Animals can withstand the effects of heat far better than the severity of cold. The human frame suffers comparatively little even in the burning deserts of Arabia, compared with what it endures in those wastes of ice and snow which form the polar regions. Here the body is stunted in its growth; there is no energy of mind or character; and life itself is only preserved by extraordinary care and attention. When a person is exposed to intense cold, it produces partial imbecility; he neglects even those precautions which may enable him to withstand its severity. He refuses to exercise his limbs, without which they become torpid; and, unable to resist the drowsiness that seizes on his frame, he resigns himself to its influence, becomes insensible, and dies. Even in our own climate this is not an unfrequent occurrence; and we cannot conclude this paper better than by quoting the expressive lines of Thomson, describing the death of an unhappy peasant from the severity of a winter storm:—
As thus the snows arise; and foul, and fierce,
All winter drives along the darkened air;
In his own loose revolving fields, the swain
Disaster’d stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain:
Nor finds the river nor the forest, hid
Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on
From hill to dale, still more and more astray,