-](, THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to meet an emergency, when a ring of tlie proper kind could not be 

 procured in time. In parts of Ireland, however, there is a current 

 belief that a ring of gold must be used, and jewelers in the country- 

 towns not infrecpiently hire gold rings to peasants, to be returned 

 after the ceremony. 



Blessing the ring gives it no small share of sanctity, and old mis- 

 sals contain explicit directions as to the manner in which this ceremony 

 must be carried out. In the church-service as performed in the vil- 

 lages of England, the ring is frequently placed in the missal, the prac- 

 tice being, no doubt, a relic of the blessing once thought indispensable. 

 The German peasant-women continue to wear the wedding-ring of the 

 first husband, even after a second marriage, and a recent book of Ger- 

 man travels mentions a peasant wearing, at one time, the wedding- 

 rings of four " late lamenteds." An instance is known of a woman of 

 German birth, Avho, after the death of her husband in a "Western State, 

 had the misfortune to lose her ring. She at once bought another, had 

 it blessed, and wore it instead of the former, deeming it unlucky to be 

 without a wedding-ring. Among the same class of people, stealing a 

 "wedding-ring is thought to bring evil on the thief, while breaking the 

 emblem of marriage is a sure sign of speedy death to one or both of 

 the contracting parties. 



THE CHEMISTRY OF " OYSTER-FATTENmG." 



By W. 0. ATWATER, 



PROFESSOR OF CIIEIIISTEY IN WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. 



"^FOT every lover of the oyster knows that the size and plumpness 

 -LM which are so highly prized in the great American bivalve, and 

 which ai-e so attractive in specimens on the half-shell or in the stew 

 as to lead the average man to pay a considerable extra price for extra 

 size, are not entirely natural ; and even those who do know that the 

 majority of the oysters in the market are artificially swollen by intro- 

 ducing water into the tissues are not all aware that the process by 

 which this is done is closely analogous to that by which the food in our 

 own bodies is conveyed through the walls of the stomach and other 

 parts of the digestive apparatus and poured into the blood and lymph 

 to do its work of nourishment. 



Physiologists arc, I believe, agreed that the passage of the digested 

 food through the walls of the alimentary canal in man and other ani- 

 mals is, in large part, due to osmose or dialysis, and that the operation 

 of this physical law is a very common one in the animal body. But 

 the quantitative study of the chemical changes involved is generally 

 rendered difficult or impossible by the very fact of their taking place 

 in living animals where the application of chemical analysis is impos- 

 sible. An opportunity is, however, offered by the oyster, which, since 



