REVIEWS. 
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bring about this beneficial result as those which are cultivated for human food. 
By the shade they afford to the ground in the hot season, they check that evapo- 
ration, and prevent that excessive hardening of the surface, which, in an exposed 
wild, render the soil impervious and inert ; while, on the other hand, the humid- 
ity which they imbibe during the rainy season, is again given out by continual 
and gradual evaporation, and they minister to the refreshment and production of 
all around them. In uncultivated countries the weather is mostly in extremes. 
Rain, when it comes, takes the form of an overwhelming flood, not gently enter- 
ing into, and moistening the soil, but rushing along the surface, tearing up one 
place, strewing another with the debris, and reducing both to a state of indiscri- 
minate ruin ; while, scarcely has the flood gone by, when tne returning heat 
evaporates the little moisture which is left behind, and burns up the course and 
scanty vegetation which the rains have fostered. All vegetable productions af- 
fording food, contain, in some proportion or other, a farinacious* or non-fibroiis, 
and granular substance, which, when dried, may be grounded or pounded into 
flour or meal, and if boiled in water, will form a pulpy substance. In regard 
to the consistency of this farinaceous principle, it exists sometimes in the form 
of an almost limpid fluid, and thence through different degrees of acquiring 
consistency, called inspissation, until in some cases, its hardness approaches to 
woody fibre. Those vegetable substances, which contain the largest proportion 
of farinaceous matter are best adapted for human food. Of this kind are both 
seeds and tubers. Farinaceous seeds are divided into two classes : the first of 
these are the seeds of annual plants, which are the true grasses, or plants of simi- 
lar properties. They are styled the Cerealio.f corn plants, or grain bearing plants, 
the chief of which are wheat, rye, barley, oats, millet, rice, and maize. The 
tribe of cereal grasses is not restricted to these seven varieties, but includes nu- 
merous others, which, if they are not equally employed as food, are neglected 
only on account of the smallness of their seeds. None are unwholesome in 
their natural state, except Lolium tetmdentum (darnel) a common weed in many 
parts of England, the effects of which are undoubtedly deleterious, although 
perhaps much exaggerated. In the sepulchres of the Egyptian kings, which 
were opened by the naturalists and other scientific persons, who accompanied 
the French army to Egypt, was found the common wheat in vessels, which were 
so perfectly closed, that the grains retained both their form and their colour. 
The wheat buried there for several thousand years, was a proof of the ancient 
civilization of Egypt, as convincing as the ruins of temples, and the inscriptions 
of obelisks. The corn-plants, such as they are found under cultivation, do not 
grow wild in any part of the earth. In Sicily there is a wild grass called CEgilops 
ovata, which, it has been held, may be changed into corn by cultivation. Pro- 
fessor Larapie, of Bourdeaux, affirms, that having cultivated the seed of the 
CEgilops, the plant has changed its character, and has made approaches to that 
of wheat. Sir Josuph Banks, in a paper addressed by him to the Horticultural 
Society, in the year 180.5, stated, that having received from a lady some packets 
of seeds, and among them one labelled, " Hill Wheat," the grains of which were 
scarcely larger than those of our wild grasses, but which, when viewed through a 
magnifying lens, were found exactly to resemble wheat; he sowed these grains 
in his garden, and was much surprised on obtaining, as their produce, a good 
crop of spring wheat, and the grains of the ordinary size. Every inquiry that 
* From /(■(•/»«, meal. f From Ceres, the Goddess of corn. 
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