"1. The right of self-defense authorizes a nation to visit and capture a vessel, as well on the high seas as in its own waters, when there is reasonable ground to believe it to be engaged in a hostile expedition against the territory of such nation.

"2. A nation's right of jurisdiction on the high seas over vessels owned by its subjects, authorizes the detention and capture of a vessel found on the high seas which upon reasonable ground is believed to be owned by its subjects and to be engaged in violating its laws. The flag or register of another nation, if not properly belonging to a vessel, does not render its detention unlawful by the cruiser of a nation to which its owners belong."

From these opinions in opposition to that of the AttorneyGeneral I do not find amongst the publicists who have discussed the affair a single dissenting voice, though one or two do not go quite so far or express themselves quite so clearly.

To me it becomes a clear case if we can imagine the tables turned. Let us suppose that in 1861 Mr. Seward had carried his point and had prevented the recognition of Southern belligerency by any foreign power.

Let us suppose a ship under British colors, but which almost certainly belongs to certain Confederates, to be engaged several times a year in landing men and arms at various points of the Southern coast.

no legal war.

There is no legal blockade because there is You have been warned to look out for this ship. You find her attempting a landing. She runs away and you catch her. British ship or not, entitled to her flag or not, is there an officer in our navy, or an official of our government, who would not believe her to be lawfully captured in self-defense and applaud the captor?

But though we admit the right of search in peace on the ground of self-defense, there is still and always will be the practical difficulty of knowing when it is applicable. As in search on suspicion of piracy, there is a duty and there is a danger. We can be sure only in extreme cases. We must weigh every fact and act calmly. Here then is the one real and only exception to the rule that the right of search on the high seas in time of peace does not exist.

village church and pictures for us the drowsy service and the quaint building. There was the old, square pew with its shabby hassocks; the well-remembered musty smell, for which partly damp and partly the remains of his decaying ancestors were responsible; and there was the village choir in the gallery bawling out "I will arise," to the accompaniment of various scriptural rather than musical instruments. And then there was the sermon. This, like all the rector's discourses, was constructed upon time-honored and unvarying lines. Firstly, what was soand-so? Was it this? No! Was it that? No! Was it something else altogether improbable? Again no! What then was it? Which led to the agreeable discovery that after all it was very much what the untutored mind would have pronounced it to be at first sight.

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Secondly, how was this doctrine illustrated by examples from holy writ? Examples from holy writ, more or less apposite,.followed.

"Finally, brethren, how did this great truth come home to all of us? The unsatisfactory conclusion being that it ought to come home to us in many ways, but that by reason of the hardness of our hearts it didn't. Then there was a great shuffling of hob-nailed boots, a great sigh of relief, and we were dismissed." I fear, gentlemen, that my lecture is constructed like the old rector's sermon.

The right of search in time of peace, does it exist to enforce impressment laws? No.

Does it exist for revenue purposes? Not as a right, and only by acquiescence.

Does it exist for putting down the slave trade? Only under treaty.

When then is it permissible? Only for suppression of piracy and self-defense, and then with full liability for blunders. And after reaching this very natural conclusion, I seem to hear that same sigh of relief which closed the old clergyman's exhortations.

U. S. NAVAL INSTITUTE, ANNAPOLIS, MD.

THE CHRONOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ICEBERGS IN THE SOUTHERN AND ANTARCTIC OCEANS.

BY W. T. GRAY, M. S.

Icebergs in the northern oceans have received much attention at the hands of many intelligent writers, but comparatively little has been published in recent years concerning the ice in the southern and Antarctic oceans. It appears from what has been written on the subject that there are years of few or no icebergs, followed by a period of years of a great accession of bergs. Such a period of remarkable frequency of bergs is that of 18911895, and with this period, or rather the period from 1888 to 1895, the present essay and its accompanying charts especially deal.

It is not necessary to dwell upon the importance of the ice problem, or the risks and perils of the navigator in the southern oceans, due to the immense floating islands and also to the detached pieces of ice, which are in themselves sufficiently large to do serious damage to the staunchest vessels afloat.

If we could have the testimony of those brave and gallant navigators who have left port in noble ships, and who have neither returned nor left any traces as a basis for speculation as to their fate, we would probably, in many instances, learn of a sudden shock, of the rending, falling masses of ice, the rushing of water, and the quick engulfment of the vessel and crew. The collision with a gigantic iceberg occurs so suddenly and with such terrific force as to appal the bravest.

As in the northern hemisphere the origin of icebergs is in the

sphere their place of formation is in the Antarctic lands, concerning which we know only a "few discontinuous coast-lines." Reasoning as to their formation, by analogy, from our observations in Arctic regions, we may suppose them to be formed in a similar manner in the south polar regions; that is, from the large glaciers that are formed on sloping lands by the accumulation of falling snows and congealing rain and fog.

These glaciers, "of so imposing and magnificent an aspect, in spite of their apparent immobility, have a descending movement, slow and continuous," toward the sea, and "protruding their margin into the water until the stability of the mass and buoyancy become neutralized and the margin breaks off, or calves, as it is termed," and casts those huge masses of freshwater ice adrift into the "great Antarctic drift current, so called in the Pacific, as well as in the Atlantic and Indian oceans."

"This great body of water moves toward the east between 40° and 60° south, with a constancy similar to that of the prevailing westerly winds. It is especially noticeable in the Pacific between 45° and 55° south, and from Tasmania and the south point of Stewart Island (New Zealand) to about 118° W., where a portion breaks off and forms the Menton current, which moves to the N.E., towards St. Ambrose Islands. The greater part, however, of the main current continues to the eastward, as far as about 85° west, where the southern branch divides into two currents between 42° and 47° south, one bearing to the northeast, forming the Chili current, and the other tends to the E.S.E. and S.E., toward the Gulf of Peñas and Straits of Magellan, and forms the Cape Horn current."

Borne away upon Antarctic currents, the icebergs drift into lower latitudes and melt in warmer water. The icebergs which leave the Antarctic continent at 63° or 65° S. "experience little change by the melting process until the 60th parallel is reached." It is commonly thought that they melt most rapidly under water, and "the change of center of mass and shifting of berg into new positions of equilibrium, undermining, fracture, etc., causes irregular and fantastical shapes." This change of center of mass and the exposure to view of new surfaces is probably often due to the loosening and letting go of huge rocks, boulders and stones imbedded in the berg, since "icebergs, like glaciers, are great transporting agents," bearing away to the deep sea these

It is difficult to arrive at the average size of these bergs, as they are reported of all sizes, up to 800 or 1000 feet in height and up to several miles in length. The shapes of the bergs are also reported as being of almost every conceivable form, but in the southern oceans the bergs, as a rule, do not have so frequently the towering spires that are often a characteristic of those seen. in the northern oceans, but are comparatively flat-topped.

The icy barriers have been reported to have the appearance of vast chalk cliffs, and “it is a question whether the discontinuous coast-lines constitute parts of a continent, or whether they are, like the coast of Greenland, portions of an archipelago, smothered under an overload of frozen snow which conceals their insularity." "It is calculated that the center of the polar ice-cap must be three miles deep, and may be twelve miles deep, and the material of this ice mountain being viscous, its base must spread out under the crushing pressure of the weight of its center." "This extrusive movement thus set up is supposed to thrust the ice cliffs off the land at the rate of a quarter of a mile per annum."

Mr. Findlay explains the difference in appearance of icebergs in northern and southern oceans as follows: "In the north they are formed on a limited space of land, chiefly Greenland, and here the land ice reaches the sea down narrow fiords in the form of glaciers, literally rivers of ice, whose outflow into the sea is constantly disrupted, and in the spring the masses drift southward in every variety of size and figure except the tabular. In the south, on the contrary, the whole of the south pole appears to be encircled with land covered with this tremendous icy mantle, without any inlet into its interior, as in the case of the Arctic regions, unless there should be such south of Cape Horn, and thus there is no influx of warm water which can penetrate into the rear of the icy barrier (as is the case in Baffin's Bay and around Spitzbergen) to dissolve and drift it out in a similar way."

The motion of an iceberg is a compromise motion of wind, surface current and undercurrent. The southerly gales in the Antarctic region, due to the cold air caused by the presence of glacial formations settling down and squashing out, is probably the greatest factor in causing a strong surface current, which has much to do with the northern movement of the berg.

Drifting to lower latitudes through the effects of currents and