Page 37 - KBHA BULLETIN 2

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ever been published about him as well as all his own scientific publications. But there were

still gaps. One such gap was that I was unable to trace his son, who seemed to have
disappeared off the face of the earth shortly after his father’s death. Lo and behold, Mr John

Gilchrist junior heard of our celebration in honour of his father and wrote to us from Los

Angeles, saying that he would shortly be with us. He visited us in February this year.

John Gilchrist junior was not able to add very much to our knowledge of his father, as he was

eight or nine when his father died, but he did remember vividly the St. James aquarium,

where he spent his early childhood. He and I revisited the site, between the railway line and
the sea, some 50 metres south of the St. James bathing boxes. We were overjoyed at finding

the foundations of the old aquarium building and, searching among the rocks and gullies, we

located the row of iron pitons which held the pipe bringing seawater to the building. They are
worn down and corroded but still recognisable.

Gilchrist would hardly have recognised his beloved False Bay today. The most obvious

change, of course, is the dramatic increase in the population living on its shores, both in
formal and informal housing. But perhaps Gilchrist wouldn’t notice that so much, as his eyes

were always turned towards the sea. What he would certainly notice are the changes to the

fauna and flora that have taken place. Laymen often ascribe these changes to pollution but in
fact there is no evidence at all that pollution has had any marked effect in the Bay as yet (and

I stress the as yet). There are, in fact, three major reasons for these changes.

One is a natural ecological succession, which takes place in all ecosystems without any help

form mankind. In False Bay this is partly manifested by the gradual encroachment of kelp,
which in Gilchrist’s day stopped just around Cape Point but is now abundant along the False

Bay coast as far north as Dalebrook, with a few kelp plants already in evidence at St. James.

This encroachment of kelp has also meant an accompanying change in the fauna and smaller
algae. Then there is the collapse of our rocky-shore mussel populations because of the

invasion of an alien mussel, Mytilus galloprovincialis Mythilus, a European mussel, that out-

competes our local mussels and gradually replaces them.