j / yo 



JZJ> ( in 



THE KING'S MIRROR 



which sometimes appears to shade and becloud the 

 light till it seems almost quenched; for to me it seems 

 more likely that the smoke is due to heat than to frost. 

 There is one more thing that looks strange to me which 

 you mentioned earlier in your speech, namely that you 

 consider Greenland as having a good climate, even 

 though it is full of ice and glaciers. It is hard for me to 

 understand how such a land can have a good climate. 



Father. When you say, in asking about the smoke 

 that sometimes appears to accompany the northern 

 lights, that you think it more likely that the smoke 

 xjomes from heat than from cold, I agree with you. But 

 you must also know that wherever the earth is thawed 

 under the ice, it always retains some heat down in the 

 ^ depths. In the same way the ocean under the ice re- 

 tains some warmth in its depths. But if the earth were 

 wholly without warmth or heat, it would be one mass 

 of ice from the surface down to its lowest foundations. 

 Likewise, if the ocean were without any heat, it would 

 be solid ice from the surface to the bottom. Now large 

 rifts may appear in the ice that covers the land as well 

 as openings in the ice upon the sea. But wherever the 

 earth thaws out and lies bare, whether in places where 

 there is no ice or under the yawning rifts in the glacier, 

 and wherever the sea lies bare in the openings that have 

 formed in the ice, there steam is emitted from the lower 

 depths; and it may be that this vapor collects and ap- 

 pears like smoke or dark fog; and that, whenever it 

 looks as if the lights are about to be quenched by smoke 

 or fog, it is this vapor that collects before them. 



