Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1854-04-26
An Arctic Walk.

Now let us start out upon walk, clothed
in well-fashioned Arctic costume. The
thermometer is, say25 deg, mot lower, and
the wind blowing a royal breeze, but gently.
Close the lips for the first minute or two,
and admit the air suspiciously through nos
tril and mustache. Presently you breathe
in dry, pungent, but gracious and agree
able atmosphere. The beard, eyebrow,
eyelashes, and the downy pubesence of the
ears, acquire a delicate, white and perfect
ly chveloping cover Of venerable hoar-
frost. The mustache and under lip form
pedulous beads OF dangling ice. Put out
your tongue, and 1t tinstantly freezes to this
icy crusting, and rapid effort and some
hand aid will be required to liberate it.
The less you talk, the better Your chin
has trick of freezing TO your upper jaw
by the luting aid of your Beard even my
eyes have often been so gifted. as TO show
that even wink may be unsafe. is you
walk on, you find that the iron-work of your
gun begins to penetrate Through two. coats
of woolen mittens, with sensation like
hot water. ss~ ID.
But we have been supposirg your back
to the wind, and if you are good Arctic
ised subject, warm glow has already been
followed by profuse sweat. Now turn
about and face the wind what devil of a
change how the atmospheres are waited
off, how penetratingIy the cold trickles
down your neck and in at your pockets =
Whew! a iack-knife heretofore, like Bob
Sawyer's apple, "unpleasantly warm" in
the breeches pockets, has changed to some
thing cold as ice and hot as fire; make
your way back to the ship was once
caught three miles off with freshening
wind, and at one time feared that | would
hard see the brig again Morton. who
accompanied me, had his cheeks frozen
and | felt that lethaagic numbness men
toned in the story books. =.
/ will tell you what this feels like, for l
have been twice "caught out" Sleeplness
is not the sensation. Hare you ever re-
ceived the shocks of magnetic electric ma
chine, and had the peculiar benumbng sem
sation of "can't let 60" extending up your
elbow joints? Deprive this of its parox-
ysmal character subdue, but diifhse it o.
yer every part of the system, and you have
the so-called pleasureable feelings Of incip-
lent freezing. 1t seems even to extend to
your brain. It's inertia is augmented; ev"
erything about you seems Of pondefous
sort, and the wbole amount Of pleasure is
in gratifying the disposition to, remain at
rest, and spare yourself an encounter with
these latent resistances. This isl suppose,
the pleasureable sleepness Of the story
books.
I could Gll page after page with the lu-
dicrous misenes of our ship board life
We have two climates, hygrometrically as
we'll as Theoretically, at opposite ends OF
the scale. A pocket handkerchief, pocket
ed below in the region of stoves, comes up
unchanged. Go below again, and it be-
comes moist, Aaccid, and almost wet. Go
on deck again, and it resembles a shingle
covered with linen, could pick my teeth
with It.
You are anzicus &c know how | manage
to stand this remorseless temperature. 1t
is short story, and perhaps worth telling.
"The Doctor" still retains three Injuries,
remnants Of better times--silk next his
skin, tooth brush for his teeth, and white
linen for his nose. Everything else is Arc
tic and hairy, fur, fur, fur. The silk is
light and washable, needing neither the
clean dlt Of starch nor the uncomfortable
trouble of hat-irons. 1t secures to me a
clean screen between my ep!dermoid and
sealskin iteguinents.-Dr. Kane.