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48 WONDERS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 



able to lower the temperature to 31°, but 

 beyond this point it was not possible to 

 decrease the heat without involving the de- 

 struction of the animal. Even in the eggs of 

 birds, the vital struggle against destructive 

 cold is vigorously maintained. Hunter found 

 that a fresh-laid egg : (that of the common 

 fowl,) put into cold water at zero, required 

 seven minutes and a half more for freezing 

 (and consequent destruction of vitality) than 

 did another egg which had previously lost its 

 vitality by freezing, but had regained the 

 ordinary temperature by thawing. We might 

 enter into a long detail of similar experiments 

 were it necessary for our purpose, and, more- 

 over, describe a series of trials, cruel as we 

 think, upon the effects of the abstraction of 

 caloric from the ears, limbs, etc., of animals, in 

 order to test the extent of the restorative 

 energy of the vital principle, but we have 

 said enough to satisfy an intelligent reader. 



Seeing, then, as we have endeavoured to 

 demonstrate, that a body placed in a medium 

 of lower temperature than itself attains nearly 

 to its natural degree of heat after the first 

 depressing shock, it will follow that the 

 medium itself (whether air or water) must 

 become elevated in its turn. Thus, a cold 

 room is soon warmed, to use a popular phrase, 

 by the assemblage of several persons, and so 

 far from becoming a medium taxing the system 

 for a generation of caloric, may, and often does, 

 become one necessitating the generation of 



