Here is a letter in answer to the Little School-ma'am's question which I passed over to you in April, and it raises such startling ideas, that, may be, you'd do well to look farther into the matter:
DEAR JACK: We suppose that the Little Schoolma'am and her writers on Greenland will concede its accidental discovery by Gunnbjorn, as narrated by Cyrus Martin, Jr., in his "Vikings in America" [ST. NICHOLAS, Vol. III., page 586]. We have always thought Iceland appropriately named, and Greenland the reverse.
And now about that question of temperature. If portions of Greenland are colder than formerly, may it not be because less heat comes through its crust from subterranean fires, as well as because the surface is constantly gaining in height, as some report?—Very truly yours, NED AND WILL WHITFORD.
THE ANGERED GOOSE.
The picture of which you here have an engraving formed at first a kind of panel of a wall, and occupied a space beneath one of the cartoons of Raphael, the great Italian painter, whose grand picture of "The Transfiguration" is thought to be his chief work. This panel-picture, also, was painted by Raphael, as some say, though others think it may be the work of one of his [pupils].
"THE ANGERED GOOSE."
A curious thing about the picture is this: the goose is so excited, and scolding its tortoise so angrily for going slowly, that it has forgotten its own wings, when, if it would only use them, it could fly to its journey's end long before the tortoise could crawl there. Now, there are other two-legged geese who let themselves get angered and excited easily, and so lose many chances of serving others and helping themselves. Perhaps you may know some of them.
That is what the Deacon says; but, for my part, I never knew a goose that hadn't two legs.