File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17975116769).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo16amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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434 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL but in March and April 1882, before very much had been ascertained about it, there occurred a catastrophic destruc- tion of the tilefish. Vessels reported having sailed for many miles through masses of the dead fish floating at the surface, and, from accounts of various vessels, it was estimated that an area one hundred and seventy miles long and twenty-five miles wide was covered by tilefish in a dead or dying condition, and that at least 1,400,000,000 individuals had perished. Later in the same year Professor A. E. investigations made both before and since it took place have enabled very probable conjectures to be made. The tilefish belongs to a tropical family accustomed to warm water, and many of the sea-bottom animals found in its vicinity are also tropical or subtropical in character. It was found that the sea bottom, at and below the hundred- fathom line along the New England coast is as steep as a mountain side, and the upper portion of this slope, from sixty-five to about two hundred fathoms, is bathed by the waters of the Gulf
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;M<Mi^^^^^^ ■v^ Courlesy of United States Bureau of Fisheries The ti oiisn w u discovered by a Captain Kirby, of Gloucester, while fishing for cod ofi" Nantucket. He sent specimens to the Bureau of Fisheries at Washington, where it was pronounced a new species and named Lopholalilus chamwleonticeps or "the crested tilus with head like a chamaeleon." The captain however christened it "tilefish" and such it has remained Verrill, then in charge of the scientific exploration work of the United States Fish Commission, investigating with the ship "Fishhawk," not only was unable to find a single tilefish, but also noticed a singular absence of many species of crustaceans, mollusks, echinoderms, and other forms, which he had found plenti- ful the year before in the same locality. Evidently some marked and sudden change in conditions had fatally affected all these marine creatures, and, although the cause of this change has not been determined with absolute certainty, the Stream. The water here is therefore considerably warmer than that nearer inshore, and than the water which underlies it farther out. This narrow warm belt is occupied by a continuation of the southern or West Indian Gulf Stream fauna, which could not exist here if the Gulf Stream did not flow along the bottom of this area both in winter and summer. There is evidence, however, that the position of the Gulf Stream is not constant, and that it was receding offshore at the time of the tilefish dis- aster, leaving the subtropical sea-bot-

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