44 HUMAN END URANGE OF COLD. 



employed in the play, touched his skin, the sensation was 

 like that of burning with a hot iron. On the 22d of the 

 same month (Washington's birthday), there was another 

 theatrical performance. "The ship's thermometer outside 

 was at 46^ ; inside, the audience and actors, by aid of lungs, 

 lamps, and hangings, got as high as SO*^, only sixty-two de- 

 grees below the freezing-point, perhaps the lowest atmos- 

 pheric record of a theatrical representation. It was a 

 strange thing altogether. The condensation was so exces- 

 sive, that we could barely see the performers ; they walked 

 in a cloud of vapor. Any extra vehemence of delivery was 

 accompanied hj volumes of smoke. Their hands steamed ; 

 when an excited Thespian took off his coat, it smoked like a 

 dish of potatoes." 



As another instance of extreme cold in these fearful re- 

 gions, it may be mentioned how, under a temperature of 

 15° below zero. Captain M'Clure, one of the most adven- 

 turous of Arctic explorers, spent the night of the 13th of 

 October, 1851, on the ice, amid prowling bears, and that 

 without food or amunition, his only guide being a pocket 

 compass, which, however, the darkness, aided by mist and 

 drift, rendered useless. He, nevertheless, wiled away the 

 time by sleeping three hours on " a famous bed of soft 

 dry snow," and by wandering ten miles by the crow's flight, 

 over a surface so rugged with ice and snow as to endanger 

 his limbs. It was at the close of a walking expedition of 

 nine days, on a very short allowance of food and water, he 

 accomplished his desire of reaching the winter quarters of 

 the expedition, so as to ensure a warm meal ready for his 

 men when they arrived at their destination. 



Edward Parry mentions his experience of Arctic rigors 

 thus: " Our bodies appeared to adapt themselves so readily 

 to the climate, that the scale of our feelings was soon re- 

 duced to a lower standard than ordinary, so that after being 

 some days in a temperature of 15° or 20°, it felt quite 



