STATURE AND SIZE OF THE THORAX . 713 



among the nations of temperate climates, as we 

 learn from Pallas, Forster, Hearne, and other 

 travellers, who represent the chest and shoulders 

 as so broad as to give the appearance of defor- 

 mity. This peculiar conformation of the thorax 

 in excessively cold climates, is doubtless owing 

 to the continual necessity of exercising the lungs, 

 by which their development is augmented, for 

 the purpose of compensating the rapid loss of 

 animal heat. For whenever caloric is abstracted 

 from the body faster than it is supplied by respira- 

 tion, a painful sensation of chilliness is produced, 

 which, like the cold bath, prompts the individual 

 to take more full and frequent inspirations. 



Moreover, owing to the large demand for fuel 

 to support combustion in the lungs, the inhabi- 

 tants of the frozen zone require a corresponding 

 amount of animal and oily food, of which an 

 Esquimaux devours from ten to twenty pounds a 

 day,* according to Sir John Ross ; who says, " the 

 true secret of preserving life, in the polar regions, 

 is a large use of fat meats." (Narrative, p. 200 

 448, 1835.) And Sir John Franklin observes, 

 that " during the whole of our march, we expe- 

 rienced that no quantity of clothing would keep 



* But this would be impossible, or at least extremely injurious, 

 if not fatal, to the inhabitants of tropical and warm climates, in 

 which the natives require less food than in the higher latitudes, 

 and where they prefer vegetable to animal food, which affords less 

 carbon and hydrogen, therefore less caloric by respiration, than 

 animal nourishment. 



