188 Scientific Intelligence — Miscellaneous. 



tent ion directed to the domestication of fishes, he selected the eel to 

 experiment upon, both because its manner of generating is almost 

 wholly unknown, and because its flesh is not only agreeable to the 

 taste, but constitutes an article of food very favourable to health. 

 In proof of this latter statement, the author mentions the inhabi- 

 tants of a section of France, who live almost entirely upon eels, and 

 who arc notoriously healthy. In describing the manner of genera- 

 tion of eels, the author says — " Every year, in the month of March 

 or April, there appear at the mouths of the rivers, just at nightfall, 

 myriads of transparent filiform animalcules from six to seven centi- 

 metres long, which raise themselves to the surface of the water in 

 compact masses, and ascend the streams. These animalcules are 

 nothing but newly hatched eels, leaving their birthplace to disperse 

 themselves throughout the canals, lakes, and brooks, which com- 

 municate with the rivers. " The quantity of these animalcules is 

 sufficient to fill all the waters on the globe, and if transported to 

 basins prepared to receive them, they would furnish an inex- 

 haustible supply of food. 



" Pre-occupied with this idea, the author caused a quantity of 

 those animalcules to be brought alive to the College of France, and 

 placed in large wooden vats. The young eels were then from six to 

 seven centimetres long, and one centimetre in circumference around 

 the largest part of the body. After remaining seven months 

 in the vat, they were twelve centimetres long, and two centimetres 

 and two millimetres in circumference ; at the age of eighteen 

 months, twenty-two centimetres long, four centimetres and eight 

 millimetres in circumference ; at the age of twenty-eight, thirty- 

 three centimetres long, and seven in circumference. Thus, though 

 placed in very small basins, the eels grew from eight to ten centi- 

 metres in length, and two and a half in circumference, every nine 

 months. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



16. Freedom of the Arabs from Leprosy. — M. Guyon, in a 

 note to the Academy of Sciences, Paris, attributes the absence of 

 leprosy among the Arabs to their living under the direct action of 

 light and air in tents, while the Kalzles, who often suffer from this 

 disease, live in fixed dwellings, often more or less beneath the level 

 of the earth's surface. — (L Institut, No. 965.) 



17. Obituary. — The Academy of Sciences in Stockholm has lost 

 the oldest of its members in the person of M. Wilhelm Hisinger, the 

 mineralogist, who has died at the age of eighty-six. 



to new arrangements in the Edinburgh Patent Office, we are obliged to 

 delay our List of Patents until our April number of Journal. 



