_Tommy._--Indeed, then, the knowledge of the Pole-star was of very great use to you. I am determined I will make myself acquainted with all the stars in the heavens. But did you ever find out what that light was, which danced before you in so extraordinary a manner?
_Harry._--When I came home, my father told me it was what the common people called a _Jack-o'-the-lantern_; and Mr Barlow has since informed me that these things are only vapours, which rise out of the earth in moist and fenny places, although they have that bright appearance; and therefore told me that many people, like me, who have taken them for a lighted candle, have followed them, as I did, into bogs and ditches.
Just as Harry had finished his story, they arrived at Mr Barlow's; and after sitting some time, and talking over the accidents of the day, the little boys retired to bed. Mr Barlow was sitting alone and reading in his parlour, when, to his great surprise, Tommy came running into the room, half undressed, and bawling out, "Sir, sir, I have found it out! they move! they move!" "What moves?" said Mr Barlow. "Why, Charles' Wain moves," answered Tommy; "I had a mind to take one peep at the sky before I went to bed, and I see that all the seven stars have moved from their places a great way higher up the sky." "Well," said Mr Barlow, "you are indeed right. You have done a vast deal to-day, and to-morrow we will talk over these things again."
When the morrow came, Tommy put Mr Barlow in mind of the story he had promised him about the people buried in the snow. Mr Barlow looked him out the book, but first said, "It is necessary to give you some explanation. The country where this accident happened is a country full of rocks and mountains, so excessively high that the snow never melts upon their tops." "Never?" said Tommy; "not even in the summer?" "Not even in the summer. The valleys between these mountains are inhabited by a brave and industrious people; the sides of them, too, are cultivated, but the tops of the highest mountains are so extremely cold that the ice and snow never melt, but go on continually increasing. During a great part of the winter the weather is extremely cold, and the inhabitants confine themselves within their houses, which they have the art to render very comfortable. Almost all the roads are then impassable, and snow and ice afford the only prospect. But when the year begins to grow warmer, the snow is frequently thawed upon the sides of the mountains, and undermined by the torrents of water, which pour down with irresistible fury. Hence it frequently happens that such prodigious masses of snow fall down as are sufficient to bury beasts and houses, and even villages themselves, beneath them.