From the animal, our author directs his attention to the vegetable compartment of Nature; and he finds it as universally applicable to human nutrition. He particularizes a vast number of vegetable substances not commonly used as food by Europeans, which are freely employed and well relished by other communities of men, and among others, grass, and the leaves of trees and herbs, are enumerated. "One of the most remarkable facts," says he, "to show the universal applicability of all vegetable matter to human nutrition, is, that in the Quilimane country, in Southeast Africa, grass is made an article of human food, and is cultivated for that purpose, and is cooked into a palatable porridge.* A still more extraordinary circumstance of the same bearing, is, that the leaves of trees and herbs are both applicable and sufficient for the sustenance of a human being, who has been accustomed to the use of them, and are capable of giving both strength and pleasurable vitality. In the department of the Var, a man is now living, who, having been at one period of his life reduced to great want, was obliged to eat raw leaves of trees, herbs, &c., to satisfy his hunger. From being accustomed to it, he now prefers this diet, and adds only three or four ounces of bread and a little wine, to his daily fare, with which he could easily dispense. He is remarkably strong and healthy."+

But not only are grass and leaves capable of affording nourishment to the human frame; what is still more remarkable, it has been found that this property belongs even to the substance of the hardest wood. We owe this discovery to the German professor, Autenrieth. Dr. Prout has thus described the preparation of it, in the Philosophical Transactions :-"First, every thing that was soluble in water was removed by frequent maceration and boiling. The wood was then reduced to a mi

* Owen's Voyage, vol. ii. p. 51.

† Athenæum, 1835, p. 627. [The author here introduces a story, quoted by Turner, of a "wild boy" found in Germany in 1749, who subsisted on grass. As the creature, from the description of him, was probably a beast, and not a boy, the story is now omitted, as irrelevant, and unworthy of notice in the present connexion.-Aм. ED.]

nute state of division; that is, not merely into fine fibres, but into actual powder, and after being repeatedly subjected to the heat of an oven, was ground in the usual manner of corn. Wood, thus prepared, according to the author, acquires the smell and taste of corn flour. It is, however, never quite white, but always of a yellowish color. It also agrees with corn flour, in this respect, that it does not ferment without the addition of leaven; and, for this, some leaven of corn flour is found to answer best. With this it makes a perfectly uniform and spongy bread; and, when it is thoroughly baked, and has much crust, it has a much better taste of bread than what, in times of scarcity, is prepared from the bran and husks of corn. Wood-flour, also, boiled in water, forms a thick tough trembling jelly, like that of wheat starch, and is very nutritious."*

For further details, I must refer the reader to Mr. Turner's instructive work. Enough has been said, to warrant the conclusion, that, with few exceptions, all the plants of the field, and trees of the forest, as well as all the animal creation, have been purposely so formed, as to yield, when properly prepared, nutritious and agreeable food to mankind; and we may confidently concur with this author in his averment, that, "as far as the question of our subsistence rests between man and his Creator, there is a most diversified and abundant provision made for him, which will never fail for his support, through all his generations, let them spread as they may, as long as herbs and trees can grow, or animals exist, in addition to all the corn and cattle that can be reared."

FOURTH WEEK-THURSDAY.

HUMAN FOOD.-VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL.

ALTHOUGH there are probably above a hundred thousand vegetable productions in the world, by far the greater

* Philosophical Transactions, 1827, part ii. p. 318.

part of which might be converted into articles of human food, there are only a few that can strictly be included under the title of necessaries. Of those species, that afford the kind of nutritive matter which constitutes bread, emphatically called the staff of life, the number is very small, unless we extend the kinds, by taking into account those which modern ingenuity has, by means of various processes, added to the list. The whole amount may be nearly comprised under the heads of the cereal grasses, rice, the leguminous plants, farinaceous roots, such as the potato, and the fruit and pith of some palms and bananas. The other more numerous classes of vegetables, which supply food to man, may be regarded more as luxuries than necessaries; they certainly afford, however, an agreeable, and sometimes useful variety.

The inhabitants of very warm climates, live principally, and often entirely, on vegetable food; but animal food, as it seems more necessary, is used in greater abundance, in temperate and polar regions. I have formerly mentioned the nature and qualities of the domestic animals, furnished by Providence, for the supply of this want; and I shall here merely state, on this subject, that they are not only disposed to live gregariously, but are readily brought under obedience, becoming docile and inoffensive, and that they are all granivorous and herbivorous animals, classes for which ample provision has been made in the spontaneous fruits of the earth, or the simplest operations of agriculture, and which are particularly suited to their domestic condition, by the absence of that propensity for devouring each other, which exists in so many other species. It has been remarked, too, that the order to which they belong is, in general, less mild and tractable than that of the carnivorous animals ;* and, if this be the case, the deviation from the rest of their class is particularly worthy of observation, as indicating a peculiar intention in the Creator.

The flesh of all the domestic species, is acceptable to the human palate, and is, in some degree, necessary to

*M. Frederic Cuvier, Mem. du Mus.

lusciousness of sugar, on the one hand, or the insipidity of powdered chalk on the other; what an undertaking would it be, to satisfy the craving of hunger with any of those vegetables!

"It will be in vain to urge, in opposition to the foregoing position, that custom, in particular instances, renders many things tolerable, and even pleasing to the taste, which at first were disgusting; for it would be found, that, in such instances, custom has usually risen from necessity, which often brings us acquainted with strange companions; or from a depraved taste. None have ever consented voluntarily to feed on the flesh of vultures or of ravens; and caviare will always be caviare to the multitude."*

If there be any thing overstrained in the statement of these analogies, the observations at least tend to present to us proofs of adaptation and beneficent design, and to remind us of those numerous contrivances, by which the organized world is so singularly fitted for the subsistence and happiness of man.

FOURTH WEEK-FRIDAY.

HUMAN FOOD.-FRUITS-THEIR QUALITIES.

ONE of the peculiar provisions for the food of animals, with which vegetable nature abounds, is that which attaches the seed to an edible fruit. These productions are certainly intended by the Creator for the use of the lower as well as the higher species of animated beings, and, while there are some kinds appropriated exclusively to the former, there are qualities bestowed upon others,

* Kidd's Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 218-221. [The barely passable pun with which the above extract concludes, will need explanation to many. The word caviare, as used the first time, signifies a kind of food prepared in the south of Europe from the roes of fish; as used the second time, it has the force of a Latin word, meaning Beware. Multitudes, nevertheless, eat this caviare, especially in Lent, and are glad to get it.-AM. ED.]

which show them to be peculiarly destined to add to the enjoyments of the latter. It is to these qualities, as indicating beneficent design, that I intend, in the present paper, to advert.

I begin by remarking, as a proof that fruits were created by the Author of Nature for the express purpose of food, that, although they are appendages to the seed, they are in no sense essential to it. As far as the preservation and perpetuation of the plant are concerned, they are mere superfluities; and, as nothing is made in vain, we must look for some other purpose in their formation. Nor shall we be at a loss to perceive that this purpose is what it has already been stated to be. Let us consider some examples. For these, I shall have recourse to the recent posthumous work of Dr. Macculloch.

In the strawberry, the fruit is the receptacle, a spongy substance, with an expanded surface, to which the seeds are attached superficially. Though in a very different class, with a very different law, as to the relation between the flower and the seed, it is a similar part, which sustains the seeds in the thistle and dandelion. The analogy of these, as well as of many in the same division with itself, shows that, if the receptacle was necessary to the strawberry, it certainly need not have been a fruit. The dry receptacle of the thistle, is of equal use, in the support and protection of the seeds. The pineapple may be associated with this, without attending to botanical accuracy. Here, a whole plant has been occupied in producing a single fruit, almost as large as itself, while it is an entire superfluity, and, also, if we compare it with the fruit of the strawberry, much more complicated in its arrangement. It is interesting to remark, too, that the propagation of the plant, in both cases, is provided for by offsets, independent of the fruit, as if it had been foreseen that the use of the fruit would destroy the seeds which it contains. In the pineapple, a similar provision is further made, by what our author calls "that obstinately vital production, the crown," which is not only unpalatable, but offensive to the taste, and which seems,

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