, however, compute that the solan goose alone devours three hundred millions of herrings more than the total number taken by the Scottish fishermen; while, calculating from the number of cod, ling, and hake taken annually in Scottish waters, they estimate that those three fishes alone consume among them no fewer than twenty-nine billions of herrings that, in short, man does not destroy one herring for fifty devoured by animals. The presence of large shoals of herrings is, during summer, frequently indicated to the fishermen by the appearance of considerable numbers of sea birds accompanying and preying upon the fish, and sometimes, although more rarely, of of fish on the coast. So far as these investigations have gone, they seem to show that a high temperature in the water is unfavorable for the fishery, and that the fishing is most successful along those parts of the coast in which the water is coolest. As the result of such inquiries, it is not impossible, says an American writer, "that before long the herring fishery may be regulated by the thermometer, and that the net will be shot, not at random, as heretofore, but with an almost certainty of finding fish." In a season like the present the fisherman needs not the aid of the meteorologist in order to fill his boat with herrings; but such seasons are the exception, and a year hence it may take both the art of the one and the science of the other to find them. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. From The Contemporary Review. THE UNITY OF NATURE. BY THE DUKE OF ARGYLL. IN the preface to the first edition of the "Reign of Law," published in 1866, the following passage occurs: "I had intended to conclude with a chapter on law in Christian theology. It was natural to reserve for that chapter all direct reference to some of the most fundamental facts of human nature. Yet, without such reference, the 'reign of law,' especially in the 'realm of mind,' cannot even be approached in some of its very highest and most important aspects. For the present, however, I have shrunk from entering upon questions so profound, of such critical import, and so inseparably connected with religious controversy." The great subject spoken of in this passage has ever since been present with me. Time, indeed, has only increased my sense of its importance. But the years have also added, perhaps in more than equal proportion, to my sense of its depth and of its difficulty. What has to be done, in the first place, is to establish some method of inquiry, and to find some secure avenue of approach. Before dealing with any part of the theology which is peculiarly Christian, we must trace the connection between the reign of law and the ideas which are fundamental to all religions. It is to this preliminary work that the following chapters have been devoted. Modern doubt has called in question not only the whole subject of inquiry, but the whole faculties by which it can be pursued. Until these have been tested and examined by some standard which is elementary and acknowledged, we cannot even begin the work. tion along a few of the innumerable paths which it opens up, and which radiate from it through all the phenomena of the universe, as from an exhaustless centre of energy and of suggestion. It is the great advantage of these paths that they are almost infinite in number and equally various in direction. To those who walk in them nothing can ever come amiss. Every subject of interest, every object of wonder, every thought of mystery, every obscure analogy, every strange intimation of likeness in the midst of difference—the whole external and the whole internal world — is the province and the property of him who seeks to see and to understand the unity of nature. It is a thought which may be pursued in every calling-in the busiest hours of an active life, and in the calmest moments of rest and of reflection. And if, in the wanderings of our own spirit and in the sins and sorrows of human life, there are terrible facts which resist all classification and all analysis, it will be a good result of our endeavors to comprehend the unity of nature, should it lead us better to see, and more definitely to understand, that which constitutes the great exception. I commend these chapters to the consideration, and I submit them to the criticism, of those who care for such inquiries. Like the former work, of which this is a sequel, some parts of it have appeared separately in another form. These have been reconsidered, and to some extent re-written; whilst a new meaning has been given to the reasoning they contain by the place assigned to them in a connected treatise. The publication of it as a series of articles in this review, before its final appearance as a volume, will afford me, I hope, the advantage of hearing and of seeing what may be said and written of its errors or of its deficiencies. Perhaps, also, it may afford me an opportunity, before the whole of these articles have appeared, of writing at least one more chapter on an It has appeared to me that not a few of the problems which lie deepest in that inquiry, and which perplex us most, are soluble in the light of the unity of nature. Or if these problems are not entirely soluble in this light, at least they are broken up by it, and are reduced to fewer and simpler elements. The following chap-important subject, for which leisure fails ters are an attempt to follow this concep- me now. |