Chapter IX

Hatteras and Johnson had waited for the three hunters with
some uneasiness. When they returned they were delighted to
find a warm and comfortable shelter. That evening the temperature
had decidedly fallen, and the thermometer outside stood
at -31°. The three were very much fatigued and almost
frozen, so that they could hardly drag one foot after the other;
fortunately the stoves were drawing well; the doctor became
cook, and roasted a few walrus cutlets. At nine o'clock they
all five sat down before a nourishing supper.
“On my word,” said Bell, “at the risk of passing for an Esquimaux,
I will say that food is an important thing in wintering;
one ought to take what one can get.”
Each of them having his mouth full, it was impossible for
any one to answer the carpenter at once; but the doctor made
a sign that he was right. The walrus cutlets were declared
excellent; or, if they made no declarations about it, they ate it
all up, which is much more to the purpose. At dessert the
doctor made the coffee, as was his custom; he intrusted this
task to no one else; he made it at the table, in an alcohol
machine, and served it boiling hot. He wanted it hot enough
to scald his throat, or else he did not think it worth drinking.
That evening he drank it so hot that his companions could not
imitate him.
“But you'll burn yourself, Doctor,” said Altamont.
“O no!” was the answer.
“Is your throat lined with copper?” asked Johnson.
“No, my friends;
I advise you to take
counsel from me.
There are some persons,
and I am of
the number, who
drink coffee at a
temperature of
131°.”
“One hundred
and thirty-one degrees!”
cried Altamont;
“but the hand can't support that heat!”
“Evidently, Altamont, since the hand can't endure more than
122° in the water; but the palate and tongue are not so tender
as the hand; they can endure much more.”
“You surprise me,” said Altamont.
“Well, I'm going to convince you.”
And the doctor, bringing the thermometer from the parlor,
plunged the bulb into his cup of boiling coffee; he waited until
it stood at a 131°, and then he drank it with evident joy. Bell
tried to do the same thing, but he burned himself and shouted
aloud.
“You are not used to it,” said the doctor.
“Clawbonny,” asked Altamont, “can you tell me the highest
temperature the human body can support?”
“Easily,” answered
the doctor; “various
experiments have
been made and curious
facts have been
found out. I remember
one or two, and
they serve to show
that one can get
accustomed to anything,
even to not cooking
where a beefsteak
would cook. So, the
story goes that some
girls employed at the
public bakery of the
city of La Rochefoucauld,
in France,
could remain ten
minutes in the oven
in a temperature of
300°, that is to say,
89° hotter than boiling water, while potatoes and meat were
cooking around them.”
“What girls?” said Altamont.
“Here is another indisputable example. Nine of our fellow-countrymen
in 1778, Fordyce, Banks, Solander, Blagden, Home,
North, Lord Seaforth, and Captain Phillips, endured a temperature
of 295°, while eggs and roast beef were cooking near them.”
“And they were Englishmen!” said Bell, with an accent of
pride.
“Yes, Bell,” answered the doctor.
“0, Americans could have done better!” said Altamont.
“They would have roasted,” said the doctor, laughing.
“And why not?” answered the American.
“At any rate, they have not tried; still, I stand up for my
countrymen. There's one thing I must not forget; it is incredible
if one can doubt of the accuracy of the witnesses. The
Duke of Ragusa and Dr. Jung, a Frenchman and an Austrian,
saw a Turk dive into a bath which stood at 170°.”
“But it seems to me,” said Johnson, “that that is not equal
to other people you mentioned.”
“I beg your pardon,” answered
the doctor; “there is a great difference
between entering warm air
and entering warm water; warm
air induces perspiration, and that
protects the skin, while in such
hot water there is no perspiration
and the skin is burned. Hence a
bath is seldom hotter than 107°.
This Turk must have been an extraordinary
man to have been able
to endure so great heat.”
“Dr. Clawbonny,” asked Johnson, “what is the usual
temperature of living beings?”
“It varies very much,” answered the doctor; “birds are the
warmest blooded, and of these the duck and hen are the most
remarkable; their temperature is above 110°, while that of the
owl is not more than 104°; then come the mammalia, men; the
temperature of Englishmen is generally 101°.”
“I'm sure Mr. Altamont is going to claim something more
for the Americans,” said Johnson.
“Well,” said Altamont, “there are some very warm; but as
I've never placed a thermometer into their thorax or under their
tongue, I can't be sure about it.”
“The difference of temperature,” resumed the doctor, “between
men of different races is quite imperceptible when they
are placed in the same circumstances, whatever be the nature of
their bringing-up; I should add, that the temperature varies but
little between men at the equator and at the pole.”
“So,” said Altamont, “our temperature is about the same
here as in England?”
“About the same,” answered the doctor; “as to the other
mammalia, their temperature is a trifle higher than that of man.
The horse is about the same, as well as the hare, the elephant,
the porpoise, the tiger; but the cat, the squirrel, the rat, panther,
sheep, ox, dog, monkey, goat, reach 103°; and the warmest
of all, the pig, goes above 104°.”
“That is humiliating for us,” said Altamont.
“Then come amphibious animals and fish, whose temperature
varies very much according to that of the water. The serpent
does not go above 86°, the frog 70°, and the shark the same in
a medium a degree and a half cooler; insects appear to have
the temperature of the water and the air.”
“That is all very well,” said Hatteras, who had not yet spoken,
“and I'm much obliged to the doctor for his information; but
we are talking as if we had to endure torrid heats. Would it
not be wiser to talk about the cold, to know to what we are
exposed, and what is the lowest temperature that has ever been
observed?”
“True,” added Johnson.
“There's nothing easier,” continued the doctor, “and I may
be able to give you some information.”
“I dare say,” said Johnson; “you know everything.”
“My friends, I only know what others have taught me, and
when I've finished you'll know exactly as much. This is what
I know about cold and the lowest temperatures observed in
Europe. A great many noteworthy winters have been known,
and it seems as if the severest has a periodic return about every
forty-one years,—a period which nearly corresponds with the
greater appearance of spots on the sun. I can mention the
winter of 1364, when the Rhone was frozen as far as Aries;
that of 1408, when the Danube was frozen its whole length, and
when wolves ran over to Jutland without wetting their feet;
that of 1509, during which the Mediterranean at Cette and
Marseilles and the Adriatic at Venice were frozen, and the Baltic
as late as April 10; that of 1608, which killed all the cattle in
England; that of 1789, when the Thames was frozen—as far
as Gravesend, six leagues below London; that of 1813, of
which the French retain such a terrible memory; and that of
1829, the earliest and longest winter of this century. So much
for Europe.”
“But what temperature has been reached above the Arctic
Circle?” asked Altamont.
“Really,” said the doctor, “I believe we have experienced the
greatest cold that has ever been observed, since our spirit thermometer
indicated one day -72°; and if I remember aright, the
lowest temperatures ever observed before were only -61° at Melville
Island, -65° at Port Felix, and -70° at Fort Reliance.”
“Yes,” said Hatteras; “we were delayed, and unfortunately
too, by a very severe winter!”
“You were delayed?” exclaimed Altamont, staring at the
captain.
“In our journey westward,” interposed the doctor, hastily.
“So,” said Altamont, continuing the conversation, “the maximum
and minimum temperatures endured by men vary about
two hundred degrees?”
“Yes,” answered the doctor; “a thermometer exposed to the
open air and sheltered from reflection has never risen above 135°,
and in the greatest colds it never falls below -72°. So, my
friends, you see we can take our ease.”
“But still,” said Johnson, “if the sun were to be extinguished
suddenly, would not the earth endure greater cold?”
“The sun won't be extinguished,” answered the doctor; “but
even if it should be, the temperature would not fall any lower,
probably, than what I have mentioned.”
“That's strange.”
“0, I know it used to be said that in the space outside of the
atmosphere the temperature was thousands of degrees below
zero! but since the experiments of the Frenchman Fourrier,
this has been disproved; he has shown that if the earth were
placed in a medium void of all heat, that the temperature at
the pole would be much greater, and that there would be very
great differences between night and day; so, my friends, it is
no colder a few millions of miles from the earth than it is here.”
“Tell me, Doctor,” said Altamont, “is not the temperature
of America lower than that of other countries of the world?”
“Without doubt; but don't be proud of it,” answered the doctor
with a laugh.
“And what is the reason?”
“No very satisfactory explanation has ever been given; so it
occurred to Hadley that a comet had come into collision with the
earth and had altered the position of its axis of rotation, that
id to say, of its poles; according to him, the North Pole, which
used to be situated at Hudson's Bay, found itself carried farther
east, and the land at the old Pole preserved a greater cold, which
long centuries of the sun have not yet heated.”
“And you do not admit this hypothesis?”
“Not for a moment; for what is true of the eastern coast of
America is not true of the western coast, which has a higher
temperature. No! we can prove that the isothermal lines differ
from the terrestrial parallels, and that is all.”
“Do you know, Doctor,” said Johnson, “that it is pleasant to
talk about cold in our present circumstances?”
“Exactly, Johnson; we can call practice to the aid of theory.
These countries are a vast laboratory where curious experiments
on low temperatures can be made. Only, be always careful; if
any part of your body is frozen, rub it at once with snow to
restore the circulation of the blood; and if you come near the fire,
be careful, for you may burn your hands or feet without noticing
it; then amputation would be necessary, and we should try to
leave nothing of ourselves in these lands. And now I think it
would be well for us to seek a few hours of sleep.”
“Willingly,” answered the doctor's companions.
“Who keeps watch over the stove?”
“I do,” answered Bell.
“Well, my friend, take care the fire does not fall out, for it's
most abominably cold this evening.”
“Don't be uneasy, Doctor; it's very sharp, but see, the sky is
all ablaze!”
“Yes,” answered the doctor, going up to the window, “it's a
magnificent aurora. What a glorious sight! I should never
get tired of looking at it!”
In fact, the doctor admired all these cosmic phenomena, to
which his companions paid but little attention; he had noticed,
besides, that their appearance always preceded disturbances of
the magnetic needle, and he was preparing some observations on
the subject which he intended for Admiral Fitz-Roy's Weather Book.
Soon, while Bell was on watch near the stove, all the rest,
stretched on their beds, slept quietly.