128 PHENOMENA OF DEATH BY COLD. 



rium sets in. * And it may be that these unfortunates 

 removed their clothing under the influence of delirium, 

 which created the impression that they were going* to 

 bed. Before sensation becomes destroyed by cold, 

 also, severe burning pains are often felt in the limbs, 

 it is therefore possible that in some cases the clothes 

 are cast off in an effort to obtain relief from those 

 pains ; the individual thus himself completing the work 

 which the icy gale has begun, and so quickly falling 

 a victim to his own disordered fancies.f However this 

 may be, there can be no doubt as to the fact that 

 persons frozen to death do frequently strip themselves 

 in this way, the circumstance being well known 

 throughout the north western plains region of Ame- 

 rica, where we ourselves have frequently heard plains- 

 men relate instances of it, which had come under their 

 own observation. In other cases the position of the 

 bodies showed that death had come during sleep: in 

 the passes of the Andes, for instance, where loss of 

 life from cold is of frequent occurrence. According to 

 Lieutenant Brand, " many persons are found dead in 

 the snow with their heads reclining on their arm, just 

 as they had died, so easily does the King of Terrors 

 come over them." 



In these instances it is evident that the tendency 

 to sleep had become irresistible, and that settling them- 

 selves to rest, as if about to take their natural repose, 

 they had passed from the sleep of time into that which 

 knows no wakening. 



* See Quat'n's Medical Dictionary, 1883. Vol. i, p. 271. 



7 See Seas and Skies in many Latitudes, by the Hon. Ralph 

 Abercromby, F.R.M.S., 1888, p. 7. 



Voyage to Peru and Journey across the Andes, in 1827, by- 

 Lieutenant Charles Brand, R.N. 



