r FISHES. In the melt of a living cod there are such numbers of those animalcules said to be found in the semen of all-male animals, that in a drop of its juice, no larger than a grain of sand, there are contained more than 10,000 of them; and, considering how many such quantities there are in the whole melt of one such fish, it is not incredible, that there are more animals in one melt of it, than there are living men at one time upon the face of the earth. Memnon.

However strange and romantic such a conjecture must appear, a serious consideration and calculation will make it appear very plain. An hundred such grains of sand as those just mentioned will make about an inch in length; therefore in a cubic inch there will be a million of such sands; and if there be 10,000 animals in each of those quantities, there must be in the whole 150,000 millions; which is a number vastly exceeding that of mankind, even supposing the whole earth as populous as Holland.