in high Northern Latitudes . 103 
A confiderable article of the diet of the eight 
Englifhmen, though neceffity alone could have 
brought them to ufe it, was probably of confider- 
able fervice in preventing the diforders to which 
their fituation rendered them liable. This was, 
the whale's fritters , which, though deprived of 
great part of their oil, muft ftill contain no 
fmall fhare of it. All voyagers agree, that the 
Samoides, Efquimaux, Greenlanders, and other 
inhabitants of the polar regions, make great ufe 
of the fat and oil of fifh and marine animals in 
their diet, and indeed can fcarcely fubfift without 
them. In what precife manner thefe fubftances 
adt, is not, perhaps, eafily explained ; but as the 
ufe of them would, doubclefs, caufe an accumula¬ 
tion of fimilar parts in the body, and as we find 
all animals deftined to endure the fevere cold of 
the ardtic climates, are copioufly furnifhed with 
fat, we may conclude, that it pofTefTes fome 
peculiar efficacy in defending from the impreffions 
of cold. 
With refpedt to the warm reindeer’s blood, which 
the Ruffian failors feem to have thought fo 
falutary, and the ufe of which is confirmed in 
one of the quotations ; if it has any particular 
effiedt in preventing the fcurvy, beyond that of 
the juices extradted from recent animal fieffi by 
cookery or digeftion, it muft probably refide in 
fome unaffimilated particles, derived from the 
vegetable food of the animal, and ftill retaining 
H 4. confiderably 
