352 ARCTIC VOYAGES. Chap. X. 



of powerful passion," as Dr. Richardson observes, 

 produce like effects. The opinions of two of the 

 most eminent physiologists may here be given. 

 Majendie says, " Though the secretion of milk 

 seems proper to women, after parturition, it has 

 been sometimes seen in virgins, and even in man." 

 (Majendie's Physiology.) And Richeraud says, 

 " There have been known men in whom a long- 

 continued titillation of the breasts had determined 

 so considerable an afflux of the humours, that 

 there oozed from them a whitish milky and sac- 

 charine fluid, not unlike the milk of a woman." 

 (Richeraud's Physiology.) To say that a thing is 

 impossible, is a very easy but not a convincing way 

 of settling a disputed question. When Stephen- 

 son constructed the first railroad between Liver- 

 pool and Manchester, near twenty years ago, and 

 asserted that its speed would exceed sixteen miles 

 an hour, it was laughed at by a great lawyer 

 (a senior wrangler), employed against the bill, 

 who asserted dogmatically, that such a speed was 

 impossible ; but Stephenson, somewhat nettled, 

 called out, "Instead of sixteen, I can make it sixty, 

 if necessary." Every impediment was thrown in 

 the way of establishing a distant electrical tele- 

 graph ; but the confidence which a few had in Pro- 

 fessor Wheatstone carried the point, and a communi- 

 cation can now be held with Portsmouth from Lon- 

 don (with their two distant termini even) in a very 

 few minutes— a single signal in half a second— in 



