FURNITURE, AND ITS USES. 223 



much more, and some 180,000 pounds. The 

 truth is that it presses very hard, with a force 

 apparently equal if not superior to that of the 

 gripe of a strong man with his fist. But it 

 does not press with a force equal to thousands 

 of pounds, nor even hundreds. I suspect it 

 may be, in an adult, from 20 to 30 pounds. 



One reason why anatomists have made such 

 strange calculations is, that they could not 

 conceive how the blood could otherwise be 

 carried so swiftly to all parts of the system. 

 The distance it has to go in some instances is 

 great, for the arteries are very crooked. But 

 they seemed to forget that by the curious 

 structure we have mentioned, the veins were 

 all the while getting empty, and a sort of 

 vacuum forming in their cavities, into which the 

 blood would naturally* rush from the arteries, 

 so that the pressure or rather the resistance of 

 the latter to the contents of the heart would 

 be constantly diminishing, and thus there would 

 be a tendency to a regular current of the 

 blood. 



* It is said and with some truth that nature 

 abhors a vacuum. 



