659 



Sennaar, according to Mr. Burckhardt, it is alike 

 much esteemed, and sold in the markets. 



I cannot silently pass over some questions, 

 that have been agitated in different memoirs 

 published on occasion of my voyage on the 

 Oroonoko. Mr. Leschenault inquires, whether 

 the ampo (the clay of Java) may not be useful 

 in appeasing hunger occasionally, in circum- 

 stances when a person is destitute of food, or 

 compelled to have recourse to substances un- 

 wholesome or hurtful, though derived from the 

 organic kingdoms. I Relieve, that in experi- 

 ments tried on the consequences of long absti- 

 nence, an animal forced to swallow clay (in the 

 manner of the Otomacs) would suffer less than an- 

 other animal, the stomach of which had received 

 no aliment. An Italian physiologist struck 

 with the small quantities of the phosphats of 

 lime and magnesia, of silex, sulphur, soda, fluor, 

 iron, and manganese ; and the large quantities of 

 carbon, oxygen, azot, and hydrogen, which are 

 contained in the solid and liquid parts of the 

 human body ; inquires whether respiration may 

 not be regarded as a continued act of nutrition, 

 while the digestive apparatus is filled with clay. 

 The chemical analysis of the air inhaled and the 

 air expired does not favour this hypothesis. It 



* Physico-chemical Researches, vol. ii, p. 291, 294. 



2 u 2 



