A great proportion of that which is drunk, is speedily absorbed by the veins, and carried into the circulation, some time before the product of the digested food is introduced by the way of the laeteals. There are numerous cases on record, where persons have lived, for a considerable length of time, on water

alone. In the " Transactions of the Albany Institute," for 1830, Dr. M'Naughten relates the case of a man who was sustained on water alone, for 53 days. " For the first six weeks he walked out every day, and sometimes spent a great part of the day in the woods. His walk was steady and firm, and his friends even remarked that his step had an unusual elasticity; he shaved himself until about a week before his death, and was able to sit up in bed till the last day."

To the evils which result from the use of impure water, we have already alluded, although it would require far more space than has been assigned to us in this Appendix, to do them adequate justice. There can be no doubt, that the chief cause of the excess of mortality in cities, over that of the country, is to be found in the impure water, with which the former are so generally supplied, and we may confidently predict, that in consequence mainly of the introduction of the Croton

River into the City of New-York, no city in the world of equal size, will surpass it in salubrity. To the operation of the same cause, we may doubtless look with confidence for a decided improvement in personal comeliness and beauty. " It is evident," says Dr Jackson, " that the health of a whole community may be so affected by impurities in water drank by them, as to give a peculiar morbid expression to their countenances which causes the observant eye of a traveller to