exhibited a granular pellicle on its surface. Spirits of naphtha froze at 54º below zero, and oil of sassafras at 49º. The oil of winter-green was in a flocculent state at 56º, and solid at 63º.
“The exhalations from the surface of the body invested the exposed or partially clad parts with a wreath of vapour. The air had a perceptible pungency upon inspiration, but I could not perceive the painful sensation which has been spoken of by some Siberian travellers. When breathed for any length of time, it imparted a sensation of dryness to the air-passages. I noticed that, as it were involuntarily, we all breathed guardedly, with compressed lips.”
Now, strange to say, this extremely low temperature does not affect the ocean to any great depth. Just below the ice, in cold such as the above, the sea was found to be 29° above zero. No doubt, deeper down, the temperature was still warmer. We have heard it said, that when men chance to fall into the water in cold regions, in the depth of winter, it feels at first rather warm and agreeable! On scrambling out again, however, their condition is not enviable; for in a few minutes the keen frost causes their garments to become as hard as boards.
Much light has been thrown on the fact of the existence of under and upper currents in the sea, by the phenomena of the arctic regions, and some of the questions to which these currents give rise are so interesting that we shall treat of them in a new chapter.
