THE TREPANO. 519 



where a kind of fair is held at certain times. The Buginese, who 

 are the most enterprising trepang fishers, have such a place in the 

 little island of Kilwaru, between Ceramlaut and Gessir. It is 

 really only a sand bank, fifty ells long and broad, rising three or 

 four feet above the level of the sea, and surrounded by coral reefs. 

 Other such places are situated on the Aru Islands and at differ- 

 ent spots here and there in the Australasian Archipelago. Very 

 many are taken to the chief mart at Macassar; and Java has 

 recently begun to compete actively with this island for the trade. 



The market price of this costly dainty depends not on the size 

 of the individuals, but on other qualities which are mysteries to 

 all but connoisseurs. The Chinese dealers and sorters understand 

 them, but the native fishermen pay no attention to them. Craw- 

 ford mentions thirty different qualities, the best of which, called 

 takker itam, costs about eighty dollars a pikol, while the least 

 valuable, the huasser, or pefcu goreng, can be got for a little more 

 than five dollars a pikol. A very good sort comes from the Ma- 

 rianne Islands, and is called guam. 



About 1,510 pikols a year of trepangs are sent to China from 

 the Aru Islands, 6,000 from Java, and 8,000 or 9,000 from Macas- 

 sar. The whole quantity brought to the Celestial Empire every 

 year amounts to 90,000 pikols, but the demand is always ahead of 

 the supply ; and yet the trepang is not a people's food in China ; 

 for, while the number of individual sea cucumbers consumed there 

 annually rises to 99,000,000, the empire has 380,000,000 inhabitants ; 

 so that only every fourth Chinaman could possibly get a trepang 

 a year. The market price in China ranges from about $23 to $135 

 a pikol. Averaging it at $54 a pikol, we find that the frugal Mon- 

 golian sons of heaven yearly spend nearly $9,000,000 for this sea 

 worm. 



Not being versed in Chinese cook-books, we can not give direc- 

 tions for serving up the trepang ; but, according to Jamieson, the 

 Chinese make strong and palatable soups and various fricassees 

 from them. — Translated for The Popular Science Monthly from 

 Daheim. 



Of the influence of the recent earthquakes in northern Italy, M. Goiran has 

 observed that they were apparently followed by a speedier germination of seeds, 

 a more rapid growth of the young plants, a more luxuriant vegetation in the pas- 

 tures, tillable lands, vineyards, and copses, and a more distinct greenness of 

 foliage. He ascribes these results, not to the earthquakes directly, but to the 

 augmented production of carbonic acid, a more complete distribution of fertilizing 

 matters in the soil which suffered a sort of trituration from them, and to an in- 

 creased electrical development. Under some conditions earthquakes seemed to 

 have an unfavorable influence on veg3tation, but this, M. Goiran believes, was the 

 result of long droughts that accompanied them. 



