186 THE GOLDEN CARP. 



The heated waters in which fishes will exist unharmed ,is truly 

 miraculous. Desfontaines found the Sparus of Lacepede in the 

 hot waters of Cafsa, in Barbary, in a temperature equal to eighty- 

 six degrees of Farenheit ;* and it appears that Shaw observed 

 fishes of the mullet and perch kinds, in the same springs, f Bruce 

 also mentions that in certain hot baths near Feriana there were a 

 number of small fish in such heated waters, that his wonder was 

 how they could possibly exist there without being boiled outright. 

 Humbolt and Bonpland also saw a wonderful eruption of fishes 

 that were cast up alive and unmutulated from a volcano in 

 South America in a state of irruption ; and with them was also 

 ejected hot water and vapour only two degrees below the boiling 

 point. How these fish can live in such a heated element, he 

 " whose name is wonderful," and " who tempers the wind to the 

 shorn lamb" can alone tell. The mucous secretion with which 

 their bodies are covered, seems to afford them an external protec- 

 tion, yet how they are to inhale so hot an element without its 

 destroying them is altogether incomprehensible. The power of 

 resisting heat by a mucous external covering, or a fluid exhuding 

 from the skin, is known to prevail to a considerable extent in the 

 instance of the salamander; which, although not so formidable a 

 reptile as is vulgarly believed, (being in reality but a mere crawling 

 lizard of a few inches long,) is not altogether a fabulous creature : 

 neither are the wonderful properties attributed to it wholly un- 

 based on truth, though not quite to the extent laid down by 

 Aristotle and Pliny, both of whom state that this insignificant little 

 reptile by merely going through a fire utterly extinguishes it ; 

 whilst Du Bartas observes, 



" So the cold humour, breeds the salamander, 

 Who, in effect, like to her birth's commander, 

 With child with hundred winters, with her touch, 

 Quencheth the fire though glowing ne'er so much." 



Thus much has however been satisfactorily proved, viz. that the 

 reptile when annoyed exudates from its skin a milky and acrid 

 fluid, which it spirts out to the distance of some inches, and which 



Yarrell Vol. l,p. 317. 

 f Shaw's Travels, fol. edit. Oxon., 1738, p. 231. 



