The latest experiments bearing on this question are those of Professor Liverridge, of the University of Sydney. who found that in the waters surrounding Australia the quantity of gold per ton of sea water varies between half a grain and one grain.

Owing to the minute quantities in which the precious metals are held in solution, their recovery as a business proposition has generally been looked upon as impracticable. There was a company started in 1899, with a capitalization of $50,000, for the purpose of extracting these metals from sea water. It was called "The Electrolytic Marine Salts Co., of Boston and North Lubec, Me." Its plant was at the latter place. Like most efforts to recover ocean's treasures it proved only another rainbow chaser, and its wreck has become as historic as many at the bottom of the seas.

SEA LIFE.

SEA BIRDS.

SEA birds are always interesting objects to voyagers. They follow a vessel sometimes all the way across, ever restless and untiring. The gulls particularly, with their long, swift wings, realize the highest powers of endurance, and fly with ease against the severest storms. Some authorities say that these birds never visit the land except to deposit their eggs; otherwise they live constantly between the sea and the sky. In fine weather they fly high in the air, descending with great rapidity to seize the fish on the surface of the water. The symmetry and the strength of the gulls are remarkable, showing how nature has adapted them in every particular for the purpose of long flight.

THE PETREL.

During a recent trip across the Atlantic the passengers on one steamer had a vivid illustration of the endurance of the stormy petrel. Shortly after the ship left the Irish coast two or three of these birds were sighted at the stern of the ship. One had been caught at some previous time, and its captor had tied a bit of red flannel or ribbon round its neck and let it go. The bit of red made the bird very conspicuous, and it could be easily identified. That bird, with others that could not be so casily distinguished, followed the ship clear across the ocean. Rarely, during the daytime at least, was it out of sight, and if for an hour or two it was lost to view while feeding on the refuse cast overboard, it soon reappeared, and the last seen of it was within a few miles of Sandy Hook, when it disappeared, perhaps to follow some outward-bound steamer back to Ireland. When the fact is considered that the ship, day and night, went at an average speed of nearly twenty miles an hour, the feat performed by the daring traveler can be better appreciated. When or how it rested is inexplicable.

The stormy petrel in proportion to its size, has immense wing power, for it is the smallest web-footed bird. It belongs to every sea, and, though seemingly so frail, breasts the utmost fury of the gale, skimming with incredible velocity the trough of the waves and gliding rapidly over the crests. It does not make a practice of alighting on the water, and seldom rises higher than eight or ten feet above the surface. They have been known to perch all night on the extreme end of the flying jib boom of a vessel, keeping up a constant, low, musical whistle, seemingly an accompaniment to the noisy waters foaming and eddying around the cutwater. Petrels, in flocks, sleep upon the water at night. Off the Cape of Good Hope, on bright moonlight nights, when the weather will permit, there can be seen through strong night glasses, dozens of the sleeping petrels passing directly under the bows of the ship. They "bob up serenely" astern. in the glittering wake with a plaintive whistle, swim a few yards, and, with a preliminary flutter of wings

and feathers, settle down to enjoy again the slumbers that have so rudely been disturbed.

THE FRIGATE BIRD.

Though the petrel is swift, the frigate bird is far swifter. Seamen generally believe that the frigate bird can start at daybreak with the trade winds from the coast of Africa and roost the same night on the American shore. Whether this a fact has not yet been conclusively determined, but it is certain that this bird is the swiftest of winged creatures, and is able to fly, under favorable conditions, two hundred miles an hour.

SHIP RATS.

Every ship that comes into port brings its quota of rats. When they land they become "wharf rats," "sewer rats,” and "house rats." Fortunately for landsmen, the majority of them stick to the ships and remain forever "ship rats." The average sailor welcomes their appearance on shipboard, and, as a rule, a sailor would not ship on a vessel destitute of them, as their presence is a sure indication that a ship is seaworthy. When rats leave it in a body the sailors do also. The stories of their abandoning a sinking ship are founded upon fact. Mine rats will in like manner foretell the caving in of a mine.

Formerly there was only the old black English rat on the sea's ships. Wherever ships go these black rats, which are said to have come originally from India, are found. They have, in three centuries, penetrated to every mainland and island in every zone. They held full sway for two centuries on the seas; then came gradually an alien creature of black or reddish-gray body and white belly, called the Alexandrian rat, which came from tropical countries. A trifle larger and stronger, it made war to the death upon the English rodents, so that the two species could never ship upon the same vessel. More recently there has appeared a third race, a brown or Norway rat, which is a native of China and the interior of Asia. It is a huge, ferocious creature, from eight to nine

inches long, and attains even larger proportions upon the ships than in its native land. It destroys all competitors, the two other rat species being no match for it. To-day the black rats are not found in numbers on vessels sailing from any ports where the brown or Norway rats have become established. Gradually they are being forced inland.

Rats have sometimes multiplied so rapidly that a vessel has come into port from a long cruise with a cargo of rats so large that the seamen were unable to put them down. Some vessels have been taken possession of by rats to such an extent that the sailors have been forced to abandon them at sea. They are so ferocious that they do not hesitate to attack the sailors when pinched for food, so that sailors have to exercise precaution to limit. their numbers.

WHALES.

The first whaling industry was commenced at Nantucket in 1672. The risks do not deter bold hunters from pursuing these valuable mammals into the most remotely accessible regions of eternal ice. Annually they follow the whales around the most northern extremity of the American continent and some vessels have even ventured to pass the winter in the Arctic Ocean The value of the fishery consists not so much in the oil taken as in the whalebone, which is obtained from the mouth of the animal. This is worth from $4.50 to $5.50 a pound. The product of a fair-sized bowhead whale will bring about $8,000. A good-sized, full-grown whale weighs 150 tons, measures from 70 to 80 feet in length, and yields about 2,000 pounds of whalebone. His tongue is 15 feet long, S feet thick and gives 12 barrels of oil. His open mouth is from 15 to 20 feet across. The blubber forms a coat around him of from 10 to 22 inches thick. It is four feet from the outside of his body to his heart, and the latter organ is 216 cubic feet in size. His brains will fill a barrel. The gullet of whales is, as a rule, very narrow, and their food consists of the smallest of the marine molusca, hering being the largest fish they usually swallow; though

certain species of sperm whale can swallow an object two feet in diameter. There were at one time about 500 vessels of American register engaged in whaling, but now only a remnant of that fleet, some 40 vessels, remains. Whales are not found in the Gulf Stream.

LARGEST WHALING CATCH ON RECORD.

The greatest whaling voyage was made by the little steamer Mary D. Hume, of 80 tons. She penetrated into hitherto unknown whaling grounds in the Arctic Ocean, took altogether thirty-eight whales, which yielded 104,600 pounds of whalebone, valued at $630,000, brought down the last 40,000 pounds of her batch and 400 white and blue and gray foxskins, came very nearly making the Northwest Passage without trying to do it, and let go blubber enough for 5,000 barrels of oil, for want of means to try it out.

SHIPS AND WHALES.

There are numerous instances where ships have run into whales or have been run into by them. Passengers aboard Atlantic liners have sometimes witnessed such collisions. Some of the most recent instances are the following:

The Anchor Line steamer Ethiopia, in 1891, on one of its passages, encountered a large whale about 800 miles east of Sandy Hook, which suddenly came to the surface in the ship's path. The blow was a direct, incisive one, and though the shock caused the vessel to tremble from stem to stern the ship seemed to sail right on through the whale, which disappeared immediately, leaving a trail of crimson as far as the eye could see. It was shortly afterward sighted astern, floating lifelessly. The steamer Abana, one Fourth of July, had a like experience about 80 miles southwest of the Georges Shoals, during a voyage from Dundee to New York. The whale, after being struck, rose again in the ship's wake, shook its flukes as if suffering from the shock, dived again and did not reappear. The Pacific coast steamer Sunol, outward bound from San