CHARLES. "The only tree growing in Spitzbergen is the dwarf willow, which rises to the vast height of two inches! towering with great pride above the mosses, lichens, and a few other cumbent plants." GEORGE. "What a ridiculous little shrub! We might just as well dignify mustard and cress with the title of trees. To whom does this _very fertile_ island belong?" MRS. WILTON. "To the Russians; and it certainly is not an enviable possession, for the climate is most wretched. From the 30th of October, until the 10th of February, the sun is invisible; it is as one long dreary night, and bitterly cold. The inhabitants sit by dull fires during this season, immersed in furs, and endeavor to doze through the tedious gloom. They are chiefly of Russian extraction, and many of them natives of Archangel." MR. WILTON. "Other animals are found in these regions besides the bear and whale: for we read of foxes, reindeer, walruses, and seals being occasionally caught by the people; and many islands about here (for the Frozen Sea is full of islands, principally composed of turf hills,) are the dreary abodes of bears and reindeer." EMMA. "The Ferroe Isles, belonging to Denmark, are seventeen in number; they produce agate, jasper, and beautiful zeolites, and export feathers, eider-down, caps, stockings, tallow, and salted mutton." CHARLES. "I do not think that can be very nice: I wonder who buys it?" EMMA. "It always finds purchasers: therefore some folks are not so fastidious as Mr. Charles Dorning." GEORGE. "Mamma, let us go back past Norway, and see what are all these little islands on the coast." MRS. WILTON. "As you please, George; but most of the islands are barren, uninhabited spots. Those worthy of notice are Karen, Bommel, Sartar, Hittern, at the entrance of the Gulf of Drontheim; the Victen or Victor Isles, and the Luffoden Isles: the latter are the most numerous and extensive, and noted for the whirlpool Maelstrom, which has drawn so many fine ships into its abyss, and from which even the bellowing struggles of the great whale will not suffice to redeem him if once he gets within the vortex." GEORGE. "What causes this whirlpool?" MR. BARRAUD. "When two currents of a more or less contrary direction and of equal force meet in a narrow passage, they both turn, as it were, upon a centre, until they unite, or one of the two escapes. This is what is termed a whirlpool or eddy. There are three celebrated whirlpools noticed in geography--the Maelstrom, the Euripus, near the island of Eubaea, and Charybdis, in the Straits of Sicily."