This valuable commodity is principally furnished from Russia, where they prepare great quantities surprisingly cheap. Mr. Jackson, an ingenious countryman of our own, found out an obvious method of making a glue at home, that answered all the purposes of isinglass; but what with the trouble of making it, and perhaps the arts put in practice to undersell him, he was, as I am told, obliged to discontinue the improvement of his discovery. Indeed, it is a vain attempt to manufacture among ourselves those things which may be more naturally and cheaply supplied elsewhere. We have many trades that are unnaturally, if I may so express it, employed among us, who furnish more laboriously those necessaries with which other countries could easily and cheaply supply us. It would be wiser to take what they can thus produce, and to turn our artisans to the increase and manufacture of such productions as thrive more readily among us. Were, for in

stance, the number of hands that we have now employed in the manufacture of silk, turned to the increase of agriculture, it is probable that the increased quantity of corn thus produced, would be more than an equivalent for the diminution of national wealth in purchasing wrought silk from other countries.

CHAPTER VI.

OF ANOMALOUS CARTILAGINOUS FISHES.

Or all others, the cartilaginous class seems to abound with the greatest variety of ill-formed animals; and, if philosophy could allow the expression, we might say the cartilaginous class was the class

of monsters: in fact, it exhibits a variety of shapeless beings, the deviations of which from the usual form of fishes, are beyond the power of words to describe, and scarcely of the pencil to draw. In this class we have the Pipe Fish, that almost tapers to a thread, and the Sun Fish that has the appearance of a bulky head, but the body cut off in the middle; the Hippocampus, with a head somewhat like that of a horse; and the Water Bat, whose head can scarcely be distinguished from the body. In this class we find the Fishing Frog, which from its deformity some have called the Sea Devil, the Chimæra, the Lump Fish, the Sea Porcupine, and the Sea Snail. Of all these the history is but little known, and naturalists supply the place with description.

The Sun Fish sometimes grows to a very large size; one taken near Plymouth was five hundred weight. In form it resembles a bream, or some deep fish cut off in the middle; the mouth is very small, and contains in each jaw two broad teeth, with sharp edges; the colour of the back is dusky and dappled, and the belly is of a silvery white. When boiled it has been observed to turn to a glutinous jelly, and would most probably serve for all the purposes of isinglass, were it found in sufficient plenty.

The Fishing Frog in shape very much resembles a tadpole or young frog, but then a tadpole of enormous size, for it grows to above five feet long, and its mouth is sometimes a yard wide. Nothing can exceed its deformity. The head is much bigger than the whole body; the under jaw projects beyond the upper, and both are armed with rows of slender sharp teeth; the palate and the tongue are furnished with teeth in like manner; the eyes are placed on the top of the head, and are encompassed with prickles; immediately above the nose are two long beards or filaments, small in the beginning, but thicker at the

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end, and round: these, as it is said, answer a very singular purpose; for being made somewhat resembling a fishing-line, it is asserted, that the animal converts them to the purposes of fishing. With these extended, as Pliny asserts, the fishing frog hides in muddy waters, and leaves nothing but the beards to be seen: the curiosity of the smaller fish brings them to view these filaments, and their hunger induces them to seize the bait, upon which the animal in ambush instantly draws in its filaments with the little fish that had taken the bait, and devours it without mercy. This story, though apparently improbable, has found credit among some of our best naturalists; but what induces me to doubt the fact is, that there is another species of this animal that has no beards, which it would not want if they were necessary to the existence of the kind. Rondeletius informs us, that if we take out the bowels, the body will appear with a kind of transparence; and that if a lighted candle be placed within the body, as in a lanthorn; the whole has a very formidable appearance. -The fishermen, however, have in general a great regard for this ugly fish, as it is an enemy to the dog-fish, the bodies of those fierce and voracious animals being often found in its stomach: whenever they take it, therefore, they always set it at liberty.

The Lump Fish is trifling in size, compared to the former: its length is but sixteen inches, and its weight about four pounds; the shape of the body is like that of a bream, deep, and it swims edgewise; the back is sharp and elevated, and the belly, flat; the lips, mouth, and tongue of this animal are of a deep red; the whole skin is rough, with bony knobs, the largest row is along the ridge of the back; the belly is of a bright crimson colour: but what makes the chief singularity in this fish is an oval aperture in the belly, surrounded with a fleshy soft substance,