382 Scientific Intelligence. — Xmlogy. 



His muscular action is great, appetite and sleep moderate: iri 

 manner and other respects he is perfectly juvenile. Mr Petti- 

 grew follows up his paper by a few remarks in connexion with 

 its subject. He observes, that cases of obesity are more nume- 

 rous in marshy places than in those distinguished by dryness of 

 the atmosphere ; for one fat person in France we have in Eng- 

 land one hundred, occasioned chiefly by a too free use of animal 

 food and fermented liquor, which tend much to the formation 

 of adipose substances. He points out some of the ills attendant 

 on corpulence, which may be looked on as a chronic disease ; 

 these are — congestion in various parts, epilepsy, lethargy, apo- 

 plexy, &c. ; and closes this paper with some observations, hav- 

 ing for their object to decrease its occurrence, viz. simple diet, 

 fish and vegetables, free exercise in the open air, as little sleep 

 as possible, the cold bath and friction. — Lit, Gaz. 



5. Seal found in the interior of New Holland, — At a meeting . 

 of the Zoological Society, R. Owen, Esq. in the Chair, Mr 

 Bennett called the attention of the meeting to a seal, of a well- 

 known genus, but which was remarkable as having (on the au- 

 thority of the gentleman who brought it home) been procured in 

 the interior of New Holland ; a circumstance which would im- 

 ply the existence of a salt-water lake, or perhaps an inlet of the 

 sea, in the unexplored regions of that immense island. 



6. On the Respiration of the hvferior Animals. — The fol- 

 lowing are the conclusions deduced from several experiments 

 made with great care and accuracy, by G. R. Treviranus, on 

 the respiration of the inferior animals: 1. The production of 

 carbonic acid gas during their respiration, depends on the tem- 

 perature of the medium in which they are placed ; on the 

 strength of the individual ; and on the frequency and violence 

 of its voluntary motions. — % The absorption of oxygen is not 

 always proportional to the excretion of carbonic acid gas; it is 

 certainly, in general, increased and diminished under the same 

 circumstances ; but its proportion to the other depends on the 

 strength of the respiration, the time of its continuance while the 

 respirability of the air is diminishing, and the volume of the air 

 in which the respiration is performed. The more carbonic acid 

 there is developed while breathing in the open air, and the less 

 the power of continuing in a medium deficient in oxygen, the 



