VOL. XIX. 1 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. IQQ 



ton, and may tempt us to believe that the old Procolitia, which was the station 

 of the Cohors prima Batavorum, was rather there, which is an important place, 

 (where the river Tyne interrupting the course of the wall it was but necessary 

 that the ford should be secured by making one of the cohorts keep that station, 

 and it is but 1 miles and a half from Carrow, vvhere the altar now is in the 

 possession of Mr. Forster,) than at Prudhoe, which is at least 10 miles distance 

 from where Mr. Camden seemed to fancy it. The other is at Blenkinsop 

 Car^tle in Northumberland, which I take to have been dedicated by Lucius 

 Annius to the goddess nymphs old and young, and particularly to the Debonair 

 (if Urbana be taken appellatively) Mansueta Claudia ; for thus I read it, Deabus 

 Nymphis veteribus et junioribus Mansuetae Claudiae Urbaiise, nuncupavit Hoc 

 Lucius Annius ; and hereby the defects in the stone seem to be supplied with a 

 rif'ht number of letters in each vacuity, and this I the rather apprehend to be 

 right, because it is now a year since I communicated the same to an ingenious 

 gentleman. Dr. Cay, of Newcastle, without its being disputed by any one 

 there. 



On the Generation of Eels. By Mr. Benjamin Jllen. N°23J, p. 664. 



The manner of the generation of eels, has been a question unresolved ever 

 since Aristotle, and reputed spontaneous : and the reason of the difficulty of 

 discovering it, is the different way ofgeneration, and that they breed in February, 

 a time when {ew are taken but what are preserved in trunks or ponds, where 

 they breed not. This I examined two years since, in some taken at a mill, in 

 which holes they breed, especially near gravelly shallows, and found one with 

 egg, another with six young ones in the great intestine, which I call the 

 straight bowel, that descends immediately from the pylorus until the winding 

 beeins ; they were fastened each to a very small placenta, which was fixed to 

 the intestine, the meseraics at that time being very turgid : the eggs were on 

 the outside of the intestine. They are certainly viviparous, and feed not, at least 

 gross, in the winter, during all which they lie still, till they have discharged 

 their young. 



The parts distinguishing the sex are discoverable, those of the male affixed 

 to the extremity of the kidney ; the females had a slender gland, lying trans- 

 versely near the bowel ; but of this I dare not say much, till fresh subjects 

 allow further examination. In salt-water eels, I have not found the like, 

 though sought for ; because I am of opinion, they do not breed, but are the 

 same with the fresh-water ones, since such multitudes of fresh-water eels go 

 down to sea, and cannot return, yet are never taken at sea, among the many 

 brought hither; and there are vestiges of their beards in the fresh-water ones. 



