946 General Notes. (September, 
The salts of soda and magnesia still maintained life when the 
animals had succumbed in the salts of potash. Solution No, 9, 
for instance, the principal element of which is chloride of mag- 
nesium, preserved its inhabitants alive much longer, and the same 
applies to the sulphate of magnesia alone, and in solution No. 11, 
The resistance of the palourdes in the Vichy water shows the 
favorable action of salts of soda on the preservation of life in 
marine animals; for forty days the palourdes lived in this mineral 
water ! 
It was in the sulphate of magnesia and the sulphate of soda 
that life was sustained longest, the latter excelling the former. 
On the 12th of March I tasted some of the Venus decussata, 
which had been kept in sulphate of soda for sixty days, and 
found their flavor excellent and without any trace of a bitter 
flavor. This observation might prove useful in alimentary econ- 
omy, as the palourde is a highly prized shellfish, and sulphate of 
soda can be bought cheap. : 
It is a fact worthy of remark that it was only in the solutions 
of sulphate of soda and sulphate of magnesia that green alge 
commenced to make their appearance at the end of sixty days 
The conditions favorable to marine animal life are then apt to 
develop vegetable life. There is nothing surprising in this par 
allelism, but it receives from the present circumstance a curious 
confirmation. One singularity appears: the solution of chloride 
of sodium (impure marine salt) did not sustain life as long as the 
solutions of salt of magnesia and sulphate of soda, and yet salt 
is an essential element of the sea water. This proves that the 
mollusks are adapted, not to pure salt, but to that peculiar mix- 
ture which constitutes the natural sea water; and that the sec- 
ondary elements, as regards their quantity, play an important 
part. This gives us reason to suppose that the accidental er 
fications of the water of the sea during the different geologi ‘t 
periods must have had a great deal to do with the extinction 
Various species, > 
The Venus remained closed in most of the solutions, the natur® 
of which they doubtless learned to know by opening their "i 
a very little. Meanwhile, they occasionally put their siphe a 
outside the shell, for instance, in the sulphate of magnesia a 
fhe sulphate of soda. In the solution of chloride of sodium 
in the sea water they had their siphons out nearly all the Ome. i 
The palourdes can live for more than a month in the air 1 © 
cool place. For about twenty days they remain shut; latet pi 
A "a 
gether have no longer the strength to do this, although the S™ the 
Muscles which retain them will still do so, when one aon 
