Year: 1859

The extraordinary abundance of fat in the bod
les Of animals inhabiting the intensely cold polar
regions may be philosOphieally considered as a
surplus stock Of fuel, to be burnt for sustaining
animal heat and motive power. Without this IN
ternal resource for a supply, during periods when
no other available supplies of food are proeurable
from external sources, the animals of the Arctic
giOns would speedily become frozen, remaining
like marble statues fixed on the surface of the
fields of ice and snow.


A most remarkably abundant provision of fatty
and oily matter, formed from hydrogen and car
bon, is found in the blubber which envelopes the
bodies of the stored-up whales like a thick blan-
ket. The philosophy of this surprising proyis-
ion of available food and fuel, accumulated IN
these large fishes, admits of the following expla-
nation. 1t appears that whales, in ranging from
one feeding ground to another, sometimes have
to cross broad oceans. Without an extraordinary
supply of carbon, provided like stock OF Goals IN
the bunkers OF q steamer, for sustaining continu-
Gus combustion during long voyage, the whales
might fail in exerting a motive power sufficient
to propel their great bodies through the waters of
the broad ocean. Whales have been captured
from whose bodies more than two hundred barrels
of oil have been extracted. As spermaceti and ce-
tine contain above go per cent. of carbon and hy-
drogen, of these fishes, therefore, carries with
him about ten tons of combustible fuel, which is
ready at all times to become absorbed and burnt,
whenever this leviathan of the deep desires to de-
yelop powerful impulses of motive power, and RI
to the surface of the ocean, to draw in long
breath of air. containing the requisite quantity Of
oxygen to burn his supply of carbon, and to allow
it to recoil to its natural condition Of earbonic
acid gas. The more whale exerts his locomotive
powers, the oftener it is necessary for him to
breathe, or {" blow, as the whalers term it.


As amid abundant granaries and well-stored
market-houses where there is little danger of
falling short of due supply of daily food, it is
manifest that In the economy OF nature there is
no real necessity for this extraordinary supply of
a surplus stock Of carbonaceous fuel, envelOping
the ribs of human beings.


The hump on the back of the camel-the loco
motive engine of the wild deserts of Asia and Af-
rica-may be deemed by the superficial observer
as deformity, a sort of natural saddle, rea-
dy prepared TO bear the impositions of loads of
merchandise, and thus stamping this animal as a
' beast of burthen," apparently by the original
design of the Creator. But this uncouth append
age, so far from being designed expressly for the
purpose of a saddle, does really subserve the more
essential purpose of knapsack of provisions, to
supply from this superabundant deposit OF fat,
which principally composes this hump, the carbon
necessary for propellng the locomotive mechanism
of his body across the wide wastes of sand, where
no blade Of grass is found to replenish his exhaust
ed supplies of carbonaeeous food. surplus sup
ply of water is similarly provided in the extrsor-