122 On the Basaltes of Saxony. 



guests, and of the robe which contains them. He comes 

 out of the inclosure deprived of all his former beauty, in a 

 state of decrepitude, exhausted, and threatened with ap- 

 proaching death. He shortly passes to the state of a chry- 

 salis ; and, after giving life to thousands of eggs, suddenly 

 loses his own, leaving to the cultivator an advantage which 

 may be so improved, as to more than compensafe the ra- 

 vages which he occasions. In about eight days, the little 

 worms contained in the cocoons are metamorphosed into 

 flies, having four wings. Their antennae are long and vi- 

 brating 5 some have a tail, others do not show it ; they feed 

 upon small insects of the family of acarus, and evidently 

 belong to the ichneumon tribe. 



u The cotton-shell or wrapper is of a dazzling white, 

 and as soon as the flies have quitted the cocoon it may be 

 used without any preparatory precaution ; it is made up of 

 the purest and finest cotton ; there is no refuse, no inferior 

 quality in it ) every part is as fine and beautiful as can be 

 imagined." 



M. D. Lozieres, the author of this memoir, urges the 

 Americans to preserve and endeavour to increase the fly- 

 carrier, in the same manner and for similar purposes that 

 the breed of the silkworm is encouraged. He declares that 

 he has frequently seen so abundant a harvest of the animal 

 cotton, that in the space of two hours he could collect the 

 quantity of one hundred pints, French measure. Moreover, 

 animal cotton is attended with none of the difficulties which 

 occur in the preparation of vegetable cotton, and it requires 

 less time and less trouble to procure it ; and there seems to 

 him no doubt that it will stand the competition with silk 

 and with vegetable cotton : these, when applied to wounds, 

 serve only to inflame and envenom ; but the animal cotton 

 may be used as lint, without the smallest inconvenience. 



XXII. Report made to the Class of the Physical and Ma- 

 thematical Sciences, ly C. Ramond, of a Memoir of 

 C. Paubuissqn on the Basaltes of Saxony. 



[Concluded from p. 66.] 



JL he author, supported by this series of observations, pro- 

 ceeds to the considerations which they suggest, and which 

 appear to him proper for establishing the aqueous origin of 

 basaltes. Such is the object of the third chapter. The 

 following chapter is destined to strengthen this first con- 

 clusion 



