VERY RAPID IN CARNIVORA. 77 



41bs. of starch, (16) and while the savage with one ani- 

 mal and an equal weight of starch could maintain life 

 and health for a certain number of days, he would 

 be compelled, if confined to flesh, in order to pro- 

 cure the carbon necessary for respiration, during the 

 same time, to consume five such animals. 



It is easy to see, from these considerations, how 

 close the connection is between agriculture and the 

 multiplication of the human species. The cultivation 

 of our crops has ultimately no other object than the 

 production of a maximum of those substances which 

 are adapted for assimilation and respiration, in the 

 smallest possible space. Grain and other nutritious 

 vegetables yield us, not only in starch, sugar, and 

 gum, the carbon which protects our organs from the 

 action of oxygen, and produces in the organism the 

 heat which is essential to life, but also in the form 

 of vegetable fibrine, albumen, and caseine, our 

 blood, from which the other parts of our body are 

 developed. 



Man, when confined to animal food, respires, like 

 the carnivora, at the expense of the matters pro- 

 duced by the metamorphosis of organised tissues ; 

 and, just as the lion, tiger, hyaena, in the cages of a 

 menagerie, are compelled to accelerate the waste of 

 the organised tissues by incessant motion, in order to 

 furnish the matter necessary for respiration, so, the 

 savage, for the very same object, is forced to make 

 the most laborious exertions, and go through a vast 

 amount of muscular exercise. He is compelled to 



