Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

130 CAMPING AND WOODCRAFTBedding, to be comfortable and healthful, must beadaptable to variations of temperature. Rememberthat the night gets colder and colder till daylight.This is much more noticeable out-of-doors than indoors,and yet, even at home, when one goes to bedhe generally has a spare cover handy to pull overhim towards morning.Now a tent is far less insulated than a house.So if one muffles himself up when he goes to bed inenough covering to meet the last few hours beforedawn, he will soon be roasted out, whereas if hehas only enough bedding for comfort through thefirst watches of the night, he will find the last onehis watch in literal truth, for he won't sleep. Theonly sleeping bag worth talking about is one thatFig. 80.— D. T. Abercrorabie Sleeping Baghas at least four layers of blanketing. Then onescan turn in under one layer and the canvas; in thecold hours after midnight, he can emerge and crawlback under more cover (Fig. 80).It is from lack of attention to these simple andobvious requirements that most designers of sleepingbags have failed. They have turned out contrivancesthat either were insufferably hot in theearly part of the night or confoundedly cold beforemornmg.The explorer, Anthony Fiala, who has patentedan extremely light and warm bag for use in highlatitudes (Fig. 81), claims that not only the bagitself but its cover should be porous so as to throwoff the bodilv moisture which otherwise condenses