CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 189 



French Academy by M. Gasparin, who presents it as the result of long 

 and serious inquiry into the condition of the working population. The 

 subject is one that cannot fail to be interesting wherever large masses 

 of population have to be fed, as is the case in England and various 

 parts of Continental Europe. Throughout France, the average amount 

 of nitrogen contained in the daily food of grown-up men may be taken 

 as from 20 to 2G grammes, about three fourths of an ounce. On the 

 Belgian frontier, however, this quantity is much reduced, and a mode 

 of economy is there practised upon the regimen, even when the supply 

 of alimentary substances is very small. "The mining population of 

 the environs of Charleroi, ; ' says M. Gasparin, " have resolved this 

 problem, to nourish themselves completely, preserve health and great 

 vigor of muscular strength, upon a diet with less than half of the nu- 

 tritive principles of that indicated by observation in Europe." The 

 distinctive fact appears to be the habitual use of coffee at every meal. 

 On rising in the morning, the workman makes what he calls his cof- 

 fee : it is a weak infusion of coffee and chiccory mixed in about equal 

 proportions. This drink, to which a tenth of milk is added, constitutes 

 almost entirely the liquid part of the alimentation. Before going to 

 work, the miner takes rather more than half a pint of this coffee, and 

 eats a large slice of white bread with butter. He carries with him to 

 the mine similar buttered slices and a tin bottle, which holds at most a 

 quart of coffee ; this food is consumed by him during the day. In the 

 evening, on going home, he eats potatoes dressed with cabbage, or 

 some other green vegetable, and finishes this repast with another slice 

 of bread and butter and a cup of his coffee. All the workmen exam- 

 ined during the inquiry state that they eat a loaf in two days. These 

 loaves weigh about 4 Ibs., which gives 2 Ibs. per day. They eat meat 

 only on Sundays and festival days, and on those days drink 2 litres of 

 beer. Their bread is always white, and of good quality ; but it is only 

 a few privileged workmen who eat meat on other days of the week ; 

 the exception is very rare. The quantity of butter consumed may be 

 reckoned at 2 ounces per day, and that of coffee and chiccory at 1 ounce 

 each also daily. The portion of potatoes and other vegetables cooked 

 together and eaten in the evening is at most l|lbs. During the week 

 the workmen drink neither beer nor any other fermented liquor ; coffee 

 is their only beverage. 



After tabulating these quantities, M. de Gasparin continues : "It 

 is thus to 15 grammes (about half an ounce) of azote instead of 23 that 

 the albuminous substance which enters into the ration of the Belgian 

 miners is reduced. This nourishment is still inferior to that of the 

 most austere religious orders imposed by mortification. I have studied 

 and analyzed the diet of the monks of La Trappe. Their pale com- 

 plexion, slow walk, the unimportant mechanical labor to which they 

 are subjected, and which the laborers of the country estimate at not a 

 fifth of theirs, all show that their alimentation is at a minimum in the 

 circumstances in which they are placed. Yet it contains 15 grammes 

 of azote, and 402 grammes of carbon, or of hydrogen, reduced to six 

 equivalents of carbon. The nutriment of these miners is inferior 

 also to that of the prisoners in our houses of detention, whose median- 



