"Should I?" asked Rollo. "Would it if I were to send the kite up in America?"
"Yes," said Mr. George, "any where, all over the earth."
"I mean to try it," said Rollo.
"You can't try it very well," replied Mr. George; "for you could not easily send a kite up high enough. It would take a very long time."
"How long?" asked Rollo.
"Why, that depends upon what part of the earth it is that you make the experiment in," replied Mr. George. "At the equator, where the sun is very hot, you would have to go up very high. In temperate regions, as in Switzerland or in most parts of America, you would not have to go up so high; and farther north, near the pole, it is only necessary to go up a very little way."
"And how high must we go up in Switzerland?" asked Rollo.
"About eight or nine thousand feet, I believe," said Mr. George. "Some of the Alpine summits are sixteen thousand feet high; and so the ice and snow lie upon the upper portions of them all the time."
The young gentlemen remained some time longer in the pavilion, gazing upon the stupendous scenery around them, and looking down the lake which lay before them in the bottom of a deep and narrow valley and extended in among the mountains much farther than they could see.
"We are going along that lake," said Rollo "are we not?"