NOTTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12726, 1 December 1904, Page 4

NOTTES AND COMMENTS.

THE DOROtit HANK. ! If the Moor of the North Sea were raised more limn 100 feet, the Dogger Bank, the scene of the outrage by the Russian, Baltic fleet, would form » third member of the '" British ■■; Tsles," about half the size of Scotland. Even without the intervention, of Neptune's trident to turn the great bank into dry land, it is almost a British possession. Year in and 1 year out its hallow waters are ploughed over by hundreds of British trawls; our fishing fleets, ever;* [ year better organised," like permanent villages ov*" the bank, with churches, stores, hospitals, canteens, fish-carriers, and post offices ; .and some half-million tons of the best fish the world produces are brought from it annually to Grimsby, Hull, arid Louden. It is said that the trawls sometimes disturb the bones of mammoths and the dismembered limbs of rhinoceroses which one* browsed on the submerged: forests .of the North Sea. The whole area of this sea: has now- a population of,fish.so enormous, iVrid so incessantly reproductive, that the ■t-.rly improvements in the engines used : ■jv '•'vheir destruction make no impression! it.-i il»fe.v \;''.-en? Even now the voters ere li'iJv ,!- rl'.j v :;tii&) and on the ??iv "'" itself, with ibont 6000 square miles oi p'Olifie trawling ground, great tracts remained unworked, a,,d new grounds are constantly being discover xi. At the same time, though fish are found over the whole bed of the North Sea, of which the average depth is only 90 feet, they have their favourite haunts, just as fiver fish have. One-fifth of the whole is covered by "banks" formed either by currents or by river deposits, and it is or. these that the > North; Sea fishes mostly gather, as well as all the smaller forms of life which are their food. The depth of the Dogger itself ranges from 40 feet to occasional holes of 80 feet. The summer fishing is carried on mainly in the shallowest parts, where the fish swairm all through the warmer months. Ik winter, just as the dace and roach in the tidal Thames assemble and' dcze in the deepest parts of the channel, so the flat-fish, with others in rather less proportion, move into deep water. Their habits are not unlike those of the mountain shaep, which summer i in the hills and winter in the valleys, with this further resemblance, that- in summer ! the fish are scattered all over the "hilli tops" or plateaux of the North Sea, and i are, therefore, taken in far less numbers by the trawl, from the very fact that they are so scattered. But in winter in the "valleys" they ore all close together, and so are scooped up almost literally : in, " bucketfuls." Just south of the Dogger is, perhaps, the favourite winter "valley" for the flat-fish to depasture in. It was probably an ancient river bed, or estuary, and is called the "Silver Pit." There are also 111© Outer Silver Pit, the Sole Pit, and connecting the Dogger with the land .at Flamborough Head a stony isthmus known to the fishermen as " California." It is claimed that all the fish from the Dogger is of superior flavour to that; caught elsewhere. The reason assigned •is that a great proportion, of the food consumed there .consists of crustaceans, which, whether in the sea or in fresh waters, are the .very best and most nourishing food for fishes. . ; \

A ■STORY OF THE VATICAN. ■■''■■,'■,'.:::■■.. A remarkable story is published m the Literary Supplement of the London Times. The writer, whose means of knowing are vouched for in a subsequent leader in the same journal, relates for the first time the true story of the negotiations between, Lord Palmerston and Pius IX. in 1862. Pio Nono, alarmed by the threats of Garibaldi, applied to Mr. Oc'lo Russell, then our informal Ambassador in Rome, to tell him whether the British Government, in : the event of Rome being occupied by the revolu-1 tionists, would find him an asylum either | in London or Malta, Mr. Russell, who | understood the • complicated politics of the i Vatican almost as well as if. he had been a ] Cardinal, replied that, of course, His Holi- j ness would, be received in any part of the j British dominion like any other stranger I of eminence, but that if more were asked'; he must, before giving any definite reply, i consult his superiors at the Foreign Office. He did not himself believe the :; Pope '■was-' sincere in his proposal, but thought he was manoeuvring, with the characteristic subtlety of ecclesiastical diplomacy, to obtain an.■ assurance' with which he could put pressure upon the great Roman Catholic Rowers, who naturally would not like the head of their creed to be driven to take refuge with the heretic. Returning to England for bis annual holiday, he pressed this view* upon Lord Palmerston with arguments which, as he conceived, sufficed to convince that statesman. Lord Palmerston, however, could not get over the idea that it would lie a greater feather in his own'cap, and a great, triumph for England, to offer a safe asylum to the head of the Roman Church; and on his return to Rome Mr. Russell received A definite order to offer the shelter of a palace at Malta; to His Holiness. He would there, thought the English Premier, be upon quasi-Italian ground, while his personal safety and freedom in exercising the great functions of his office could be absolutely guaranteed, : Mr. Russell obeyed orders, and conveyed the —which had been previously embodied in a despatch that Mr. Russell had ventured to —through the medium of Cardinal Antondii, impressing upon His Eminence at the same time the necessity of secrecy. The Cardinal pledged his word of honour to tell no one but the Pope, and on the same day handed the. despatch itself to the Austrian Ambassador. The event, of course, proved that Odo Russell was, right, and that the Papal Court had not the faintest intention of placing itself under heretic protection,,