176 PECULIARITIES IN 



Greenlander and Eskiniau have reached between 70° and 

 80° of North latitude, and Danish settlements have been 

 formed in Greenland in the same high latitude. Three 

 Russians lived between six and seven years on Spitzbergen, 

 between 77° and 78° N. L. * The Negro lives under the 

 equator ; and all America is inhabited even to Tierra del 

 Fucgo. Thus we find that man can exist and propagate his 

 species in the hottest and coldest countries of the earth. 



The greatest natural cold ascertained by thermometrical 

 measurement was i\mt experienced by the elder Gmelin in 

 1735, at Jeniseik : the mercury froze in the thermometer f. 

 The sparrows and jays were all killed. When Pallas was 

 at Krasnoiarsk, the quicksilver also froze in the ball of the 

 thermometer ; and a large mass of pure mercury froze in the 

 open air J. Our own countrymen experienced apparently 

 as severe a degree of cold on the Churchill River in Hud- 

 son's Bay. Brandy was frozen in the rooms where they had 

 fires §. Yet the Canadian savages and the Eskimaux go to 

 the chase in this temperature; and the inhabitants of the 

 countries visited by Gmelin and Pallas cannot remain in 

 their houses all the winter. Even Europeans accustomed 

 to warmer climates can undergo such cold as I have just 

 mentioned, with impunity, if they take exercise enough. 

 The Danes have lived in Greenland in 7-° N. L. ; and the 

 Dutch, under Heemskeiik, wintered at Nova Zembla in 

 76° N. L. Some of them perished ; but those who moved 

 enough, and were in good health at first, withstood the 

 dreadful cold, which the polar bear (ursus maritimus), appa- 

 rently born for these climes, seems to have been incapable 

 of supporting: for their journal states, that as soon as the 

 sun sinks below the horizon, the cold is so intense that the 

 bears are no longer seen, and the white fox (isatis, cam's 



* Dr. AiKiN on the attempts to winter in high Northern Latitudes : Man- 

 chester Society's Memoirs; v. i. p. 96. 

 + Flora Sibirica ; Prccf. 

 \ Travels in Russia; pi. 3. 

 ^ P/iilos. Trans. No. 465. 



