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On the Comparative Nutritive Propertioi o/' Dtjjerent Kinds 



of' Food. 



VERY interesting report on this subject was formerly pre- 

 sented to the French Minister of the Interior, by MM. Percy 

 and Vauquelin, two members of the Institute, the accuracy of 

 which may be depended on. It may, at this period of public 

 distress, be valuable in those families where the best mode oi' 

 supporting nature should be adopted at the least expence. 



The result of their experiments is as follows :— In bread, 

 every hundred pounds weight are found to contain eighty 

 pounds of nutritious matter. Butcher's meat, averaging the 

 various sorts, contains only thirty-five pounds in one hundred. 

 Broad beans eighty-nine. Pease, ninety-three. Lentils (a kind 

 of half pea, but little known in England), ninety-four pounds 

 in one hundred. Greens and turnips, which are the most 

 aqueous of all the vegetables used for domestic purposes, fur- 

 nish only eight pounds of solid nutritious substance in one hun- 

 dred. Carrots, fourteen pounds. And, what is remarkable, as 

 being in opposition to the hitherto acknowledged theory, one 

 hundred pounds of potatoes only yield twenty- five pounds of 

 substance^ valuable as nutrition. 



One pound of good bread is equal to two pounds and a half, 

 or three pounds, of the best potatoes ; and seventy-five pounds 

 of bread, and thirty pounds of meat, are equal to three hun- 

 dred pounds of potatoes. Or, to go more into detail, three 

 quarters of a pound of bread, and five ounces of meat, are 

 equal to three pounds of potatoes; one pound of potatoes is 

 equal to four pounds of cabbage, and three of turnips ; but one 

 pound of rice, broad beans, or French beans, is equal to three 

 pounds of potatoes. 



On an Excellc^it Mode of Coating Small Articles of Metal with 

 Tin. * By Thomas Gill, Esq. 



J^JIr Gill once witnessed the following superior mode of tin- 

 ning small articles, such as tacks, nails, &c., for instance, with 

 great economy and convenience. 



The workman having previously made the surfaces of the ar- 



* From Gill's Technical Repository. 



