“No, up to this time[2] man has not been able to reach the pole on account of the horrible cold there; but there are countries more or less near the pole which are inhabited. When winter comes, wine, beer, and other beverages turn into blocks of ice in their casks; a glass of water thrown into the air falls back in flakes of snow; the moisture of the breath becomes needles of rime at the opening of the nostrils; the sea itself freezes to a great depth and thus increases the apparent extent of the dry land, which it resembles, having, like it, its fields of snow and mountains of ice. For whole months the sun does not show itself, and there is no difference between day and night, or rather it is one long night, the same at midday as at midnight. However, when the weather is fine darkness is not complete; the light of the moon and stars, augmented by the whiteness of the snow, produces a kind of semi-daylight sufficient for seeing. By this wan light, in sledges drawn in disorderly fashion by teams of dogs, the people of these dark regions hunt what scanty game there is. Fishing furnishes them more abundant food. Fish, dried, stored, half decayed, and rancid whale’s blubber are their habitual food. For fuel for their hearths their dependence is, again, on their fishing, which supplies them with fish-bones and slices of blubber. Here, in short, wood is unknown; no tree, however hardy, can resist the rigors of winter. Willows, birches, dwarfed to insignificant underbrush, venture as far as the southern extremities of Lapland, where the cultivation of barley, the hardiest of cultivated plants ceases. Beyond this point all woody vegetation ceases; and during the summer there are found only occasional tufts of grass and moss, hastily ripening their seeds in the sheltered hollows of the rocks. Further on the summer is too short for the snow and ice to melt completely; the ground is never bare, and all vegetation is impossible.” Footnote 2: This was written before Peary’s and Amundsen’s achievements in polar exploration.—_Translator._ [Illustration: A part of the moon’s surface] “Oh, the doleful countries!” cried Emile. “One more question, Uncle. In traveling around the sun does the earth go fast?” “It takes a year for the entire tour; but as it circles at an enormous distance from the sun, a distance of 38 millions of leagues, it must travel this wide circle with a speed beyond your power to conceive. This speed is 27,000 leagues an hour. In the same time the fastest locomotive goes about 15 leagues. Compare and judge.” “What!” exclaimed Jules, “the immense ball of which we have never been able to comprehend the frightful weight travels in the sky with such rapidity?”