adjustment fits it to render a very important and exceptional service to man, because its history is so closely associated with human life in the oldest historical portions of the globe, and because it has not been found wild within the memory of man, but has been wholly taken up in his labors. The deserts of Northern Africa and Eastern Asia, so long traversed by the migrations, armies and commerce of the oldest historical races, have given a demand for a form of animal life admirably met by the camel, "the ship of the desert." The history of the race could hardly have been what it is without this adjunct.

Though the camels employed in carriage are comparatively slow, the dromedary, a lighter and more carefully bred variety, obtains the speed of nine or ten miles an hour. The camel thus combines both branches of work, the heavy and the light.*

(1) The most remarkable endowment of the animal, fitting it to its peculiar life, is its power to take into the stomach a supply of water in anticipation of future want. This amount is sometimes as great as twenty gallons. The water remains in the stomach for a time unaltered, and is passed into the system as called for by the automatic sensibilities. There is disagreement of opinion as to the form of the physiological fact, but not as to the unusual endurance. The camel can also scent water at the distance of a mile.

(2) The foot of the camel is as directly shaped to a desert soil as a snow-shoe to snow.

* Bible Animals. Dissertations of Sir Charles Bell, supplementary to Natural Theology.