ireplace--it will secure the timbers
from fire. "Our primitive kitchen was a square wooden box, lined with
clay and filled with sand, upon which three or four large stones were
placed to form a hearth." (Burton's 'Medinah.')

Fireplaces on Snow.--On very deep snow, a hearth has to be made of a
number of green logs, upon which the fire may be made. (See "Esquimaux
Cooking Lamp.")

Cooking-fires.--See chapter on "Cooking."

Fires in the early Morning.--Should your stock of fuel consist of large
logs and but little brushwood, keep all you can spare of the latter to
make a blaze, when you get up to catch and pack the cattle in the dark
and early morning. As you travel on, if it be bitter cold, carry a
firebrand in your hand, near your mouth, as a respirator--it is very
comforting; then, when the fire of it burns dull, thrust the brand for a
few moments in any tuft of dry grass you may happen to pass by, which
will blaze up and give a new life to the brand.

FOOD.

The nutritive Elements of Food.--Many chemists have applied themselves in
recent years, to discover the exact percentage of nutriment contained in
different substances, and to determine the minimum nutriment on which
human life can be supported. The results are not very accordant, but
nevertheless a considerable approximation to truth has been arrived at.
It is now possible to tell whether a proposed diet has any great faults
of excess or deficiency, and how to remedy those faults. But it also must
be recollected that the stomach is an assimilating machine of limited
performance, and must be fed with food that it can digest; it is not
enough that the food should contain nutritious matter, if that matter
should be in an indigestible form. Burke and Wills perished from sheer
inability to digest the seeds upon which the Australian savages lived;
and Gardiner's party died of starvation in Tierra del Fuego, because they
could not digest the shell-fish which form a common article of diet of
the natives of that country. The question of diet must then be limited to
food that is perfectly digestible by the traveller. It remains to learn
how much nourishment is contained in different kinds of digestible food.
Dr. Smith has recently written an elaborate essay on this subject,
applying his inquiries chiefly to the food of the poor in England; but
for my more general purpose, as it is impossible to do justice to a large
and imperfectly understood subject, in the sma