306 SALT-WATER TERRAPIN. 



Among the luxuries of the season much prized by 

 American epicures, of which I partook at this party, the 

 salt-water terrapin, Emys palustris, was new to me. 

 It is a small species of tortoise, from 5 to 7 inches in 

 length, and 1 to 2J in breadth, which is found exclu 

 sively in salt or brackish streams near the sea-shore. 

 It buries itself in the mud, and at this season is 

 very fat, and is taken in great numbers. Along the 

 mud banks, which are accessible at low water, it is met 

 with from the Gulf of Mexico as far north as New 

 York 5 but it is especially abundant in the Chesapeake 

 and the Delaware. Other species found in fresh water, 

 such as the wood terrapin, E. insculpta^ the red-bellied 

 terrapin, J5/. rubri-ventris, and the painted tortoise, E. picta, 

 are also eaten along the coast, especially the two for 

 mer ; but the salt-water species is the only one that is 

 valued by connoisseurs. 



My attention was drawn in Philadelphia to several 

 subjects connected with chemical agriculture, of which 

 the fertilising character of the green sand of New Jersey 

 was one of the most interesting. It has been long known 

 in England that narrow stripes of land beneath the chalk 

 escarpments in the southern counties possessed a peculiar 

 fertility, which distinguished them from the neighbouring 

 soils, and gave them a superior value. The recent 

 researches of Mr Payne and the analyses of Professor 

 Way have rendered it exceedingly probable, that grains 

 and nodules of phosphate of lime, which occur in layers, 

 and are diffused through certain subordinate beds of the 

 green sand formation, are among the chief causes of this 

 peculiar fertility ; and many circumstances familiar to the 

 practical farmers of the districts, in which these beds are 

 found, tend to confirm this opinion. 



In passing through New Jersey, in which certain 

 deposits of green sand are met with, it was interesting 

 to me to learn that the farmers of the State ascribed to 



