156 LAKGE AMOUNT OF ALKALIES 



destined for the support of the respiratory process ; and 

 it can only be a very limited knowledge of the vast 

 wisdom displayed in the arrangements of organized 

 nature, which can look on the presence of so much 

 soda in the food and in the urine of the herbivora as 

 accidental. 



It cannot be accidental, that the life, the develop- 

 ment of a plant is dependent on the presence of the 

 alkalies which it extracts from the soil. This plant 

 serves as food to an extensive class of animals, and in 

 these animals the vital process is again most closely 

 connected with the presence of these alkalies. We 

 find the alkalies in the bile, and their presence in the 

 animal body is the indispensable condition for the pro- 

 duction of the first food of the young animal ; for with- 

 out an abundant supply of potash, the production of 

 milk becomes impossible. 



66. All observation leads, as appears from the pre- 

 ceding exposition, to the opinion, that certain non- 

 azotized constituents of the food of the herbivora 

 (starch, sugar, gum, &c.) acquire the form of a com- 

 pound of soda, which, in their bodies, serves for the 

 same purpose as that which we know certainly to be 

 served by the bile (the most highly carbonized product 

 of the transformation of their tissues) in the bodies of 

 the carnivora. These substances are employed to sup- 

 port certain vital actions, and are finally consumed in 

 the generation of animal heat, and in furnishing means 

 of resistance to the action of the atmosphere. In the 

 carnivora, the rapid transformation of their tissues is a 



