LONGEVITY OF THE OYSTER. 477 



centuries? An analogous example in contemporary hygiene was 

 afforded at the meeting of the German Public Health Association, 

 when Hof mann and Siegel showed by the light of experimental re- 

 searches and exact observations that our church-yards and burial- 

 grounds, provided the soil is in a proper condition, and a proper, 

 easily applied restorative treatment is adopted, are not so detrimental 

 to the ground-water and air, and consequently to the health of per- 

 sons living near them, as has been heretofore believed, but that the 

 water from wells inside of the church-yards is generally purer than 

 that in the inhabited places around them, so that in this respect we 

 have more to fear from the living than from the dead. We are 

 injured by our method of burial quite as little as we were injured 

 when systematic blood-letting in inflammatory diseases was aban- 

 doned in consequence of the observations of Skoda and Rokitansky. 



It will not be otherwise with hygienic practice than it has been 

 with therapeutics, if we now begin to apply a scientific method to it. 

 May the medical faculties and the government speedily grant means 

 to do it ! The most beneficial practical results will not fail to be 

 realized. 



LONGEVITY OF THE OYSTER. 



Bt Professor SAMUEL LOCKWOOD. 



IT is proposed to give an account of an interesting determination of 

 the extreme age of a pair of venerable oysters which have just 

 come into my possession. They were given me by a professional oys- 

 ter-grower, Captain T. S. R. Brown, of Keyport, New Jersey, and 

 belong to a planting in which he was concerned thirty years ago. The 

 young oysters were obtained from Virginia, and planted in Raritan 

 Bay, Keyport. At the proper time the crop was taken up and sent to 

 market. In all such cases there are leavings or escapes from the 

 dredging. The bottom being too hard, the bed was abandoned and 

 never planted again, and these oysters were found there a few days 

 ago. They are not "naturals" or natives, but simply naturalized 

 "Virginies," a distinction which a practical oyster-raiser will make 

 unerringly. Any one examining the shells would infer the nature of 

 the bed whence they were taken, for the outer edges of the " shoots " or 

 layers are smooth, as if worn by a gentle motion on a compact sandy 

 bottom. The shells are large, though not larger than or even as large 

 as many often seen in market ; but the latter, if " primes," have been 

 of much quicker growth, and the mollusk is larger and finer. In a 

 word, they are many years younger than the pair I am considering, 

 and were grown on a softer bed, and one which was for them in every 

 way a richer feeding-ground. The two oysters in question measure, 



