1824.] 
friends went in pursuit of a second fish of 
this species, which even:shewed more sport 
than the former, plunging in the midst of 
the boats, and darting from ‘the surface to 
the bottom and rolling round repeatedly to 
disengage himself from the harpoons, though 
he had received also several musket balls 
in his body. After five hours’ combat with 
all kinds of weapons, this powerful fish was 
with difficulty towed ashore by the. boats, 
when his appearance shewed the ‘extraor- 
dinary tenacity of life which these fish must 
possess, his whole body: being literally a 
heap of wounds, many of which had pierced 
entirely through him, yet he was not quite 
dead when brought:ashore.’’ ‘The dimen- 
sions of this enormous flat fish were about fif- 
teen feet in length, and the same in breadth, 
and from three to four feet in thickness. 
It had the appearance of having no head, 
there being no prominence or snout. Its 
mouth formed a cavity like the segment 
of a circle, about two feet and a half in 
width, without teeth, but on each side of 
the mouth projected a mass of cartilaginous 
substance about a foot and a half long, 
capable of meeting at the opening of the 
mouth. The other parts of this immense 
fish resembled the ordinary skate, except as 
to its vast dimensions and great strength. 
Medical Chemistry.—The last number of 
the Annals of Philosophy contains a valu- 
able notice from Mr: Children on the che- 
mical nature of the acid found in the hu- 
man stomach. The distressing disorder of 
the digestive functions, ‘termed dyspepsia, 
has been commonly ascribed. to the preva- 
lence of acetous acid in the stomach ; but 
for the purpose of determining the point, 
and consequently for administering such 
antidotes as the improved state of medical 
science might suggest, Dr. Prout last 
year made some experiments on the acid 
ejected from the stomach, and found it to 
be the muriatie acid, and not the acetous. 
Mr. Children says :-—‘ An acquaintance of 
mine, who occasionally suffers severely 
from dyspepsia, and was somewhat scepti- 
cal as to Dr. Prout’s conclusions, lately 
requested me to examine the fluid ejected 
from his stomach during a violent dyspep- 
tic paroxysm the day before, with the view 
of ascertaining the nature of the free acid 
it contained. The fluid, which had been 
thrown from the stomach in the morning 
Patents for Mechanical and Chemical Inventions. 
241 
fasting, when filtered, was perfectly trans- 
sparent and nearly colourless: it gave a 
decided red tint to litmus paper. I dis- 
tilled about six ounces of it almost to dry- 
ness, at a gentle heat, receiving the pro- 
duct in three separate equal portions. One- 
half of each portion was treated with nitrate 
of silver. The first had no effect on litmus 
paper, and scarcely gave the slightest cloud 
with the test. The second became slightly 
clouded by the test, but was equally with- 
out any action on the blue paper. The 
third portion reddened the paper strongly, 
and produced an abundant dense cloud, 
when I dropped into it the nitrate of silver, 
and a pretty copious precipitate collected at 
the bottom of the tube. The remaining 
half of the third portion was evaporated by 
a gentle heat to about half a fluid drachm. 
The precipitate which a drop of it placed: 
on a slip of glass, occasioned with’a drop 
of nitrate of silver, was insoluble in nitric 
acid, and perfectly soluble in ammonia ; 
another drop, similarly treated with mu- 
riate of barytes, gave no precipitate nor 
cloud. The remainder was neutralized 
with pure ammonia, further evaporated, and 
poured on a slip of glass, when it afforded 
a multitude of well defined crystals of 
muriate of ammonia. The presence of 
free muriatic acid in the ejected fluid from 
the stomach, and consequently Dr. Prout’s 
conclusions, seem thus to be fully confirmed 
by the preceding experiments.’? Hence 
we have the means pointed out of greatly 
mitigating, if not actually removing, the 
distressing complaints of this class by the 
neutralizing agency of the-alkalies.- 
Natural History.—Sir Everard Home, 
in a paper recently read before the Royal 
Society, on the anatomy and habits of the 
seal and walrus, remarks the extraordinary 
coincidence between the foot of the latter 
unwieldy animal and that of the insect class, 
of creation, by which they are enabled to 
adhere to a wall or a ceiling. Sir E. 
Home, on examining the hind foot of a large 
walrus, brought home by Captain Sabine 
from the Arctic Regions, found it provided 
with a hollow space beneath, by which the 
animal is enabled at pleasure to produce a 
vacuum with the muscular action of the 
toes, so as to adhere with considerable 
power to a rock or other declivity, 
PATENTS FOR. MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL 
INVENTIONS. 
——a—— 
<i exercise of the royal prerogative, whereby patents for nobility and personal 
distinction were granted, having been unduly stretched by the later sovereigns of 
the Stuart race, and applied to the establishing of numerous and very mischievous mono- 
polies—the Parliament at length prevailed in abolishing by statute all such monopolies, 
except a very few, which were expressly legalized, and the conditions and regulations 
were fixed (in the Act, 2lst James I., chap. 3), on which the crown might continue to 
9 
Monvtury Mas. No. 401. 
ae | issue 
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