Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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I Invite Naturalists To Examine
Whether Other Flying-Fish, For Instance The Exocoetus Exiliens, The
Trigla Volitans, Amid The T. Hirundo, Have As Capacious An
Air-Bladder As The Flying-Fish Of The Tropics.
This last follows
the heated waters of the Gulf-stream when they flow northward.
The
cabin-boys amuse themselves with cutting off a part of the pectoral
fins, and assert, that these wings grow again; which seems to me
not unlikely, from facts observed in other families of fishes.
At the time I left Paris, experiments made at Jamaica by Dr.
Brodbelt, on the air contained in the natatory bladder of the
sword-fish, had led some naturalists to think, that within the
tropics, in sea-fish, that organ must be filled with pure oxygen
gas. Full of this idea, I was surprised at finding in the
air-bladder of the flying-fish only 0.04 of oxygen to 0.94 of azote
and 0.02 of carbonic acid. The proportion of this last gas,
measured by the absorption of lime-water in graduated tubes,
appeared more uniform than that of the oxygen, of which some
individuals yielded almost double the quantity. From the curious
phenomena observed by MM. Biot, Configliachi, and Delaroche, we
might suppose, that the swordfish dissected by Dr. Brodbelt had
inhabited the lower strata of the ocean, where some fish* have as
much as 0.92 of oxygen in the air-bladder. (* Trigla cucullus.)
On the 3rd and 4th of July, we crossed that part of the Atlantic
where the charts indicate the bank of the Maal-stroom; and towards
night we altered our course to avoid the danger, the existence of
which is, however, as doubtful as that of the isles Fonseco and St.
Anne.
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