C4 Critical Catalogue.[July

The following ideas(page 33) are far more to the purpoſe, and certainly do the authór no diſcredit,

« If you want experiments, Mr. Bakewell made them; but not like thoſe of Reaumur or Spallanzani, vainly hoping to diſcover how the operation of digeliion was performed. With tar more rational views,—his obje was to determine which animal was moſt diſpoſed to feed, well Knowing that it is the blind zeal of philoſophy to be ſearching after cauſes when we want to obtain a knowledge of effes. With this intent he weighed the ſheep and alſo weighed their food; and by trying a variety of experiments on diferent kinds of ſheep he clearly determined which would produce the moſt on a given quantity of food. I do not wiſh to bave it underſtood that thoſe animals, like San@orius, lived in ſcales, or that their egeſta as well as ingeſta were aſcertained by weight and meaſure; but their quan- tity of food was regularly weighed, and their increaſing weight as accurately aſcertained.

«« Many of the theoretical writers on the buſineſs of digeſtion have endeavoured to amu/e the public as much by their analyſis of the dif- ferent kinds of food, as the anatomiſts have by their inveſtigations of the animal œconomy. Dodâtor Fordyce has condued this ſpecies of refinement to its utmolt limits; and, for the purpoſe of tracing the ſubje& of nutrition to its firſt principles, endeavours to prove that air and water are the firſt elements of food both to vegetable and ani- mal nature. But ſuppoſeall this was ſtri&ly true; yet this water and air muſt be converted into vegetable matter, and the vegetable mat- rer muſt be digeſted and changed into animal matter; and though it may be proved that water and air are both neceſlary on thoſe occaſions, yet they are two proceſſes in nature which are as far beyond our power of imitation as they exceed the limits of the human underſtandiag: fach little obſervations may look well on paper, but do not add a fin- gle grain to our knowledge of the ſubje&. Dr. Fordyce tried the experiment with a grain of muſtard-ſeed*, but Mr. Bakewell made his experiments upon Acres; 2nd though he never might attempt to inveſtigate either the vegetable or the animal proceſs by which theſe opérations are performed, yet he endeavoured to ſhow how land by the agency of water might be made to produce the greateſt quantity of food for ſheep and cattle, and how theſe animals might produce the greateit quantity of food for man.” é

Again, on Mr. Cline’s hypotheſis, that““ an animal with large lungs is capable of converting a given quantity of food into more nouriſh- ment, than one with ſmaller lungs; and therefore has a greater apti- tude to fatten;?? Mr. Hunt remarks, that he had lately ſeen a fine ex- ample of a high bred ſheep(New Leiceſter we ſuppoſe) which was excecdingly fat, and was aſtoniſhed to find the lungs ſo remarkably mall. Bis aſtoniſhment is ſurely no proof of-praétice, which would have proved to him, that ſuch is a general conſequence; Mr. Cliné, we apprehend, in this caſe, to be both right and wrong. Animals with large, expanded offfals, lungs, liver,&c- are ſurely capable of con verting a given quantity of food into a greater weight of ſolid fleſh, than thoſe which have ſmaller langs and ſmaller bones;'but they have not, therefore, a greater aptitude to fatten. Baut we acknow-

& Sce Fordyce on Digeſtion,&c. page 74,