318 SCIENTIFIC NOTES. 
public, and we shall await further particulars' with" some impatieDce. 
To give an opinion as to the value of the chemical part of the defecation, 
would be premature, and it*is only in practice^that its value can be de- 
termined. With regard to the separation of the greater part of the water 
by freezing, the idea is so simple, and yet so* beautiful, that it cannot 
but excite admiration. It is well known that water when frozen rejects 
almost all alien substances, and that the ice even of a muddy puddle is 
pure, while the salt is driven out of frozen sea water. Whether the cold 
process will pay we cannot say, but M. Reynoso deserves credit for the 
application of a well-known principle to sugar-making, and we may 
conclude by wishing him the success to which his efforts entitle him." 
Fish-flour and Fish-Guano. — The simplest form in which cod 
fish is prepared for market in Norway, is to cure and hang the fish on 
long spears till it is dried and has become as hard as a piece of wood ; 
in this form it is shipped to Spain and Italy under the name of stockfish. 
When this dried fish has to be prepared for eating, it must be well 
beaten to get it soft, and laid in water several days. Before you get it 
on the table, the preparing process,°soaking and cooking, will take the 
most essential of the nourishment, especially all the phosphates or lime 
in the bones that is a very essential support for the frames and brain will 
be lost. To make what may be termed fish-flour, the best dried stockfish 
is ground-up, bones, skin and all, to a dust or flour, in which form it may 
easily be used for all sorts of dishes, and gives a cheap and substantial 
food. It may be mixed with potatoes or other substances, according to 
taste, or made into cakes or biscuits. It is to be observed that in this 
way the fish is more fit for transport and can be packed in barrels, with- 
out causing any inconvenience from the particular fishy smell. Fish 
guano is manufactured at Lofoten, in Norway, of cod-heads* and back- 
bones collected during the great cod fishery season in the winter, chiefly 
by poor and infirm people, and children or women who cannot take part 
in the fisheries. The heads and backbones are hung in bundles for drying 
on long spears, or laid on the bare rock. In the month of June and 
July this raw material is brought to the -mills|where it is cut in pieces, 
dried artificially, and ground on millstones. It is shipped in bags, each 
containing 250 lb. Norwegian weight (about 2J cwt.),;and delivered in 
Hamburg at the price of about 91. per ton. An analysis of this manure 
by the celebrated German Professor Stbckhardt in 1860, inserted in 
Ch«m. Ann., gave the following proportions : — Water, 12*2 ; organic, 
matter, 537; phosphates of lime, 30*5; alkaline salts, 3*1; sand, 0*5; 
nitrogen, 1016 ; ammonia, 9-9. The Norwegian Fish-guano Company 
has been established since 1856. It has been a great benefit for the 
fisheries in Lofoten to get rid of this manure that formerly spoiled the 
bottom of the fishing banks and infected the harbours where it in some 
places was laying knee-deep on the beach. 
