Instinct and reason: deduced from electro-biology / By Alfred Smee.

  • Alfred Smee
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Instinct and reason: deduced from electro-biology / By Alfred Smee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    worn down by fatigue, had sat down for rest. They cuddled together to give each other mutual warmth, but both perished, became as dry as mummies, and both remain, a sad spectacle, to be seen by travellers who visit the pass. 90. Even cold-blooded animals are sensible of heat and cold. The slow tortoise delights in radiant heat. The snake revels in warmth, and lies extended at full length to enjoy the genial rays of the sun; and even salamanders in my dining-room, during the cold weather, mount the stalk of a fern to get a little warmth, when the sun shines through the canopy of clouds so frequent at this (the winter) season. Eish come to the top of the water and bask in the sunshine; and, to the lowest ani¬ malcule, all creatures seem possessed of the faculty of feeling warmth and cold. 91. The skin of animals is more or less sensible to light, independently of heat. On two or three occasions I have had the opportunity of inspecting that curious creature, the proteus, which inhabits the dark caves of Italy. If the creature is brought suddenly to the light, the blood rushes to the skin, and thus shows the influence of that agent. But even the skin of man himself is endowed with the property of being acted upon by light. One year I formed one of a party of tourists who visited Switzerland, and we crossed the Eurca Pass on the first or second day it was open to travellers. From little difficulties which we experienced in the passage, we were exposed to the influence of the sun's rays from six in the morning till eight at night, in one of those brilliant days which distinguish the month of June. Of the whole party which crossed the pass, I alone escaped from having the skin of the face blistered over its entire surface. The next morning, the blistered faces of the various