486 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



how, even in the then imperfect state of organic chemistry, a man 

 who took so wide views could not look a little further and com- 

 pare the races of men that inhabited these kingdoms with each 

 other. He adds : 



" To the south of the tropic of Capricorn, wherever agriculture 

 is practiced, considerable resemblance to the northern temperate 

 Zone may be observed. In the southern part of Brazil, in Buenos 

 Ayres, in Chili, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in the temperate 

 zone of New Holland, wheat predominates; barley and rye, how- 

 ever, in the southernmost parts of these countries, and in Van 

 Dieman's Land. In New Zealand the culture of wheat is said to 

 have been tried with success." 



The weight of these considerations is still further enhanced* 

 when we consider that the food of men and animals consists 

 essentially of caseine, albumen, and fibrin, of the one kind, and 

 starch, gum and sugar, of the other, both of which classes exist 

 ready formed to the greatest extent in the cereals; that the animal 

 is after all nothing but a robber and plunderer living on the 

 stores of the plant — stores, too, that the plant had laid up for its 

 own use. 



As improvement in food and the comforts of life ennoble a 

 race so the opposite change debases it. In the case of two tribes 

 in South Africa, this deterioration is now going on. The Bush- 

 men have gone from the pastoral condition to that of robbers and 

 hunters, and have become correspondingly degraded in intellect 

 and vitiated in morals. The Koranas are also undergoing the 

 same change without any emigration to efi'ect a change of climate 

 in either case. 



The influence of food on the system is very evident in the 

 lower orders of animals, by the chemical changes it effects in the 

 nature of their flesh. Swine fed on beech nuts have a softer fat. 

 The flesh of the American black bear, when he feeds on fish, is 

 regarded as unfit to be eaten by even the Indians, so frouzy is its 

 flavor. The flesh of the partridge tastes of the buds on which it 

 feeds, and its range is limited to the region of those buds.' No 

 body thinks of eating the bobolink or skunk black bird as he is 

 called in this latitude, though known as the reed bird during the 



