Graver still is the vast quantity of carbon, trapped in undecayed plant matter for thousands of years, that is released into the atmosphere as permafrost thaws, creating a feedback loop: temperatures rise, soil melts, gases disperse, temperatures rise further.

When, twenty years after death, the tomb of a certain monkish writer was opened, it was found that, although the remainder of the body had crumbled into dust, the hand that had held the pen remained flexible and undecayed.430 A young and nameless scholar was once buried near a convent at Bonn.

The chin was rounded and fine, and the teeth white and undecayed; but, in other respects, the marks of age were very visible.

In summer you may hear them plying their augers in the wood of a young pine with soft green bark, as you sit upon its trunk, within a week after it has been felled, but the windfalls of the winter lie uninjured by the worm and even undecayed for centuries.

Hard by was a shrine and small hut where a Brahmin lived, who had charge of the place; and from far and near people used to come to visit the tomb of their lost Rajah and see the great miracle, how the body of him who had been dead so many months remained perfect and undecayed; but none knew why this was.