490 , [Assembly 



to preserve life, and as it is like all other bodies subject to the loss 

 of heat by contact with an atmosphere or any thing else colder 

 than itself, death in cold weather would soon ensue from this cause 

 if the material for the production of this element were not con- 

 stantly supplied. This takes place in the lungs of animals by a 

 process similar to that of combustion under any other circumstan- 

 ces, and the result is the same. Oxygen, a supporter of ci»mbus- 

 tion, is inhaled from the atmosphere by the lungs, at the same time 

 the blood is passing through them. The carbon of the i)lood is by 

 contact with the oxygen consumed which generates heat, and the 

 result is carbonic acid gas, which is expelled into the atmosphere 

 and becomes a part of the food of the vegetable world. The 

 amount ol the carbon consumed in the production of animal heat is 

 in proportion to the degree of exposure to cold, and as it is of the 

 same chemical composition with the flesh and fat of animals, is so 

 much subtracted from the material Avhich would have contributed 

 to the thrift of the animal. The inference derivable from the 

 foregoing facts, that good shelter is to a great extent equivalent to 

 food, I hardly need to state, as it will readily present itself to 

 every mind; and here, if a farmer may be allowed to be curious as 

 men of other professions may be, I might state that the cavities in 

 the lungs of an animal, where the air and blood come in contact, 

 are separated by a membrane of so close a texture that the blood 

 cannot pass through it, yet at the same time is sufficiently open to 

 admit of the passage of air, gas or any substance of equal tenuity. 



Gentlemen, I am here in sight of institutions devoted to learn- 

 ing, endeavoring, in a limited way, to show the connexion between 

 Sience and Agricultiu-e; and for aught that I know have excited 

 the risibility of those whose especial business it is to teach, by the 

 broken and imperfect manner in which I have done it. We far- 

 mers have received but little aid from the fund at the disposal of 

 the Regents of the University, or any other fund, except it be the 

 Common School Fund, (and with this it is supposed our education 

 must end;), but I submit it to the sober common sense of the farmers 

 who hear me, if the knowledge I have here been endeavoring to 

 communicate, or something like it, is jiot as practically useful and 

 as likely to be remembeied as some things that are now taught un- 

 der the auspices of the Regents, such, for example, as the declen- 



