The Earth's Shifting Crust by Charles Hapgood - wire of information

THE GREAT EXTINCTIONS 24$
"Lovelock considers 5 C. as the lowest temperature to
which mammalian cells may be slowly frozen and still sur-
vive." Furthermore, the tissues survive gradual freezing very
well:
In most, if not all, soft tissue cells there is no gross membrane rupture
by slow freezing. Even though it is frozen for long periods of
time, upon thawing the water is reimbibed by the cells, and their
immediate histological appearance is often indistinguishable from the
normal.
It appears that what damages the cells is dehydration, caused
by the withdrawal of water from them to be incorporated in
the ice. This process goes on after the initial freezing:
. . . The principal cause of injury from slow freezing is not the
physical presence of extracellular ice crystals, but the denaturation
incurred by the dehydration resulting from the incorporation of all
free water into ice (304:518-19).
There are only two known ways, according to Meryman, to
prevent this damage. First, ". . . the temperature may be
reduced immediately after freezing to very low, stabilizing
temperatures." The other way is artificial; it consists of using
glycerine to bind water in the liquid state, preventing freez-
ing.
Meryman shows that once the temperature has fallen to
a very low point, it must remain at that if point the frozen
product is to escape serious damage. The reason for this is
that except at these low temperatures, a recrystallization
process may take place in ice, in which numerous small
crystals are combined into large ones. The growth of the
large crystals may disrupt cells and membranes. He remarks:
At very low temperatures, recrystallization is relatively slow, and
equilibrium is approached while the crystals are quite small. At
temperatures near the melting point, recrystallization is rapid, and
the crystals may grow to nearly visible size in less than an hour (304:
518).
I am reminded, in writing these lines, of my experience in
truck gardening. In trying to reduce damage from frost, I