850 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. 



C. — We have had some severe weather during this month, 

 yet I have not felt nearly so much inconvenience from the 

 intensity of the cold, as one would expect from the tempera- 

 ture of the atmosphere. There seems to be something enli- 

 vening and bracing in our air, which prevents our becoming 

 so much affected by it. 



F. — Our cold weather is generally clear and uniform, and 

 our bodies become inured to its severity. After having spent 

 many winters in Newfoundland and Canada, I passed one 

 in the State of Alabama. I had congratulated myself on the 

 thought that now I should not know cold weather ; that 

 after Canada, the winter of Alabama could be nothing to me. 

 But I found that slight frosts, and wet windy days, inter- 

 rupted by warm ones, seemed to me almost as cold to the 

 feelings as the severity of Canada. Before the winter was 

 over, I sailed for England, and although the thermometer 

 was on only one day as low as '6Q°i I felt the inconveniences 

 of extreme severity, my feet becoming covered with the well- 

 known annoyances called chilblains, and my whole frame 

 shivering with cold : this was, no doubt, owing to the sud- 

 den transition from a climate of 76° to that of 36°. — We 

 here find the intensity of the cold as much manifested by colla- 

 teral circumstances as by our bodily sensations. The creak- 

 ing of the snow beneath our feet : the adhesiveness of door- 

 latches, or any metal, to our hands, if there be the slightest 

 moisture on them ; the clouds of steam which pour from our 

 mouth and nostrils when we breathe ; the accumulation of 

 frosted leaves on the windows of rooms in which great fires 

 and close stoves are kept ; the fringe of ice round the edges 

 of our pillows and blankets, from our breath having frozen 

 while we slept ; the piercing pang felt by the lungs on sud- 

 denly emerging from a warm room, and inhaling the cold 

 air ; the pricking sensation in the cheeks ; the whitening of 

 the whiskers, hair, and eyebrows ; the icicle at the nose ; 



