THE YEAR AND ITS SEASONS 269 



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 re- 

 sist the rigors of winter. Wil- 

 lows, birches, dwarfed to insig- 

 nificant underbrush, venture as 

 far as the southern extremities A part of the moon's 

 of Lapland, where the cultiva- 

 tion 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 

 hare, and all vegetation is impossible." 



"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 cir- 

 cles 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 If) leagues. 

 Compare and judge." 



"What!" exclaimed Jules, "the immense ball of 

 which we have ne\ 11 able to comprehend the 



