PERCA. 281 



yard, at Charlestown, much swollen, and speedily 

 putrescent after coming to the surface. Whether 

 some deleterious matter from the common sewers 

 of .the city poisoned the water, or whether a con- 

 tagious disease w^as propagated from one to the 

 other, could not be ascertained. That a small 

 quantity, comparatively, of poison, may be so gen- 

 erally diffused, as to exert a deleterious influence 

 on aquatic life, has been conclusively proved in the 

 case of the sinking of a small cargo of lime, which 

 caused the death of an incredible number of fishes. 

 That epidemics occasionally prevail in the ocean, 

 appears to be admitted, proving exceedingly de- 

 structive to particular species. 



Judge Davis intended to have presented us 

 some remarks on a great mortality of the fishes in 

 and about the old town of Plymouth, many years 

 since, but we have unfortunately not yet received 

 them. When the new volcano of Graham's Isl- 

 and appeared between the island of Pantellaria, and 

 Seiacca on the southwest part of Sicily, distant 

 about thirty miles from either place, in 1831, the 

 havoc the heated water and sulphureous vapor made 

 among the fishes, w^as indeed extraordinary. Mill- 

 ions of them were seen, for miles around, floating 

 on the tops of the restless waves, either dead, or in 

 the last agonies of death. 



By what authority Dr Mitchell gave his own 



