, 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