Curiosities of natural history / by Francis T. Buckland.

  • Francis Trevelyan Buckland
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Curiosities of natural history / by Francis T. Buckland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    support greater heat; and of this the fishes we have just mentioned afford ample evidence.” It has been a question as to how far fish will bear cold as well as heat; and we often read in ai'ctic voyages passages such as the follow- ing : “ When the men fished in the river, the fish froze as they were taken out of the nets; in a short time they became a mass of solid ice, and by a blow or two with a hatchet were easily split open. If in this completely frozen state they were thawed before a fire, they recovered their animation.” The great John Hunter tried experiments on the subject, which will be interesting to my readers who keep carp, gold-fish, &e., in their garden ponds which are frozen in the wintei', in order that they may see how far the facts hold good. There was a joke current at the time these experiments were made, for we read “ Whilst John Hunter’s friends, Lynn and Benjamin West, were warming themselves with a bout of skating on the Serpentine, Huntei' staid at home freezing his fingers in ice in pursuit of his enquiries.” John Hunter thus widtes : “ These experiments were not originally instituted with any expectation of the event which resulted from them, but for a very different purpose ; which was no other than to satisfy myself, whether an animal could retain life after it was frozen, as had been confidently asserted both of fishes and snakes. If 1 had succeeded, I meant to have tried the effects of freezing on living animals, to a much greater extent than ever can happen accidentally. For that snakes and fishes, after being frozen, have still retained so much of life, as when thawed to resume their vital actions, is a fact so well attested that we are bound to believe it. “ I. The first experiment was made on two carp. They were put into a glass vessel with common river water, and the vessel put into the freezing mixture; the water did not freeze fast enough; and, therefore, to make it freeze sooner, we put in as much cooled snow as to render the whole thick. The snow round the carp melted : we put in more fresh snow, which melted also; and this was repeated several times, till we grew tired, and at last left them covered up in the yard to freeze by the joint operation of the surrounding mixture and the natural cold of the atmosphere. They were frozen at last, after having exhausted the whole powers of life in the production of heat. That this was really the case, could not be known till I had completed that part of the experiment for which the whole was begun, viz., the thawing of the animals. This was done very gradually ; but the animals did not, with flexibility, recover life. While in this cold they showed signs of great uneasiness by their violent motions. “ As it is confidently asserted, that fishes are often frozen and come to life again, and as 1 had never succeeded in any of my experiments of this kind upon whole fishes, I made some partial experiments upon this class of animals; being led to do this by having found a mateiial difference in the lesult of the experiments made upon the whole animal, and of those made only on parts of the more perfect animals.