First Principles

Analogous instances occur among much higher animals. When the African rivers which it inhabits are dried up, the _Lepidosiren_ remains torpid in the hardened mud, until the return of the rainy season brings water. Humboldt states that during the summer drought, the alligators of the Pampas lie buried in a state of suspended animation beneath the parched surface, and struggle up out of the earth as soon as it becomes humid. Now though we have no proof that these partial arrests of vital activity, are consequent on the reduction of the fluid-solid tissues to a more solid form; yet their occurrence along with a cessation in the supply of water, is reason for suspecting that this is the case. And similarly, though in the more numerous instances where loss of water leads to complete arrest of vital activity, we are unable to say that the immediate cause is a stoppage of molecular changes that results from a diminution of molecular mobility; yet it seems not improbable that this is the rationale of death by thirst.