Rollo, as he said this, was looking down at the more near and distinctly detailed objects which were to be seen directly below him at the bottom of the hill, towards the right--such as the hotels, the gardens, the roads, the pier, the steamboats, and the town. The attention of Mr. George, however, was attracted by the more grand and sublime features of the view which were to be seen in the other direction--the lake, the forests, and the mountains. The mountains that were near were darkened by the groves of evergreens that clothed their sides, and some of them were made more sombre still by the shadows of floating clouds; while over these there towered the glittering summits of more distant ranges, white with everlasting snow. "How cold they look!" said Mr. George; "how icy cold!" "How little they look! how very little! See, uncle George," said Rollo, pointing; "they are really good large steamboats, and you would think they were only playthings." "There are some men walking along the road," continued Rollo, "just like little dots." "See the banks of snow on that mountain, Rollo!" said Mr. George. "They look like drifts of dry, light snow, as they shine in the sun on a bitter cold winter day." "Why doesn't it melt?" asked Rollo. "Because it is up so high," said Mr. George. "As you go up in the air from the surface of the earth the air grows colder and colder, until at last, when you get up to a certain height, it is cold enough to freeze." "Is it so every where?" asked Rollo. "Yes," said Mr. George. "If you were to put some water into a vial and tie it to the tail of a kite, and send it up into the air _high enough_, the water would freeze, and when it came down you would find the water turned into ice." "Should I?" asked Rollo. "Would it if I were to send the kite up in America?" "Yes," said Mr. George, "any where, all over the earth." "I mean to try it," said Rollo. "You can't try it very well," replied Mr. George; "for you could not easily send a kite up high enough. It would take a very long time." "How long?" asked Rollo. "Why, that depends upon what part of the earth it is that you make the experiment in," replied Mr. George. "At the equator, where the sun is very hot, you would have to go up very high. In temperate regions, as in Switzerland or in most parts of America, you would not have to go up so high; and farther north, near the pole, it is only necessary to go up a very little way." "And how high must we go up in Switzerland?" asked Rollo. "About eight or nine thousand feet, I believe," said Mr. George. "Some of the Alpine summits are sixteen thousand feet high; and so the ice and snow lie upon the upper portions of them all the time." The young gentlemen remained some time longer in the pavilion, gazing upon the stupendous scenery around them, and looking down the lake which lay before them in the bottom of a deep and narrow valley and extended in among the mountains much farther than they could see.