under the tropical sun of the torrid zone, and among "Greenland's icy mountains ;" though in children it is a little higher, about 102° to 103°, and in the aged, a little lower than 98°; yet never varying, whoever or wherever the subjects, over five or six degrees above 98°, or two or three below it, without arresting life.

The far greater heat of the body than of surrounding objects is a matter of perpetual observation by us, the coldness of stones, iron, ice, etc., furnishing examples. Even in summer this difference is great, as known by laying the hand on a corpse after it has become cold, that is, has sunk to the temperature of surrounding air and objects.

Of course the body, thus heated up so much above surrounding bodies, is constantly GIVING OFF caloric, in harmony with the universal tendency of heat to seek an equilibrium, just as a hot brick or iron between two cold ones naturally gives off its heat to the others, till all become equal in temperature. The amount of heat given off by the human subject every hour and minute is, therefore, very great, as experience proves it to be.

But the re-supply must be equally great, else a permanent cooling would take place, and of course death would supervene. And this resupply must be furnished to all parts of the body. Nor merely to the outside, but internally as well as externally. Where does this re-supply take place? In the CAPILLARY SYSTEM OF THE Blood-vessels.

Though the blood undoubtedly gives off some of its life materials in the arteries, thus promoting its circulation, yet it expends most of its renewing energy in the capillary network of the blood-vessels. That capillary or hair-fine structure which appertains to the lungs, appertains equally to the blood-vessels. The arteries which come off from the heart are large, but branch off, again and again, till they become too small to be followed with the naked eye. A powerful microscope enables us to follow them into ramifications still more minute. But all the optical aid yet devised cannot trace them out to their almost infinitely minute ramifications so minute and so perfectly ramified, that the point of the finest needle cannot be inserted, however carefully, into the flesh without puncturing some of them, besides all it displaces. In this capillary structure it is that the blood yields its vitality to the system. Yields WHAT? HOW yields? Its yield of those materials which form bone, muscle, nerve, organ, etc., is not now up for discussion. But the means by which nature re-supplies the required HEAT, and sustains the required temperature of the system, being upon the tapis, how is it effected? By the mutual COMBUSTION of the oxygen in the blood derived from the breath, with the carbon in the blood derived from food. Nowhere in nature is heat produced except by some form of combustion; nor need we regard animal heat as an exception. And the more so, since chemistry assures us that these two gases, carbon and oxygen, have a strong affinity for each other -the affinity of oxygen for carbon being even greater than of oxygen for iron-so that when forced into close contact with each other, in this capillary system of the blood-vessels, they BURN EACH OTHER UP by creating spontaneous combustion, the result of course being heat, so that this system is heated up much as we heat a room. Wood-all that can be burned-contains a large proportion of carbon, and hence its formation of charcoal, which is almost all carbon. Add a little fire to start with, and then blow a current of air upon the fire, and the oxvgen of the air com

bining with the carbon of the wood produces combustion and evolves heat. But the carbon in the blood being unencumbered, free, and very abundant, and thus of the oxygen, there is no need of fire to start with. They burn without it. They burn each other up SPONTANEOUSLY. "It whis

tles ITSELF." Thus is engendered that immense amount of animal heat within the system which re-supplies that given off by the cooling process just explained, and the body, together with all its parts, internal and external, kept at that elevated temperature necessary for the maintenance of life.

What next? As the combustion of wood forms smoke and ashes, so that of these two gases might be expected to deposite like substances. And so far we find it does. And the ashes, or rather coals, of this internal combustion, chemically analyzed, are almost identical in their chemical compounds with charcoal, the residuum of burnt wood, both being composed mainly of CARBONIC ACID. The blood, immediately on this combustion of its oxygen, which gives it its bright red color, assumes a dark, livid hue, resembling in kind the color of charcoal, though not as dark, because containing less carbon. Combustion can never take place, out of the system or in, without creating this acid; and that process of combustion just explained, by which the system is heated, forms some ten or twelve ounces of carbonic acid per day. This substance is hostile to life, and exceedingly poisonous, as seen when inhaled in a tight room in which charcoal is consuming. Its superabundance is fatal to life. Hence, unless some means were devised for transporting it from all parts of the system where this combustion creates it, those parts must die. How is the system cleared of this foe?

By the iron in the blood. That iron first made love, in the lungs, to the oxygen, also in the lungs, and wooed her to leave her husband, the nitrogen of the air, and run away with him, which she, faithless one, gladly seconded. But no sooner has she been brought in close proximity, in the capillary blood-vessels, with the carbon also in the blood, than she finds another lover in carbon, which she loves still better. Carbon recip. rocates this love; when, jilting her iron paramour, she rushes into the arms of this charcoal paramour so ardently, that they consume each other, and die of excess of love, leaving only their burnt carcasses in the form of carbonic acid.

The iron of the blood thus left desolate-good enough for him-he runs away with oxygen, the wife of the nitrogen of the air, and carbon served him just right to run away with his stolen wife-by way of making the best of his desertion, proffers his hand to this carbonic acid, is accepted, concludes the union, and, being a great traveler, takes his new bride along back with him by slow and leisurely movements to the lungs. This union, not being extra cordial, this carbonic acid finds in the nitrogen of the air in the lungs a much more agreeable companion than in the iron, and, quitting the iron, rushes through this gauze membrane of the lungs, combines with this nitrogen, and is brought out of its pent-up inclosure into the wide world, again to enter into the formation of vegetables and food.

Nor is the iron sorry on account of this desertion, because he has found a new supply of oxygen, which he likes far better than carbonic acid. Or thus: The nitrogen in the air, and the iron in the blood, mutually agree to swOP WIVES, each liking the other's wife better than his

own, and as these wives both love each other's husbands better than their own, they "jump at " the proposed exchange. This series of faithless desertions on the one hand, and of runaway-matches on the other, accomplishes that grand office of heating up the system so comfortable in itself, and so indispensable to life—a means as ingenious as the end attained is indispensable. By these means, the system guards itself against the otherwise fatal consequences of those sudden and extreme changes of the atmosphere from heat to cold-is prevented from freezing on the one hand, and from burning on the other, and always kept at the required temperature.

This shows us what the primary office of respiration is the generation of ANIMAL HEAT. It also shows that one of the principal offices of digestion is the subserviency of this same end-heat manufacturing.

Philosophical reader, you who love to trace out the relations of cause and effect, say whether these combinations, evolutions, and re-combinations are not beautiful in the highest possible degree. And do they not go far toward explaining the INSTRUMENTALITIES by which life takes place? This wonderful process, thus far considered an unfathomable mystery, the very attempt to solve which has been considered blasphemy, bids fair to be brought within the range of scientific investigation. That great philosopher, Liebig, has put us on the track, and thus opened a new and most delightful field of philosophical research.

GREAT CURIOSITY

THE Boston Post states that a Bosjeman or Bushman, from South Africa, the first specimen of his race ever brought to this country, is now in the city, and will shortly be exhibited to the public. This race of men, certainly one of the most curious in their physical organization and habits on the face of the globe, inhabit a district of country lying some fifteen hundred miles to the northeast of Cape Town. The region of country which they inhabit is mountainous and difficult to approach. The Bushmen have manifested the strongest dislike to any intercourse with other people. They are exceedingly shy, and always fly at the approach of the white man. They have no laws, no chiefs, no language, except a kind of guttural utterance, very disagreeable to the ear. Their food consists of reptiles, as lizards, ants, etc. In stature they seldom exceed four feet four inches in height. They live in the bush, having no shelter of any kind, and dress in skins of the rudest description.

The Post, in speaking of the Bushman now in Boston, says: "He has been taught to speak a little English, and we understand that arrangements are now being made to exhibit him in this city, a part of the funds arising therefrom to be appropriated to the education of this specimen of nature's production— this evidently connecting link between the animal and rational works of the great Creator. When we take into view that he is a fair sample of a race of men inhabiting our globe, and not a dwarf of that race, he is truly a great curiosity. He is about eighteen years old, three feet eleven inches in height, and of a medium stature of his tribe. Great animal propensities are developed in the formation of his head, low forehead, high cheek bones, small black eyes, flat nose, small ears, color light chocolate, hair black, curly, but growing entirely different from the negro, starting out from the head in little bunches, leaving other parts of the head entirely bare-his limbs are perfect in their shape, and well proportioned in every respect."

So it is reported by its enemies. One big gun after another, aided by many small arms, have of late been discharged against Phrenology, and every antagonist declares that he has killed it stone-dead. Surely it must be dead now, for it has been killed more than fifty times since Dr. Gall first began to proclaim its doctrines in Vienna. The priests of that city, learning of the increased interest taken in this young science, and of the growing popularity of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim, through the legal authorities, issued their bull against the science, stopped the mouths and pens of its only two advocates, and virtually drove them from their country, homes, friends, and extensive business. They and their science were fired at and made butts of ridicule in all their journeyings, particularly in England and Scotland. Drs. Gordon, Prichard, Rayet, Barclay, Philligon, Mr. Rennel, and Professor Rudolphi, of Germany, violently attacked the science, and brought all manner of accusations and objections against it, and boasted of having completely overthrown it. If they did not kill it DEAD, it was not because they did not try hard enough; for intellect, wit, and sarcasm have all been exhausted against it. The stereotyped objections of "worse than open infidelity," "rank fatalism and materialsm," have been hurled against it from first to last; and its advocates have been stigmatized as most dangerous co-workers with Satan, to bring about his hellish purposes. Those most able quarterlies, the Edinburgh and British Reviews, brought their all-powerful engines and batteries to bear against it, and, as they supposed, demolished it, and silenced its advocates. In this country, it has been killed and buried by Dr. Sewell, who ransacked the country for skulls, facts, and arguments against it, and secured the great men of the country-who knew comparatively nothing about it, excepting what he told them-to give their testimony against it. Fearful that some electric breeze MIGHT fan it to life again, Dr. Reese, a noted (?) man, classified it with the "Humbugs of New York," and consigned it and its believers to eternal obscurity. Nine years since, a Princeton Professor killed the science mathematically, and consigned it scientifically to the tomb. Within a few months, the battle has been commenced afresh. The Ladies Repository, of Ohio, opened the contest, and killed Phrenology again, although it admitted its truth. It also stabbed one of the phrenological generals in the back, with a false weapon. Then Captain Prime brought his sixteenth century battery to bear against it; and, although he claimed the victory, yet did not

leave the field very honorably, nor until there was a hole found in his memory. Next the commander-in-chief, General Clark, of the Methodist Quarterly, a veteran soldier, well tried and drilled in tactics and war, full of fight, made a presumptuous onset, Captain Walker-like, against one of the phrenological advocates, and so effectually used him up, that his shadow, even, has been looked for in vain. But, not satisfied with this victory, Lieutenant Peck, of the same regiment, full of BURNING zeal and unbounded hostility, came forth single-handed, and gave full vent to all his fury; and his thirst for blood was so great, that he did not cease fighting until he had killed his enemy out and out, twenty-three times, leaving a heavy curse upon all who believed in Phrenology, "although many of them were among his intimate friends, AND many more were most respectable men in society, holding important offices of trust, and having the souls of men in their charge.

But, last of all, though not least, a schoolmaster, of some note in the town where he lives, being particularly successful in his experiments in electricity, has raised his battle-axe, thrown his bomb-shells and lancets, fired his cannons and pop-guns, set off his rockets and squibs, and brought all the old anti-phrenological war weapons, however rusty, with all the new ones he could collect from philosophy, history, and chemistry, to bear with one general rush against Phrenology and its followers; and such a havoc, devastation, and lamentation have resulted from it, as cannot (on account of its diminutiveness) be compared with the burning of Moscow, or the carnage of Waterloo. So recent was this last battle, that the effects are still felt; for there was a mighty effort, and it was not without its deadly consequences.

Surely, Now Phrenology must be dead! dead!! DEAD!!! and how many more times it must be killed, before it WILL die, time will determine. If it can be proved to have no foundation in nature, and not sustained in philosophy, surely it should have been so proved by this time; and if anathemas, denunciations, and warnings, would have kept the people from investigating its claims, their inquiries would long ago have ceased, and especially now, since so many guns have been fired against it, and the people so faithfully warned; but, instead of investigation having ceased, it is greatly on the increase, and believers are multiplying daily, just in proportion as it is known and correctly understood. Opposition only CREATES an INTEREST, and Attracts attentiON; so that our opponents are really helping on the cause wonderfully. For this, we thank them; although they mean it for our hurt, yet it is turned to our good.

One of the greatest objections, and in fact the foundation of all objections, is its alleged IRRELIGIOUS tendency; as though religion was actually endangered by this science. The old adage, that "truth is mighty, and

* See Phrenological Journal, 1847. No. 3, page 102.