kind; for if he attempted to feed on one class alone he would certainly die. To explain this, a table, showing the differences in the composition of various kinds of food, is given at p. 120. The horizontal lines at the top and bottom of this table refer to 100 parts--it may be 100 ounces or 100 pounds of each kind of food mentioned in the table. The relative amount of the three classes in each food is shown by differently-marked bands-a diagonal shading indicating the first class or flesh-formers; a perpendicular shading the second class or heat-givers; and a spotted shading the third class or mineral ingredients. But as the heat-givers may produce either much or little heat, according as they contain much or little carbon, there is still another band to show how much of this element is in the food; the horizontal shading, expressing the quantity of carbon in the flesh-formers, and the black, the quantity in the heat-givers. If we want to find out how rich a food is in any of these three classes, we have only to put a pencil or a ruler perpendicularly against the end of the band denoting the class, and where the pencil crosses the upper or lower horizontal lines we read off the numbers of parts of this class in 100 parts of the food. If we measure bread in this way it will be found that it contains, in 100 parts, 7 parts of flesh-formers, 49 parts of heat-givers, and 2 parts of mineral matter. The two former contain between them 25 parts of carbon. In order to make the table more easy for reference, the readings are also given in a column before the shaded bands. 3. It is impossible in such a table as this to give more than a general idea of the nature of food, for it is difficult to find two samples even of the same food exactly alike in composition. In the case of cheese for instance, the kind expressed in the table is that used by the middle classes, and containing less butter, but more flesh-forming matters, than is found in the cheese used by the higher classes such as Stilton and Cheddar, but more butter and less flesh-forming matters than in skim-milk cheese. The same plan of taking moderate samples throughout the construction of the table has been followed in order that, as far as our information goes, average samples of the food may be displayed. The table is far from being perfect, and may be much improved when more varieties of the same food have been examined by chemists. 4. In looking at this table, striking differences will be found. Thus, cheese has a long line showing the amount of flesh-formers to be thirty-one parts in the hundred, while cooked meat has twenty-two parts, cabbage three parts, potatoes two parts, and carrots only one part. Sugar and butter have no diagonal shading at all, and therefore contain nothing to form flesh. Like differences will be found in the line denoting heatgivers. Although sugar and butter do not contain fleshformers, it will be seen that their lines of heat-givers stretch across the whole table, proving how rich they are in this class though wanting in the former. Sometimes the differences in the composition of the various kinds of food arise from absolute poverty in the particular classes of ingredients, but at other times they are owing to one variety of food containing more water than another kind. Turnips, potatoes, parsnips, and carrots, stand low in the table, because they contain so much water. The potato has seventy-five parts of water in one hundred parts, the carrot eighty-three parts, and the turnip ninety parts. If this water were driven off by heat, the dried vegetables would be found to contain nearly as much flesh-formers as Indian meal. Cabbages in the same way, though low in the table, stand as high as peas when dried. But as the water is always present in vegetables, as they are found in the market, the low nutritive value must be expressed in the table. This is one reason why such a large quantity of watery vegetables can be consumed at meals. Men who live upon potatoes alone, often eat eight or ten pounds in the day; and a late pasha of Egypt is recorded to have frequently devoured a melon weighing forty pounds after his dinner, but in doing this, he really eat only two and a half pounds of dry matter, and drank thirty-seven and a half pounds of water. 5. In order fully to see the meaning of the table, the pupil must examine it at home; but enough has been said to show that every kind of food has its own peculiar composition. Before any diet can be really nutritious it must contain the whole of the three classes into which food is divisible. Milk is an instance of a complete food, for it has the curd or cheese to form flesh, butter and sugar to give heat, and mineral matters to provide to the blood. One hundred parts of milk contains eighty-seven parts of water, not quite five parts of curd or cheese, three parts of butter, four and three-quarter parts of a peculiar sugar, and less than one part of mineral matter. In this case all the three classes are present, and in the preparation of our daily diet we endeavour to imitate this complete food by making mixtures to furnish a proper supply of all three classes to the body. Lean beef, for instance, contains much flesh-forming matter though little of the heat-giving class, but we provide for the deficiencies of the latter by accompanying it with potatoes. Bacon, on the contrary, from its fat, is rich in heat-givers though poor in flesh-formers; we eat with it beans, peas, or greens, which supply its deficiency in the latter. For a like reason fat ham is taken with fowls, and rice with mutton. Thus man has learned by experience, without knowing the reason, to eat together two kinds of food which differ in their nature, the one supplying the class of ingredients wanting in the others. When we know, as we have now begun to learn, in what these differences consist, our knowledge may be made useful in many ways by enabling us in future life to select cheap and nutritious food, and to make such mixtures as may be best suited for health and strength. LYON PLAYFAIR. Language. BY ROBERT GORDON LATHAM. LESSON I. HOW TO COMPARE LANGUAGES. "Many people of a strange speech and of a strange language whose words thou canst not understand." 1. A COMPARISON.-A little has been said about Language already in the first volume of this series; and that little was said when we compared the Gipsy with the Englishman, and, again, the Englishman with the Welshman, Irishman, and the Scotch Highlander. The reader cannot do better than refer to these remarks, take his pen in his hand, and copy out, in four separate columns, the different names for the first ten numerals in the English, Gipsy, Welsh, and Gaelic languages. Thus When he has done this, he will have made a table for himself, a table by which he is enabled to compare no fewer than four different specimens of four different languages with each other. Now this comparison should lead to a long train of thought; otherwise it will have been made in vain. It should lead to a long train of thought; for, undoubtedly, it suggests a great number of ideas, and originates a multiplicity of questions. In the first place, it is clear enough that the names for the several numbers in the four languages of the table are different. ONE is a different word from UN; and also different from AEN. On the other hand, however, the difference is only partial. It only extends to the vowels, OE, U, and aɛ. The consonant is the same throughout, being the sound of the letter N. So that there is a certain amount of differenceAnd, there is also a certain amount of likeness. This is one of the facts that we have got from our comparison. What is the next? It is only in three out of the four languages that we find this sound of N. In the Gipsy the consonant is K-the word being YEK. So that, in respect to the name of the numeral 1, the Welsh and Gaelic are more like the English than the Gipsy is. So much for the first of the numerals. 2. The second tells us something new. The table runs ENGLISH. WELSH. GAELIC. dau. do. GIPSY. |