34 
O S T 
duce of food which they fupply, as being principally an 
article of luxury. In the county juft mentioned there 
are feveral of thefe oyfter-filheries. In the Blackwater 
river and neighbouring parts, there is a confiderable fifn- 
ery of this nature 5 and Weft-Merfey is one of the prin¬ 
cipal ftations of the dredgers : above thirty boats, it is 
faid, belong to the ifland, and are almoft conftantly at 
work in this bufinefs. Veffels come from Kent to pur- 
chafe the oyfters ; and they fell fome to Wivenhoe, where 
what are called the Colchefter beds are fituated. They 
are fold by the tub of two bulhels, and are generally from 
6s. to 1 os. a-tub. A dredging-boat is from fourteen to 
thirty or forty tons burthen : all are decked, and built at 
Wivenhoe, Brightlingfea, and places thereabouts. The 
price is iol. a-ton for the hull of the veil'd only; the fit¬ 
ting-out of one of twenty tons requiring the amount of 
150I, From two to four men are required for each vef- 
fel, who are paid by fhares; and the mailer has a fhare 
for the velfel. In the fpring-feafon they go to dredge on 
the coafts of Hants and Dorfet. Sometimes one hundred 
and thirty velfels have been counted at work within fight 
of Merfey. 
The following interefting account of the oyfter-bufi- 
nefs in the fame diftrift, is from Mr. Bennet Hawes of 
Merfey, given as from his own local knowledge of the 
places where it is carried on, in the above Report. The 
number of velfels which are employed in it, of from eight 
to forty or fifty tons, is nearly two hundred, in which 
are employed from four hundred to five hundred men and 
boys. A veil'd carrying three men has one (hare and a 
half of all the earnings, and the men one fhare each. 
Large velfels have generally, it is faid, two fhares ; but 
none, it is believed, more than this. It is faid that the vef- 
fds which are built atEaft Donyland, Wivenhoe, Bright¬ 
lingfea, Burnham, and Merfey, for this bufinefs, will laft 
from thirty to forty years, when proper care is taken of 
them. The writer was informed by a perfon then living 
at Wivenhoe, that he had, within the laft twenty years, 
built a hundred velfels for the oyfter-bufinefs alone. 
There has been an increafe of boats, and of courfe of men, 
of more than one half within the laft thirty years. 
At Burnham they have feven dredging-fmacks be¬ 
longing to the company that hire the river of fir Henry 
Mildmay, befides four other private ones, and fome 
fmaller vefiels. The frnacks are from eighteen to twenty 
tons 5 and there are only about one hundred fifhermen 
and failors about the place, which are much too few, it 
is thought, for fo fine a river. Moll of the vefiels of fix- 
teen tons and upwards, go, it is faid, to Portfmouth, or 
places adjacent, in the month of March, to catch and 
carry oyfters ; thofe under twenty-five tons being em¬ 
ployed in catching them, and the larger ones in carrying 
them into this county and Kent, to be ufed as noticed 
above ; they generally return from thence in the month 
of June ; when the large ones go after mackarel, herrings, 
and fprats, during the latter part of the fummer, and in 
the enfuing winter, the fmaller ones to the catching of 
oyfters in the breeding-rivers, as above. 
The oyfters are fold to London, Hamburgh, Bremen, 
and, in time of peace, to Holland, France, and Flanders. 
The quantity conlumed in a feafon is fcarcely to be cal¬ 
culated ; but it is fuppofed that it cannot be lefs than 
n,ooo or 15,000 bulhels. This fort of filhery is fo much 
blended with others, that it is almoft impoflible to ftate 
the capital which is employed in it; but it is fuppofed to 
be from 60,000 to 8o,oool. 
The oyfter affords the curious in microfcopic obferva- 
tions a very pleafing entertainment. In the clear liquor 
many little round living animalcules have been found, 
whole bodies, being conjoined, form fpherical figures, with 
tails not changing their place otherwife than by finking 
to the bottom, as being heavier than the fluid; thefe 
have been feen frequently feparating, and then coming 
together again. In other oyfters, animalcules of the 
fame kind were found, not conjoined, butfwimming by 
1 
REA. 
one another, whence they feemed in a more perfect ftate, 
and were judged by Mr. Leeuwenhoek to be the animal¬ 
cules in the roe or femen of the oyfter. An oyfter being 
opened, incredible multitudes of fmall embryo-oyftexs 
were feen, covered with little (hells, perfeflly tranfparent, 
and fwimming along (lowly in the liquor; and, in another, 
the young ones were found of a browner colour, and 
without any appearance of life or motion. Monfieur Job- 
lot alfo kept the water running from oyfters three days, 
and it appeared full of young oyfters fwimming about 
nimbly in it; thefe increafed in fize daily, but a mixture 
of wine, or the vapour of vinegar, killed them. 
In the month of Auguft, oyfters are fuppofed to breed, 
becaufe young ones are then found in them. Mr. Leeu¬ 
wenhoek, on the fourth of Auguft, opened an oyfter, 
and took out of it a prodigious number of minute oyfters, 
all alive, and fwimming nimbly about in the liquor, by 
means of certain exceeding fmall organs, extending a 
little way beyond their (hells; and thefe he calls their 
beards. In thefe little oyfters he could difcover the join¬ 
ings of the (hells, and perceived that there were fome dead 
ones, with their (hells gaping. Thefe, though fo ex¬ 
tremely minute, are feen to be like the large oyfters in 
form. As to the fize of them, he computes, that a hun¬ 
dred and twenty of them in a row would extend an inch ; 
and, confequently, that a globular body, whofe diame¬ 
ter is an inch, would, if they were alfo round, be equal 
to 1,728,000 of them. He likewife found animalcules in 
the liquor five hundred times lefs than the embryo-oyf- 
ters. Leeuwenhoek, Arcan. Nat. tom. iv. 
Someof the workhoufes employ their poor in pounding 
oyfter-fhells for manure. By experiment in Norfolk 
(1818), forty bulhels of oyfter-fliell powder is found equal 
in virtue to eight tons of farm-yard dung. It is defcribed 
as an excellent manure for wheat, and as a top-drefling 
for young clovers, &c. alfo for gardens, as, from its fit- 
line exudation, it deftroys (lugs, &c. 
Oyfter-fhells are indeed an alkali of a more powerful 
kind than is commonly fuppofed, and probably are in re¬ 
ality much better medicines than many of the more coftly 
and pompous alkalis of the fame clafs. The proof of al¬ 
kalis is in their folution by acid fpirits; and Mr. Hom- 
berg found, that they dilfolved much more eafily in the 
acids of nitre and fea-falt than pearls, coral, and the reft ; 
which he fuppofes owing to their containing in the body 
of the (hell a confiderable portion of fal-falfus, which is 
eafily perceived upon the tongue, and which keeps the 
whole fubftance of the (hell in a fort of half-dift’olved 
ftate. Thefe (hells are found to produce very great 
effefts on the ftomach when injured by acid humours ; 
and Mr. Homberg is of opinion, that this their eafinefs 
of folution is one great reafon of their good eff’e&s, and 
that the quality of fal-falfus which they contain contri¬ 
butes not a little towards it, fince we are not to look upon 
that as a mere fait, blit a fait of a peculiar kind, formed 
of fea-falt by the organs of the animal, and the feveral 
fermentations it undergoes in the body of it, in the fame 
manner as the nitrous and other falts of the earth ceal'e to 
be nitrous, &c. as foon as they have been blended with 
the juices of plants, and form with them a fait peculiar 
to that plant; and this is plainly the cafe in regard to 
this fait, fince it is evidently of a more penetrating tafte, 
and of a different fmell, from the fait left by the lea-wa¬ 
ter between the feveral external fcales or flakes of the 
(hell. 
As oyfter-fliells were found by Mr. Homberg to be a 
very valuable medicine, and as one of the common me¬ 
thods of preparing them is by calcination, which, he ob- 
ferves, cannot but much impair their virtues, he gives the 
following method of preparing them for taking inwardly, 
which was what he always ufed : “Take the hollow (hells 
of the oyfters, throwing away the flat ones as not fogood; 
wafh them perfectly clean, and then lay them to dry in 
the fun ; when they appear dry, beat them to pieces in a 
marble mortar, they will be then found to contain yet a 
