both its utility and its perils for this purpose.
The centre of gravity of this fifth element seems to be in the city of
Munich, the capital of the kingdom. People in this country who have
heard much of lager-beer, and seen a little of its use as introduced
into our land from Germany, may, perhaps, suppose that it is equally
distributed over all that extensive region known by this name. This is,
however, an error. Just as our atmosphere becomes ever less dense
according to its distance from the earth's centre of gravity, so this
fifth element, as one retires farther from the city of Munich.

It would be an interesting inquiry for the medical man, who seeks to
enlarge his knowledge of the _vis medicatrix Naturae_, for the
philanthropist, who would stimulate or increase the means of human
happiness, and remove or diminish those of human misery, and even for
the statistician, alike indifferent to both: _Why do particular articles
of diet and beverage concentrate their use so much in particular
climates, lands, and localities?_ Within certain limits the question is
easy. The inhabitant of the tropics lives on the bread-fruit, the
plantain, the orange, the fig, and the date. They grow around him, drop
as it were into his mouth, and are just what he needs to allay his
hunger and support his nature. The Greenlanders and the Esquimaux of
Labrador eat the flesh of bears, reindeer, and seals, and even drink
their fat by the quart. Fruits, if they were to be had, would not meet
their wants, and Providence has ordered accordingly. He of the tropics,
in addition to the external heat, needs but the mild and gentle fire
generated by the combustion of his native fruits, to keep his life-fluid
in action; while he of the frigid zones must be kept in life and motion
by rousing fires of seal's fat. Temperate latitudes produce most fruits,
and all the cereals and animals used for food; but Nature nowhere gives
us these in the shape of plum-puddings and pastries, or of beer and
alcoholic drinks. The combinations and commutations must be
manufactured. But does an impulse in man, like the instinct of the bee,
lead him to make just what he needs in his particular climate? Does the
Bavarian take to beer as the bee to honey? Does instinct or appetite in
general shape itself to climate and other outward circumstances? This is
but partly true. As Nature has distributed noxious vegetable and animal
substances through land and sea, which must be avoi