Page:Omniana 2.djvu/108

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98
OMNIANA.

this fixed salt pour the liquor which you have obtained by distillation, and put in a moist place, that it may putrify. In a few days you will see little cray-fish move about in it, no bigger than grains of millet. You must feed them with blood till they grow as big as a filbert; then you must remove them into a wooden trough filled with river water and blood, and renew the water every third day. In this manner you will have cray-fish of what size you please." "Cela est plus utile," says M. l'Abbé, "que la Palingenesie des plantes dans les fioles. Il y a la du solide. Il y a plus qu' à voir; il y a à manger; & sur tout des Ecrevisses, qui sont d'un usage excèlent pour purifier le sang." The Abbé believed all these things, but he must not be despised for his credulity, for in that age they were generally believed. "C'est elever la Palingenesie," he says, "an dernier degré du merveilleux, que de se former l'idee de la pratiquer sur les cendres mêmes des ani-