_Mr Barlow._--For this reason they seldom dared to venture out of sight of the shore, for fear of losing their way, by which means all their voyages were long and tedious; for they were obliged to make them several times as long as they would have done, could they have taken the straight and nearest way. But soon after the discovery of this admirable property of the loadstone, they found that the needle, which had been thus prepared, was capable of showing them the different points of the heavens, even in the darkest night. This enabled them to sail with greater security, and to venture boldly upon the immense ocean, which they had always feared before.
_Tommy._--How extraordinary that a little stone should enable people to cross the sea, and to find their way from one country to another! But I wonder why they take all these pains.
_Mr Barlow._--That you need not wonder at, when you consider that one country frequently produces what another does not; and therefore, by exchanging their different commodities, the people of both may live more conveniently than they did before.
_Harry._--But does not almost every country produce all that is necessary to support the inhabitants of it? and therefore they might live, I should think, even though they received nothing from any other country.
_Mr Barlow._--So might your father live, perhaps, upon the productions of his own farm, but he sometimes sells his cattle to purchase clothes; sometimes his corn to purchase cattle. Then he frequently exchanges with his neighbours one kind of grain for another, and thus their mutual conveniency is better promoted than if each were to confine himself to the produce of his own land. At the same time, it is true, that every country which is inhabited by men, contains within itself all that is necessary for their subsistence, and what they bring from other countries is frequently more hurtful than salutary to them.
_Harry._--I have heard you say that even in Greenland, the coldest and most uncomfortable country in the world, the inhabitants procure themselves necessaries, and live contented.
_Tommy._--What! is there a part of the world still colder than Lapland?
_Mr Barlow._--Greenland is still farther north, and therefore colder and more barren. The ground is there covered with eternal snows, which never melt, even in the summer. There are scarcely any animals to be found, excepting bears, that live by preying upon fish. There are no trees growing upon any part of the country, so that the inhabitants have nothing to build their houses with, excepting the planks and trees which the sea washes away from other countries and leaves upon their coast. With these they erect large cabins, where several families live together. The sides of these huts are composed of earth and stones, and the top secured with turf; in a short time the whole is so cemented with frost, that it is impenetrable to the weather during the whole winter. Along the sides of the building are made several partitions, in each of which a Greenlander lives with his family. Each of these families have a small lamp continually burning before them, by means of which they cook their food, and light themselves, and, what is equally necessary in so cold a country, keep up agreeable warmth throughout their apartment. They have a few deer, which sometimes visit them in the summer, and which the Greenlanders kill whenever they can catch them; but they are almost entirely destitute of all the vegetables which serve as nourishment to man, so that they are obliged to be continually upon the sea, in order to catch fish for their maintenance.