Note 27 — PETER KALM’s TRAVELS. (continued 3)

October the 8th. The shore of Pensylvania has a great quantity of the finest oysters. About this time the people began to bring them to Philadelphia for sale. They come from that part of the shore, which is near the mouth of the river Delaware. They are reckoned as good as the New York oysters, of which I shall make more particular mention afterwards. However I thought that this latter sort of oysters was generally larger, fatter and more palatable. It is remarkable that they commonly became palatable at the time when the agues had left off their fury. Some men went with whole carts full of oysters, crying them about the streets; this is unusual here when any thing else is to be sold, but in London it is very common. The oyster shells are thrown away, though formerly a lime was burnt from them, which has been found unnecessary, there being stones for burning of lime in this neighbourhood, and the lime of oyster shells not being as good as this other lime. The people shewed me some of houses in this town which were built of stone, and to the mason work of which the lime of oyster shells had been employed. The walls of these houses were always so wet two or three days before a rain, that great drops of water could plainly be perceived on them; and thus they were as good as Hygrometers.27 Several people who had lived in this kind of houses complained of these inconveniences.