184 THE HOUSE I LIVE IN. 



APARTMENT OF THE CIRCULATION. This 

 is a larger apartment than many would at first 

 suppose. It must of course be large, to 

 contain, as it does, twelve or fifteen quarts of 

 blood. It is like the hollow channels of two 

 great underground rivers, formed by the union 

 of ten thousand thousand larger or smaller 

 (but most of them very small) streams, running 

 side by side with each other, but never inter- 

 mingling their contents. As they have no 

 communication with each other in their course, 

 so they have no outlet at least none of any 

 considerable size. 



To talk here about the circulation of blood, 

 when my professed object is to describe a 

 chamber, may to many seem out of place ; but 

 to me, it appears indispensable. For such is 

 the irregularity of this circulatory apartment, 

 that it is next to impossible to describe it, in 

 any other way than by telling you something 

 of its course and contents. But I will be very 

 short. 



You may first think of all these streams as 

 if they were filled with blood ; and afterward, 

 as if emptied of their blood, and hollow. In 



