350 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 36, 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 ; 



