AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 501 



absorbed by the action of veins and lacteals. And as it is all 

 important that the gastric juice should be supplied with hydro- 

 chloric acid, and the bile soda, the feeder must not omit to use a 

 small portion of salt every other day in the food, as it yields the 

 requisite products. 



A steer four years old will consume nearly two tons of food in 

 a year, and the same amount will be removed from his system, in 

 the same length of time, through the circulating medium of the 

 blood. The muscles, nerves, bones and cartilage, supply them- 

 selves from the food, strike a balance, maintain an equilibrium, 

 and give back to nature all they do not require. His corporeal 

 identity is a mere illusion, as one portion is added another is 

 taken away. How can these remarkable peculiarities of begin- 

 ning growth, nutrition, development, and waste, be explained. 



Even the bones which appear so dense and solid, are constantly 

 removed and being added to, continually remodel and adapt them- 

 selves to the conditions of the growing creature. 



They can be thus explained : All things that live, either vegeta- 

 ble or animal, from the animalcule to man — take their starting 

 point from a capsule or cell, that in many thousands of instances 

 can only be perceived by the most powerful microscope, and if a 

 thousand cells were examined, though each intended to produce 

 a different result and develop the likeness of their individual 

 parents from a tadpole to a man, no difference could be distin- 

 guished between them. They both pass through successive meta- 

 morphosis; the one reaches maturity, with all the functions of hu- 

 manity, and the other becomes a frog. 



Characteristics are imparted by human parents to their chil- 

 dren, such as resemblance of form, feature, figure, gesture, quali- 

 ties of the mind, &c. And permit me to assure you, that the 

 reason why our present race of men, and women, exhibit so few 

 of the peculiarities that belonged to our progenitors, is, that they 

 lived in an age of great events, and their minds were stored with 

 solid knowledge, their conversations with each other were about 

 the great men of the day in both Hemispheres, and the result was 

 Washington, Webster, Chatham, Pitt, and others too numerous to 

 mention. And now their equals are not to be found in the world 



