\NIMAL, VEGETABLE, AND MINERAL FOOD. 137 



strongest race of men, and BO wo find it. Playfair says, that 

 one English navvy will do as much work as four rice-eating 

 A nil is. The Sepoys, moreover, who gave us so much trouble in 

 India, were the flesh-eating men of the upper provinces, while 

 our best allies were the Ghoorkas, who are also omnivorous. 



As previously mentioned, the season and climate have a great 

 deal to do with the variety, quantity, and quality of the food 

 to be taken. In a warm climate, or in summer, when the 

 atmosphere is charged with vegetable gases, a vegetable diet, 

 accompanied by plenty of salt as mineral matter, suffices for our 

 wants. While in a cold climate, or in winter, we require the 

 strongest animal food we can obtain, accompanied by very 

 little mineral matter, and this we get in animal food. 



Thus we find the Arab and the African, using great quan- 

 tities of salt with their vegetables the children sucking rock 

 salt as ours here do sticks of candy. The Esquimaux again, 

 as Sir John Ross assures us, can consume daily, 20 Ibs. of flesh 

 and oil. Sometimes he will wash down this enormous mass 

 with a quart or two of train oil, and finish with, as a dessert, a 

 dozen tallow candles. They eat very little salt, and their first 

 demand in spring is for a supply of it. The Indians in Canada 

 live in a similar manner ; the villages near their winter en- 

 campments being besieged in spring for the same article. 



Concerning the mineral ingredients of our food, Prof. 

 1'layfair says : " Unfortunately the knowledge of this sub- 

 ject is far from being precise ; certain mineral bodies such as 

 phosphate of lime, magnesia, soda, potash, common salt, tho 

 sulphates of the alkaline bases, and oxide of iron, are absolutely 

 .rial to nutrition. It was formerly a punishment in 

 Holland, to feed great criminals on food free from salt ; and 



