CH. IX.] DEATH AND DECOMPOSITION. 321 



temperature of the atmosphere around them. This 

 in some degree may depend upon the bark and wood 

 being bad conductors of heat, but they have a power 

 of resisting heat quite independent from that; for 

 the pine apple, though growing for months in a 

 minimum temperature of 60°, never has that of its 

 flesh, whilst growing, elevated above 50°. Now the 

 worst of conductors would have conveyed heat 

 through them in that time. This is only analogous 

 to what occurs in the animal economy. Sir Joseph 

 Banks, Sir Charles Blagden, and Dr. Solander, in 

 the case already alluded to, remained several minutes 

 in a room heated to 212°, the boiling point of water, 

 and though unpleasant sensations were produced, 

 yet the air was easily borne, and the temperature of 

 the body was very little elevated. If they breathed 

 on the thermometer it sank several degrees ; every 

 expiration was cool to the nostrils, previously heated 

 by the air inspired ; the body felt cold as a corpse to 

 the touch of the fingers, and the heat of the skin 

 under the tongue was only 98°. A dog was exposed 

 to a temperature of 220° for ten minutes, but its 

 body's heat did not rise above 1 1 0°, being only nine 

 degrees above its natural warmth. In these rooms 

 an egg was cooked quite hard in twenty minutes. 



But though plants have the power of preserving an 

 internal temperature, differing from that of the ex- 

 ternal air in which they are vegetating, yet they have 



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