308 PHYSIOLOGY. 



is actually the case. If a thermometer be placed oven the 

 chest, the stomach, or the liverjjit will indicate a higher 

 temperature by some degrees than exists in the extremities, 

 because it is near the seat of respiration, digestion, and the 

 largest secretory organ in the body. The temperature of 

 different parts of the animal body ranges from 91 to 100 

 degrees ; and in fever to 112, which is marked "fever heat" 

 on the thermometer. 



16. Those animals that belong to the class mammalia, 

 and which livg in water, such as the whale, the dolphin, and 

 the porpoise/ have a temperature as high as that of manj 

 Captain Scoresby found the temperature of a whale, in the 

 Arctic Ocean, to be 104 degrees ; while that of the polar 

 bear and wolf were no greater. Warm-blooded animals are 

 generally covered with hair or feathers, to protect them 

 from the cold ; cold-blooded animals need no protection, as 

 they can live in a temperature as low as the freezing point 

 of water. Seals, bears and walruses in the Northern Ocean, 

 are protected by a coating of hair ; the whale is protected 

 by the great thickness of its skin and the stratum of fat im- 

 mediately beneath it. Dr. Edwards states that frogs, which 

 can live in water at 32 degrees, will die in a short time in 

 water at 105 degrees. 



17. But this does not seem to be the case in all cold- 

 blooded animals. In some of the warm springs in Brazil, 

 which have a temperature of 88, many small fishes are 

 found; and also in a hot spring at the Manillas, which 

 raises the thermometer to 158 degrees ; and Humboldt, in 

 his travels, tells us that in the province of Quito, in South 

 America, he saw fishes thrown up from the bottom of a vol- 

 cano, along with water and heated vapour, which raised the 

 thermometer to 210, or only two degrees short of the boiling 

 point. Lord Bute saw beetles in the boiling springs of Al- 

 bano, which died when plunged into cold water ; and Dr. 

 Elliotson states that a gentleman of his acquaintance boiled 

 some honeycomb two years old, and after extracting all the 



