122 
FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 
Belgium, at the works of the Company Cockerill, near Liege, 
7400 workpeople are employed. — Ibid. 
Eggs. — England is said to receive annually from Ireland 
one hundred and fifty millions of eggs, and from France over 
one hundred and thirty millions. The great object is to get 
fresh ones, and many modes are resorted to to ascertain this 
important point. Some dealers place them in water, when, 
if fresh, they will lie on their sides ; if bad, they stand on one 
end. In many countries the eggs of lizards are eaten. In 
the West Indies the eggs of the guana are thought a deli- 
cacy, and in the Antilles the eggs of the alligator, which are 
said to taste very much like hens* eggs, which they also re- 
semble in shape. Turtles' eggs are held in great esteem 
wherever they are found, as well by Europeans as others ; 
they have a very soft shell, and are about the size of a 
pigeon's egg. The mother turtles lay thrice a year, at in- 
tervals of two or three weeks, depositing in one night as 
many as a hundred at a laying. An experienced eye and 
hand are required to detect the eggs, as they are always 
ingeniously covered up with sand; but when they are hunted 
very few escape. The Orinoco Indians obtain from these 
eggs a kind of clear, sweet oil, which they use instead of 
butter. In the month of February, when the high waters of 
the Orinoco have receded, millions of turtles come on shore 
to deposit their eggs. The certainty and abundance of the 
harvest is such that it is estimated by the acre. The yearly 
gathering about the mouth of the river alone is about five 
thousand jars of oil, and it takes five thousand eggs to make 
a jar. — Ibid . 
Quantity of Copper produced in the Year 1866 
over the Whole World. — The Chemical News, quoting 
from a recent paper by M. Petitgand, states that the quantity 
of this metal raised on the entire globe in the year alluded 
to — the latest period that statistical records of this kind have 
been reliably brought together — amounts to 93,415 tons, 
which is nearly double the quantity raised in 1846. From 
the statements made by this author there appears to be an 
increasing tendency to a lower cost price of this metal. 
Large and valuable deposits of excellent copper ore known 
to exist, especially in Polynesia, are as yet untouched. — 
Popular Science Review. 
