8134 



Notices of New Books. 



wheat midge are written mainly with this object : he states this paper 

 was not compiled as a scientific communication, but his biographer 

 truthfully adds, " it is written in that masterly style which bespeaks 

 the scientific character of the author." In this, as in almost every 

 inquiry, he seems to have devoted himself to the service of the farmer, 

 not omitting that fruitful source of absurd speculation, the potato 

 disease. He traced the disease to no fabulous origin, invented no Aphis 

 Vastator, suggested no nostrums by which it would be effectually eradi- 

 cated, but he showed how two-thirds of the nutritive portions of sound 

 potatoes existed in those which were diseased. " It seems," says 

 Henslow, "to be a providential arrangement that as yet the really 

 nutritive portion of the potato is very little injured, even in those tubers 

 which become partially decayed and appear to be wholly unfit for food. 

 The nutritious portion of the potato consists of delicate white grains of 

 starch-like matter, which are enclosed in little cells. When the cells 

 are broken the grains fall out, and collecting together form a beauti- 

 fully white flour. It is very easy to separate this flour from the rest 

 of the substance of the potato, and if a few persons in different villages 

 w r ould undertake to make the method generally known among the poor 

 a vast amount of wholesome food may yet be secured to them, which 

 otherwise they will suffer to perish. 1 ' He describes with the utmost 

 exactitude the process by which this flour may be obtained, the best 

 method of storing it up for future use, and how it might be used for 

 bread, if mixed with wheat flour in certain proportions, adding what 

 we all now know, " it is well understood that a very high per centage 

 of what is sold in the shops under the name of arrowroot is nothing 

 more than this very flour of potatoes. It is also passed off in London 

 under about a dozen different names as an important and nutritious 

 article of diet." 



Henslow carried the benevolent project of converting diseased 

 potatoes into wholesome food wherever he went ; he wrote, lectured 

 and experimented : he demonstrated beyond all question the sound- 

 ness of his views, but public prejudices were against him, and the 

 same suicidal policy which has introduced poisoned wheat induced 

 the farmers in his neighbourhood to neglect his advice, and sacrifice 

 their potatoes, year after year, on the shrine of some new experiment. 



But we are allowing ourselves to be carried away by the biography 

 of this delightful man, whose reputation is destined to outlive that of 

 many a more showy philosopher. The last subject he investigated 

 was perhaps the one which really occupied most seriously his 

 thoughts ; we allude lo the questio vexata of the celts : the existence 



