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Show 20 MR. MORTON ALLPORT ON THE [Jan. 13, moved by Mr. Ramsbottom with fear and trembling ; but, to his great satisfaction, a large number of the imbedded ova were found to be alive. Eleven of the small boxes were then left in Melbourne ; and the remaining 170 were placed on board Her Majesty's colonial steam-ship ' Victoria,' in large open packing-cases with holes drilled in the bottoms. Broken ice was placed on the tops of the small boxes in each packing-case, larger ice was piled on the cases, and the whole were then covered with bags of sawdust and blankets ; about half the ice had melted during the voyage. On the 17th of April the 'Victoria' left Melbourne, and arrived at Hobart Town on the 20th. The packing-cases and ice (of which latter there still remained more than ten tons) were then carefully placed on a barge packed as before, and were towed to New Norfolk, twenty miles further up the Derwent than Hobart Town, by the steamer ' Emu,' which was detained till a late hour on the night of the 20th on purpose. From New Norfolk the barge was towed by boats to the falls three miles further up the river on the morning of the 21st; and the packing-cases were then landed and slung on stout poles and carried by hand to the ponds already prepared at the river " Plenty," three miles further up. The remaining ice was transferred to the ponds in carts, the contents of each being well covered with straw. The first batch of cases arrived at the ponds about the middle of the day on Thursday the 21st of April, 1864, ninety days after the placing of the ova on board the ' Norfolk.' On their arrival, Mr. Ramsbottom immediately proceeded to prepare the gravel-beds for the reception of the ova. A slight description of the ponds is here necessary. These ponds are twenty-six miles from Hobart Town, and were arranged in accordance with designs brought from the Stormontfield establishment on the Tay. Water is led from the river Plenty by a race to a small plot of grass-land above flood-mark. Sluices are placed on this race to regulate the supply of water. From the main race a smaller one leads directly into the clearing-pond, which is circular, about five feet deep, and forty feet in diameter. Thence the water is led by two covered wooden troughs into an open wooden trough at right angles with the covered troughs. From the open wooden trough small sluices let off the water in any quantity desired directly into the gravel hatching-beds. These consist of wooden boxes about 5 feet long by 2 feet wide. There are twelve of them, arranged in four rows. The water passes with a slight fall into the upper end of the first box in each row, over the lower end of that box into the upper end of the second box, and so ou to the lowest, where the water from each row passes over a series of shallow gravelly pools to a pond about 120 yards long and 40 feet wide, varying in depth from 2 to 9 feet. All the surplus water from the clearing-pond also finds its way into this larger pond by a covered drain, ensuring a permanent supply of clear cool water. All the entrances to and exits from the pond and hatching-beds are carefully guarded by covering them with perforated zinc. As the day on which the first of the ova arrived at the Plenty was warm, with a |