68 Mr J. F. Sloane on Thirst in Snoxv-covered Countries. 



storm has passed or subsided a little. It seldom continues long. 

 Good weather invariably succeeds ; and, as there may be many 

 tracks, in opposite directions, and as the sagacity of the dogs 

 cannot then determine the one which conducts to the post their 

 master would arrive at or avoid, he takes off their traces, and 

 gives them a little food. He changes his mocassins, and puts 

 dry socks about his feet. He rolls himself in his blanket or 

 buffalo-skin ; and, with his gun by his side, lies down deep 

 among the snow. His dogs come and stretch themselves upon 

 him. The whole party are soon asleep; and, in such a resting- 

 place, many besides myself have spent a solitary yet comfort- 

 able night, in the neighbourhood of wolves, with many miles 

 between us and any other human being, and risen next morn- 

 ing, in health and strength, to proceed on our journey, and to 

 offer thanks to a watchful Providence who had not only protected 

 us during the night, but who had led us back, in our dreams, 

 to our distant country and homes, and who had surrounded us, 

 while thus sleeping on our snowy couch, with the forms of the 

 friends and companions most deserving of our love. 



Thus, contrary to opinions which might be previously enter- 

 tained, man may be tormented with thirst even while travelling 

 among snow ; and, although a covering of it, even to many 

 feet deep, allows a free passage for those minute particles of 

 matter by which alone the sense of smell can be excited, a hu- 

 man being, after taking tlie necessary precautions, may make it 

 a safe, a warm, a comfortable bed, when the thermometer is 

 many degrees below zero, and when to sleep, even wrapped in 

 leather, on its surface, would be followed by immediate and 

 certain death, from the effects of the intensely cold and pene- 

 trating wind. 



On Clinkstone or Phonolite *. By C. G. Gjielin. 



Gmelin has published in the Naturwissenschaftliche Abhand- 

 iungen von einer Gesellschaft in Wurtemberg, ii. 107, &c. the 

 first memoir of liis classical work on volcanic rocks. It con- 

 tains an account of a series of very interesting chemical experi- 



* Vide Jameson's IMamial of Mineralogy, p. 159. 



