acid in its insoluble combinations, he has taken the market prices of Columbian guano, and the refuse bone-ash of the sugar refiners, which contain respectively about 40 and 32 per cent. of phosphoric acid, and from these he deduces as a mean 44 cents the pound as the value of phosphoric acid when present in the form of phosphate of lime. This would give $1.44 as the value of 100 pounds of bone-ash, and $1.60 for the same amount of the guano, while they are sold for $30 and $35 the ton. The value of soluble phosphoric acid has been fixed by Dr. Volcker in England, and by Stockhardt in Saxony, at 124 cents the pound. This evaluation is based upon the market price of the 'commercial super-phosphates of lime. Mr. Way of the Royal Agricultural Society, however, estimates the value of phosphoric acid in its soluble combinations at only 10 cents the pound; and Mr. Johnson, although adopting the higher price, regards it as above the true value. In order to fix the real value of ammonia, Prof. Johnson deducts from the price of Peruvian guano, at $65 the ton, the value of the phosphoric acid which it contains, and thus arrives at 14 cents the pound for the price of the available ammonia present. This kind of guano, however, now commands a price considerably above that which serves for the basis of the above calculation; and both Volcker and Stockhardt fix the value of ammonia at 20 cents the pound. The price of potash as a manure is estimated by Mr. Johnson at 4 cents the pound; but this alkali rarely enters to any considerable extent into any concentrated manures, and may therefore be neglected in estimates of their value. The use of fish as a manure has long been known; on the shores of Scotland, Cornwall, Brittany, some parts of the United States, and on our own sea-coasts, the offal from fisheries, as well as certain bony fishes of little value for food, are applied to the soil with great benefit. The idea of converting these materials into a portable manure was however I believe first carried into effect in France by Mr. Démolon, who seven or eight years since, erected establishments for this object on the coast of Brittany and in Newfoundland. For the details of this manufacture I am indebted to the Chimie Industrielle of Payen. Concarneau, in the department of Finisterre, is a small town whose inhabitants are employed in fishing for sardines, and it is the refuse of this fishery which is employed in the manufacture of manure. The offal is placed in large coppers and heated by steam until CANADIAN NAT. 2 VOL. IV. NO. I. thoroughly cooked, after which it is submitted to pressure, which extracts the water and oil. The pressed mass is then rasped, dried in a current of hot air, and ground to powder. 100 parts of the recent offal yield on an average 22 parts of the powder, besides from 2 to 24 parts of oil. The manufactory of Concarneau employs six men and ten boys, and is able to work up daily eighteen or twenty tons of fish, and produce from four to five tons of the powdered manure. This manure contains, according to an average of several analyses, 80.0 per cent. of organic matters, and 14.1 per cent. of phosphates of lime and magnesia, besides some common salt, a little carbonate of lime, small portions of sulphate and carbonate of ammonia, and only 1.0 per cent of water. The nitrogen of this manure, which is almost wholly in the form of organic matters, corresponds to 14.5 per cent of ammonia, and we may estimate the phosphoric acid, which is here present in an insoluble form, at 7.0 per cent. If we calculate the value of this manure according to the rules above laid down, we shall have as follows for 100 pounds .......... Ammonia,-14} pounds, at 14 cents,..... ..... $2.03 0.31 $2.34 This is equal to $47 the ton of 2000 pounds; the manufactured product of Concarneau, however, according to Payen, is sold in the nearest shipping ports at 20 francs the 100 kilogrammes, (equal to 220 pounds), which, counting the franc at $0.20, is equivalent only to $1.81, the 100 pounds, or a little over $37 the ton. This however was in 1854, since which time the price of manures has probably increased. Mr. Démolon in company with his brother, has also acording to Payen, erected a large establishment for the manufacture of this manure on the coast of Newfoundland, at Kerpon, near the eastern entrance of the Strait of Bellisle, in a harbor which is greatly resorted to by the vessels engaged in the cod fishery This manufactory, now in successful operation, is able to produce 8,000 or 10,000 tons of manure annually. Payen estimates the total yearly produce of the cod-fisheries of the North American coast to be equal to about 1,500,000 tons of fresh fish; of this, one-half is refuse, and is thrown into the sea or left to decay on the shore, while if treated by the process of Démolon, it would yield more than 150,000 tons of a manure nearly equal in value to the guano of the Peruvian islands, which now furnish annually from 300,000 to 400,000 tons. If to the manure which might be obtained from the cod-fisheries of the Lower Provinces, we add that of many other great fisheries, we are surprised at the immense resources for agriculture now neglected, which may be drawn at a little expense from the sea, and even from the otherwise worthless refuse of another industry. To this may be added vast quantities of other fish, which at certain seasons and on some coasts are so abundant that they are even taken for the express purpose of spreading upon the adjacent lands, and which would greatly extend the resources of this new manufacture. The oil, whole extraction is made an object of economic importance in the fabrication of manure from sardines, in France, exists in but very small quantities in the cod, but in the herring it equals 10 per cent. of the recent fish, and in some other species rises to 3.0 and 4.0 per cent. Mr. Duncan Bruce of Gaspé has lately been endeavoring to introduce the manufacture of fish-manure into Canada; but he has conceived the idea of combining the fish offal with a large amount of calcined shale, under the impression that the manure thus prepared will have the effect of driving away insects from the plants to which it is applied. He employs a black bituminous shale from Port Daniel, and distilling this at a red heat, passes the disengaged vapours into a vat containing the fish, which by a gentle and continued heat, have been reduced to a pulpy mass. The calcined shale is then ground to powder and mingled with the fish, and the whole dried. Experiments made with this manure appear to have given very satisfactory results, and it is said to have had the effect of driving away insects when applied to growing crops, a result which may be due to the small amount of bituminous matter in the products of the distillation of the shale, rather than to the admixture of the calcined residue. Coal-tar is known to be an efficient agent for the destruction of insects, and in a recent number of the journal, Le Cosmos, it is stated that simply painting the wood-work of the inside of green-houses with coal-tar has the effect of expelling from them all noxious insects. Mr. Bruce caused several analy. ses of this shale to be made by Dr. Reid of New York, from which it appears that differerent specimens contain from 20 to 26.0 per cent. of carbonate of lime, besides from 14 to 2.0 per cent. of carbon remaining after distillation. The amount of volatile matter, described by Dr. Reid as consisting of water, naphtha and ammonia, was found by him in two different samples to equal only 3.5 per cent., of which a large proportion is probably water. I have examined two specimens of manure prepared by Mr Bruce from the fish commonly known as the menhadden (Alosa menhadden). No. 1 was made with the Port Daniel shale, as before described; while for No. 2, this was replaced by a mixture of clay and saw-dust, which was distilled like the shale, the volatile products being added to the decomposing fish. The oil which rose to the surface of the liquid mass had been separated from the second preparation, but remained mingled with the first. both of these specimens were in the form of a black granular mass, moist, cohering under pressure, aud having a very fishy odour. A proximate analysis of these manures was first effected by exposing a weighed portion to a temperature of 200° F. till it no longer lost weight, and then calcining the residue, from which the carbonaceous residue very readily burned away. The oil in the first specimen was obtained by digesting a second portion, previously dried, with either, so long as anything was taken up. The solution by evaporation left the oil, whose weight was deducted from the loss by ignition. The portion of oil remaining in the second sample was not determined. The residue of the calcination was digested with hydrochloric acid, which dissolved the phosphate of lime from the fish-bones, together with portions of lime, magnesia, alumina, and oxyd of iron, derived from the shale and clay. The solution from No. 1 contained, moreover, a considerable portion of sulphate from the gypsum of the shale. Small quantities of common salt were also removed by water from the calcined residues. The dissolved phosphoric acid, lime, and magnesia were separated by precipitating the phosphoric acid, in combination with peroxyd of iron, from a boiling acetic solution and were determined according to the method of Fresenius. The nitrogen of the organic matter was estimated by the direct method of burning a portion of the dried substance with soda lime, and weighing the disengaged ammonia as ammonia-chlorid of platinum. The results were as follows for a hundred parts :— If we calculate the value of the first specimen according to the rules already laid down, we have as follows for 100 pounds : Phosphoric acid, 34 pounds at 4 cents,.... $0.153 0.525 $0.678 At 68 cents the 100 pounds, this manure would be worth $13.60 the ton. The sulphuric acid is of small value, corresponding to 80 pounds of plaster of Paris to the ton, and we do not take it into the calculation. The somewhat larger amount of phosphoric acid in the second specimen, is probably derived in part from the ashes of the saw-dust, and in part from the clay. The value of this manure would be $10.88 the ton. In order to arrive at the real value of the animal portion of this manure after the removal of the oil, we may suppose, since Dr. Reid obtained from the shales from 4.5 to 7 per cent. of fixed carbon, that with the 56.2 parts of calcined' residue, there were originally 37 parts of carbon derived from the shales. This deducted from 23-7 parts leaves 20-0 of nitrogenized animal matter in 100 parts of the manure, yielding 3.76 parts, or 18-8 per cent. of ammonia. This matter consists chiefly of muscular and gelatinous tissues, and Payen obtained from the dried muscle of the cod-fish, 16.8 per cent. of nitrogen, equal to 20-4 of ammonia. The 244 parts of phosphoric acid in the mannre will correspond to 74 of bone-phosphate, and if to this we add for moisture, impurities, etc., 2-6 parts, 8.00 in all, we should have for 100 pounds of = |