AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 4*79 



rule, however, fish move with the greatest rapidity through water, 

 and apparently without effort or fatigue. The salmon travels 

 weeks together at the rate of twenty miles an hour, and sharks 

 cross the Atlantic in company with the fastest merchantmenj 

 receiving maintenance the while from the inexhaustiljle fund pro- 

 digally prepared by harmonious nature, whose minutest drop of 

 water contains four hundred millions of insect life. And yet 

 man, instead of gloryfying God, his maker, for these creations of 

 innumerable hosts of creatures, furnished to feed those that gratify 

 his appetite, attributes their organizations to unguided physical 

 agencies, instead of that Almighty Intelligence that planned, exe- 

 cuted and now maintains the whole. 



Swamp-pines. — This is tlie name given in Carolina to a fresh 

 water fish that is found inhabiting ponds, which often during hot 

 summers become dry, when the fish prepare themselves to migrate 

 to the nearest pool, by closing a membrane attached to the mouth, 

 which may be called a compensating apparatus, which enables 

 them to live for a time out of water; and they travel l:»y leaping, 

 in immense squadrons, with their heads invariably pointed towards 

 the nearest pond, being directed by a wonderful instinct. Other 

 fish, similar to these, when reduced to the same extremities, by 

 the drying up of the elements so indispensable to their comfort, 

 dive deep in the mud, where they remain, almost consolidated 

 into stone, for several months, awaiting the return of the rainy 

 season, which awakens their vitality, and mercifully provides 

 them with the means of escape. 



The object of Gud throughout the entire world, is to balance 

 the numbers of all tlie different kinds of animals, from the monod 

 that cannot be perceived by the naked eye, to the monstrous 

 whale, so that a proper proportion, as far as numbers are con- 

 cerned, may be preserved in quantities sufiicient to accomplish 

 the design for which they were formed. And as the meanest ani- 

 malcule becomes the food of thousands of fish, as well as the 

 grandest and most gigantic animal, the whale, so it was created 

 devoid of a digestive nervous system, and is therefore incapable 

 of suffering pain. 



Dr. "Waterbury took up another important point on the sulycct 

 of the day, the anatomy and physiology of fish. 



