Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/150

 places two typical skulls which he found tossed among the rocks. The little shrimps are also doing me good service. They have prepared for me several skeletons of all varieties of the animals which we have captured. I first have the bulk of the flesh removed from the bones, then, placing them in a net, they are lowered into the fire-hole, and these lively little scavengers of the sea immediately light within the net, in immense swarms, and in a day or so I have a skeleton more nicely cleaned than could be done by the most skillful of human workmen.

A party brought in to-day the carcass of a reindeer which I mortally wounded yesterday, but was too much fatigued to follow. They found its tracks, and, after pursuing them for about a mile, they came upon the animal lying in the snow, dead. It is now discovered that putrefaction has rendered it unfit for use, a circumstance which seems very singular with the temperature at ten degrees below zero. A similar case is mentioned by Dr. Kane as having occurred within his own observation, and Jensen tells me that it is well known that such an event is not uncommon at Uper-*navik. Indeed, when the Greenlanders capture a deer they immediately eviscerate it. Puzzling as the phenomenon appears at first sight, it seems to me, however, that it admits of ready explanation. The dead animal is immediately frozen on the outside; and there being thus formed a layer of non-conducting ice, as well as the pores being closed, the warmth of the stomach is retained long enough for decomposition to take place, and to generate gas which permeates the tissues, and renders the flesh unfit for food; and this view of the case would seem to be confirmed by the fact that decomposition occurs more readily in