DECEMBER. 



343 



C. The Coatacook is now frozen over, and I suppose 

 will not open again before spring. Do the fishes become 

 torpid ? or how do they sustain the severity of the season, 

 when the water is covered with " thick ribbed ice ?" 



F. I apprehend that fishes in general do not become tor- 

 pid, and I do not know that any species does : the tempera- 

 ture of the lower parts of the water probably does not differ in 

 a very great degree, at the different seasons of the year. The 

 very ice that is formed at the surface contributes to preserve 

 the equality of its temperature, and we know that as long 

 as it remains fluid, it cannot be lower than 32 of Fahren- 

 heit, whatever that of the air may be. There is another 

 question, however, which may be raised : fishes cannot sub- 

 sist, any more than terrestrial animals, without an absorp- 

 tion of oxygen ; when the connexion of the water with the 

 external air is cut off by a solid crust of ice, will they not 

 sooner or later arrive at a point, when the water will part 

 with no more of its oxygen ? That this is not an imaginary 

 difficulty is proved by the fact, that fishes in a bowl of water 

 placed beneath an exhausted receiver, soon die, although the 

 water still contains much oxygen, or it would no longer be 

 water, but hydrogen gas : though perhaps it refuses to part 

 with any more. I once saw in Newfoundland a case in 

 .point : a little brook had been enlarged in one part into an 

 oval fish-pond, containing perhaps two hundred square feet, 

 in which the water commonly lay about eighteen inches 

 deep ; a few trout lived in this little pool, that usually con- 

 tinued open in the middle, through which the brook ran ; 

 but one severe winter it was quite frozen over, and the fishes 

 in the ensuing spring were found to be all dead. In the 

 case of this river, however, the edges always communicate 

 with the air, the ice breaking by friction, so that a stick may 

 often be thrust down between the bank and the ice ; and 

 were it otherwise, it would seem that the vast supply of 



