swimming-bladders are thrown away with the entrails. At Newfoundland they form part of the food of the seamen, and a few barrels are sent to France. From Cochin China a small quantity is shipped to China. From Cayenne 9774 lbs., valued at £1066, were shipped in 1874. The average annual imports of isinglass into China were, in the five years ending 1870, 2953 piculs of 133 lbs., and in the five years ending 1875, 3934 piculs.

Fish-Maws are the swimming-bladders or sounds of different fish, extracted and merely dried in the sun, and considered a great luxury by the Chinese, as possessing strengthening properties. They are extensively collected. on the Malabar coast and shipped to Bombay, from whence large quantities are re-exported, principally to China and the Straits Settlements.

In the official year ending 1872, 9008 cwts. of fishmaws and sharks' fins, valued at £30,100, were exported from Bombay. From Penang 2277 piculs were shipped in 1870, and from Singapore 125,946 cwt., valued at £13,717. They often fetch as much as 14 the cwt. in the Canton market.

CHAPTER IX.

OTHER FISH PRODUCTS AND THEIR USES.

Miscellaneous uses of parts of fishes--Scales of fish-Articles made from themSkin of fishes; applications of it—Shark skin-Ray skins—Shagreen and galuchat-Fish flour-Fish paste-Guanine, or pearl essence.

In India the

SOME of the miscellaneous uses of parts of fish are curious. Thus, the serrated spine of the ray fish is used by the Indians of the Amazon to arm their arrows. jawbone of the boalee fish (Silurus boalis) is employed by the natives about Dacca. The teeth being small, recurved, and closely set, act as a fine comb for carding cotton, in removing the loose and coarse fibres and all extraneous matters from the cotton wool. Sharks' teeth are used in arming weapons, and the teeth of sharks and other fish as trinkets. The jaws of the sleeper shark (Somniosus brevipinna) are used for head-dresses by the North American Indians. Fish bones are used by Indians and Eskimo in making implements; sharks' vertebræ for canes; the bones of the whale for weapons. Those of sharks and skates are used in Japan in making imitation tortoise-shell. Among the islands of the Corean Archipelago, the children use the dried spiral eggs of a species of skate or some other cartilaginous fish as rattles, having first introduced a few small pebbles to assist in making a noise.

S

Scales of fish are composed of alternate layers of membranous lamina and phosphate of lime, to which they owe their brilliancy. Perhaps the enamel or nacreous covering of the scales of fish generally is capable of being employed more largely in the arts; it appears to be sui generis, and seems hitherto to have escaped the scrutiny of organic chemistry.

At the Vienna International Exhibition, the scales of the captain fish (Heterotis), from Senegal, were shown, for making fish-glue to stiffen and glaze ribands.

The Royal University of Norway, Christiana, sent to the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, in 1875, a diadem made from fish scales and eyes; and at the Paris International Exhibition of 1878 two Swedish exhibitors showed flowers and ornaments made of fish scales.

Parures and ornaments for ladies, made of fish scales, were at one time largely sold at the Crystal Palace, London.

At Newark, in the United States, large fish scales have been for some time industrially employed. The fresh scales are steeped for 24 hours in a solution of marine salt in order to clean them. They then undergo five or six washings in distilled water, which is renewed every two or three hours. Each scale is then separately dried with a clean cloth, and lightly pressed and left to dry. Finally, they are macerated for an hour in alcohol, and rubbed dry. They then appear like mother-of-pearl, and of a firm and elastic consistence. They are worked up either plain or coloured, for making artificial flowers, marquetry articles, and other fancy work. The Chinese have a mode of grinding up fish scales and using the powder as a dry pigment, to give a brilliancy to parts of pictures.

The skin of fishes is chiefly gelatinous, and is easily

soluble in water; but some is of a firmer, stronger, and more useful character.

Although the skin of some marine mammals, such as those of the seal, walrus, and the white whale, or Beluga (known as porpoise leather), have long been commercially employed, it is only lately that attention has been more generally directed to the utilization of fish skins on an extended scale. Their employment hitherto has been very limited. Eel skins have been used for the thongs of whips and the attachments of flails, dried sole skins to clarify coffee, and some shark and ray skins by workmen to smooth and polish substances, and also to make a kind of shagreen leather.

At the Maritime Exhibition, held at the Westminster Aquarium in 1876, Mr. G. Kent, of Christiana, Norway, exhibited a variety of tanned skins, among which were :

Whale skins tanned; the size ranging from 12 inches broad by 60 feet in length, suitable for wheel bands, for driving machinery, etc.

White fish, for upper leather, which can be prepared in pieces of 12 feet by 4 feet.

Skins of various flat-fish, dressed and prepared for gloves. Fine upper leather can be made with it, often to be had in sizes up to three feet square.

Skins of soles, dressed and tanned suitable for purses, etc. Skins of thornbacks, suitable for cabinet-makers instead of sand-paper, and very much more durable.

Skins of eels, dressed and dyed suitable for braces and other purposes.

Mention is made of an industry carried on at Colborn, in Canada, with the skins of species of Siluroids for glovemaking, and this is to be prosecuted on a larger scale, both for the flesh for salting and the skin for currying.

Shoes have been made in Gloucester, Massachusetts, from the skins of the cusk or torsk (Brosmus vulgaris), the use of which has been patented. If this material for shoes proves what it promises, it will open up a new market for fish skins, which will no doubt be highly profitable. In Egypt fish skins from the Red Sea are used for soles of shoes. In the Animal Products Collection at the Bethnal-green Museum, there are some tanned sole skins shown. The skin of the losh or burbot (Lota maculata), cleansed, stretched, and dried, is used by the country people in many parts of Russia and Siberia to trim their dresses, and instead of glass for the windows of their dwellings, being as transparent as oiled paper. It is also utilized by some of the Tartar tribes, as material for their summer dresses, and the bags in which they pack their animal skins. The inhabitants of the eastern coasts of the middle of Asia clothe themselves with the tanned skins of the salmon. It is asserted that it makes a leather as tough as wash-leather. The scale-marks give a very neat pattern to the leather.

W. Brozowsky, in his "Waarenkunde," Vienna, 1869, under “Fish Skin," says this is obtained from the sea-angel (Squalus squatina, Lin.; Squatina lævis, Cuv.), the thorny shark (Squalus acanthias, S. carcharias), the tigered shark (S. caniculata), and some skates, as the angel skate (Raja rhinobatis), R. Sephen, etc. The skins of these skates and sharks have spines of different sizes instead of scales. The skins are used for polishing, and, after the star-formed spines have been smoothed down with sandstone, for covering boxes and cases, etc.

Guibourt (sixth edition, by Dr. G. Planchon, 1870-71, vol. iv.), says the sephen of the Red and Indian Seas, belonging to the genus Trygon, produces the tuberculous and hard skin called galuchat, after the name of a Paris