442 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



We are required to induce a condition of things under cover 

 different from that in view. 



The case is like that of the condition of the Atlantic bottom. 

 No amount of wishing, in cottages by the sea (aut aliubi) availed 

 to solve the problem till Lieut. Thompson, U. S. N., invented his 

 deep-sea dredger, and masses of cretaceous ooze commenced to be 

 hauled up. We must do the same with the diamond drills in the 

 N\\v Red. But it paid to dredge because this act was a necessary 

 preliminaiy to the union of two impatient continents by a tele- 

 graph line. What will pay here ? That is a question which no 

 one can answer just now. It is just an instance of the old contro- 

 versy between narrow utilitarianism and enlightened economy: 

 whether a property owner is wise in neglecting all parts of his 

 estate except those which tradition assures him will pa}', or 

 whether, in the profit and loss account in which he enters general 

 expenditures for the proper exploitation and development of his 

 entire domain, the profits do not in the end outweigh the losses. 



Here, of course, another element is introduced into the ques- 

 tion. Is there anj' doubt about the establishment one way or the 

 other of a fact which will enter into scientific calculations ? Was 

 ever such a fact so used barren of economical gain in the end ? 

 Will it pay for the State Government to spend the money of the 

 whole people for such a purpose ? Is it in accordance with the 

 doctrine of " police government" held by an able school of ad- 

 vanced political economists? 



On Dialysis in Oyster Culture. Prof. Frazer also remarked, 

 that, in a recent conversation with Dr. Hunt on the subject of the 

 effect of saline solutions in the human stomach and intestine, that 

 gentleman suggested as his explanation of that effect, that it was 

 primarily mechanical or physical; consisting in fact of a dialytic 

 action set up between the denser solution in the stomach, and the 

 less dense solutions in the tissues and lacteals communicating 

 with it; the walls of the stomach and intestine forming the diah ser 

 or diaphragm through which the action takes place. The result 

 of such diffusion must (he suggests), in accordance with Graham's 

 well-known law, produce a greater flow of the less dense solutions 

 inward than of the denser outward from the stomach ; and as a 

 consequence, the filling of the latter and the draining of the small 

 ducts. 



That repletion produces, by reflex action on the nerves occupy- 

 ing that portion of the human body, the further effects observed, 

 is well known. 



There is another practical application which can be made of 

 this theory of dialytic action, no less important in its bearings, 

 and which has an economic value, viz., the fattening of oysters. 



The oysters brought to our large markets on the Atlantic sea- 

 board are generally first subjected to a process of "laying out," 



