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The season of great drought, improperly called the summer of the torrid zone, corresponds with the winter of the temperate zone; and it is a curious physiological phenomenon to observe the alligators of North America plunged into a winter-sleep by excess of cold, at the same period when the crocodiles of the Llanos begin their siesta or summer-sleep.
It is not difficult to see that this winter-sleep, or torpor, is no wasted time, but a means by which God has ensured the lives of hosts of His creatures which, having no extra clothing to protect them from the frost, and no power of migrating to a land of sunshine and plenty, would otherwise be liable to perish during the long season of cold and dearth. So when
It is probable that the mean temperature of the dried mud, exposed to the solar rays, is more than 40 degrees. When the north of Egypt, where the coolest month does not fall below 13.4 degrees, was inhabited by crocodiles, they were often found torpid with cold. They were subject to a winter-sleep, like the European frog, lizard, sand-martin, and marmot.
The soul wakes up from the sleep of death just in the same manner as the insects awake in spring after sleeping the long and rigid winter-sleep, as a chrysalis in the bed of a cocoon spun by itself in autumn. Nature teaches us the great lesson of rebirth and the similarity between sleep and death by the rejuvenation of the chrysalis in the spring.
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