754 Meeting of the British Association. | Oct., 
tively of the absolute quantity of food taken; a certain proportion of 
the starch of the food, varying according to the quantity taken and the 
necessity of respiration, escapes the converting action of the saliva, 
and is stored up in the liver. This liver-starch is being taken con- 
stantly back into the blood to supplement the respiratory elements of 
the food, and in the blood is converted into sugar, probably next into 
lactic, and finally into carbonic acid. Hence the presence of sugar, 
normally, in small proportion in the blood of the right side of the 
heart, hence, likewise, its presence in the right side of the heart of 
animals fed exclusively upon meat, in whose portal blood not a trace 
of sugar is discoverable. 
In three papers Dr. Edward Smith entered into a very elaborate 
inquiry into the nutritive principles of food; the proportions in which 
they entered into the different kinds of food; and the most useful 
combinations of different articles of diet. He showed that there were 
four methods in use for estimating the nutritive value of food. Ist. 
The weight of the food. 2nd. The nitrogenous and carboniferous 
elements in it. 38rd. The nitrogenous food, carbon and hydrogen 
(reckoned as carbon) in food. 4th. The nitrogen and carbon in food. 
The mode of determining these he entered into at considerable length. 
He advocated the desirability of an inquiry into the amount of food 
which is necessary for the support of the system. 
GEOGRAPHY AND Erunonocy. (Section EH.) 
Burton on Dahomey—Spruce on the Purus—Bates on the Amazons— 
Dr. Livingstone’s Communications. 
Carratn Burton made a very interesting and valuable contribution 
on the subject of the kingdom of Dahomey. His account is totally 
different from those hitherto given, but it is distinct and positive. He 
states the population of the country at less than 150,000, of whom not 
more than one-fifth are men. The accounts of the profusion of human 
blood shed on festival days he declares to be a wild exaggeration of a 
peculiar custom—a mark of filial affection—requiring that all events 
should be communicated to a dead parent by a human being specially 
sent to the other world. ‘Thus every extraordinary occurrence demands 
a murder, in order that the king’s father may be duly informed. On 
stated occasions in the year are larger sacrifices. The whole number 
of victims, however, even on the occasion of these annual festivals, 
he estimates at from 35 to 40—a number wonderfully smaller than 
others have told us, but still horrible enough. All these victims are 
prisoners and guilty of severe crimes, or are prisoners of war. They 
are stupefied before being put to death, and the execution is performed 
in the presence of the king and by his chief ministers. * 
* Whilst we give Captain Burton’s version of the state of affairs in Dahomey, 
it is right that we should remind our readers of that of Jules Gérard, who visited 
the king during a “Grand Custom.” His account was communicated to ‘ The 
Times,’ and to these pages (No. I., p. 209), and he appears to think that when 
