4. That water and simple food are better for the blood than tea, coffee, and all kinds of spices and rich food.

5. That you must eat all your candy, apples, and nuts when at the table; for the stomach cannot digest your food properly under four or five hours, any more than a boy could learn his lesson if his playmate should disturb him, or in any way attract his attention while he was studying.

46. Remember, children, that our stomach is one of the most industrious and important organs in our whole bodies. If this be affected, our whole bodies are affected. We may injure our arm, and still be able to walk, to think, and talk; the same may be true with regard to a leg or foot; but if the stomach be sick, we can neither walk, run, nor use our limbs, and sometimes cannot even think. It is always performing its duties faithfully, whether we are eating, sleeping, or walking.

47. Let us, then, treat this organ with the regard and respect it deserves; let us be careful to eat nothing that shall have a tendency to injure us, or make us sick and unhappy; for, without health, our comfort and en joyment are both shortened or destroyed in a great degree. Is it right when physicians tell us that only one drop of the oil of tobacco, put on the tongue of a dog, will kill him in three minutes, to learn to love to eat the noxious weed in a milder form? You must never learn

You have not habits

to chew, or smoke, or take snuff. formed now, and I do hope that no bright-eyed little boy will be so disrespectful to his stomach as to introduce

46. What effect does the sickness of stomach have on the other organs? 47. How should we treat our stomachs? What habits should children never learn? What is one great reason that tobacco should not be used?

STOMACHS OF DIFFERENT ANIMALS.

25

to her acquaintance this filthy weed; for those who use it are daily losing that saliva which ought to be saved 'for the mastication of their food.

48. Man has only one stomach, and this is all he needs in the digestion of his food, and in preparing it for blood; but we see that different animals require and have different stomachs: some two, three, or four, as the occasion may require.

49. Lobsters and crabs have a very singular stomach. Near the lower end of it there are five little teeth placed on the opposite side; and these being moved up and down by muscles belonging to them, grind the food passed between them, which then goes out at the orifice or opening, into the intestines.

Some birds have two stomachs. The camel, ox, and other animals of that class, have four stomachs; they usually feed on grass and other vegetables, which they slightly chew, and it is carried into the paunch or first stomach; it here undergoes but little change, when it is sent into the second, which is arranged like little cells, having little divisions or partitions between them.

50. Here the food is divided into little rolls, which are carried to the mouth to be masticated; after which, they are then swallowed, and pass into the third stomach; this has long folds or membranes, where another change is affected, when it passes into the fourth stomach, where the principal work of digestion is carried on, and where the gastric juice flows to act on the food. The food is formed into chyme in the fourth

48. How many stomachs has man? 49. Describe the stomach of a crab or lobster? How many stomachs have some birds? How many stomachs has the camel? 49-50. How is their chyme made?

stomach, and this process goes on till all the food has been brought in contact with the gastric juice.

51. Remember, when you hear about animals "chewing their cud," it is the food which has been swallowed once, and is sent up into the mouth from the second stomach. These animals are called ruminating animals. In the stomach of camels the number of cells is great; and they are very large, capable of holding a quantity of water, which he can force up into his mouth as often as necessary. The camel can travel many days over the sandy desert, where there are no wells of water, on account of this provision that nature has given to him to supply himself before he sets out on a journey.

52. In plants, nourishment is absorbed from the earth by the roots, or from the air by the leaves, which serve as lungs to them. But I must pass to another part of this subject, and will give you a few ideas on digestion.

53. By this, is meant the dissolving or changing of the food after it has been chewed or masticated. All agree that this process goes on in the stomach, but there were formerly a great many different opinions as to the manner in which it was effected.

54. The opinion that is now received, is, that the stomach secretes a gastric juice, which acts on the food, and dissolves it into chyme; which is easily done, if the food has been chewed or masticated sufficiently. When food enters the stomach, the gastric juice flows to every part of it; but if we overload this organ, it

50. Which stomach contains the gastric juice? 51. What is meant by "chewing the cud?" What are those animals called that "chew their cud?" How is the camel enabled to travel in the deserts? 52. How are plants nourished? 53. What is digestion? 54. What opinion is now received concerning it?

loses its power of producing the fluid, which differs in different animals, according as they differ in their food. The organs of digestion differ in different animals that live on different kinds of food.

55. If you regard these simple rules I have given to you, you will not have as many pains and aches, and will be far happier than if you neglect them.

I will next tell you about the bones, the skin, and perhaps the lungs and heart, if I find your interest continues.

54. Is the gastric juice always the same? Are the organs of digestion always the same? 55. What good will result from a due regard to the rules laid down in this lesson ?

CHAPTER II.

BONES.

1. CHILDREN, can you tell me to-day what it is that supports our bodies? You know houses have large timbers, called frames. What is the frame-work of the houses in which you and I live-that is, our bodies? "That is what I never thought of," said Mary. "Will you please to tell us ?" said another.

2. It is our Bones, children. These are all joined together, and make what is called a skeleton. Here are two cuts, one representing the bones of the Masto

don, on a small scale. They were dug out of a large clay-pit in Orange co., N. Y., and are the remains of one of the largest animals in the world. It is so tall that a man, standing by its side, cannot reach the head with

What is the subject of chapter second? 1. What have we in our bodies which correspond to the timbers in a house? 2. What is a skeleton? What do the cuts represent?