NUG.E ETHXOLOGICAE. 231 



La Condamine lived three weeks at an elevation where the pressure was 

 17,000 lbs. It is true, that the domestic animals have been carried by- 

 man into a great diversity of abodes which they would never have sought 

 voluntarily; but in them the change has been followed by the most re- 

 markable vaiiations of form, size and color. This will be alluded to in 

 another connexion. 



Man is projjerJy an omnivorous animal. He is not confined to one 

 character of food. Flesh, fish, herbs, roots, grain, fruits, and even rep- 

 tiles, insects and the bark of trees, form a portion of his aliment. There 

 is scarcely a living thing, not known to be venomous, which has not at 

 one time served as food for man. The locusts and wild-honey of the 

 Baptist are familiar to all. Travellers in Africa have seen the large ser- 

 pents of the constrictor kind dressed for the table, and have pronounced 

 them excellent food. Viper broth is recommended by the old medical 

 writers as supremely medicinal. The Helix pomatia, a species of snail, 

 is habitually eaten in Switzerland, and quantities of it are pickled for ex- 

 portation. The inhabitants of the arctic regions subsist almost entirely 

 upon the raw flesh and blubber of the whale and seal. Whole tribes of 

 men have confined themselves, from necessity or choice, to a single ar- 

 ticle of diet. The ancient writers give an account of certain African 

 people whom they style Ichthyophagi, Elephantophagi and Struthiophagi. 

 The late American Exploring Expedition gives us reason to believe that 

 tl^e Struthiophagi are not fabulous. Life appears to be equally well sus- 

 tained by vegetable as animal diet. The West India uegroes who live 

 almost exclusively on fruits and the juice of the sugar cane, are just as 

 vigorous as the meat-eating nations of northern Europe, and no more so. 

 Caravans in the desert of Zahara have lived for weeks on nothing but 

 gum arable, and persons lost in our forests have supported life by the 

 mucilaginous bark of the slippery elm, (Ulmus fulva.) Writers have 

 disputed much as to what is the naUiral food of man. As we know no- 

 thing in nature but what we learn from experience, it might, I think, be 

 answered with propriety, that his natural food is precisely that which he 

 eats. It will probably be found that the most appropriate diet for any 

 people is that with which they are placed most in relation, and which 

 their instincts demand. Under all circumstances man would appear to 

 enjoy the greatest health and vigor with a mixed diet of both animal and 

 vegetable substances. His digestive apparatus is adapted to such a diet. 

 His stomach is simple, as in the carnivora, but so constructed as to re- 

 tain the food for a greater length of time. In the carnivora, the teeth 

 rise into sharp points, and the canine teeth are long, sharp and strong, to 

 enable them to seize and tear their prey. The enamel is all on the out- 



