"
EMMA. "The Ferroe Isles, belonging to Denmark, are seventeen in
number; they produce agate, jasper, and beautiful zeolites, and
export feathers, eider-down, caps, stockings, tallow, and salted
mutton."
CHARLES. "I do not think that can be very nice: I wonder who buys
it?"
EMMA. "It always finds purchasers: therefore some folks are not so
fastidious as Mr. Charles Dorning."
GEORGE. "Mamma, let us go back past Norway, and see what are all
these little islands on the coast."
MRS. WILTON. "As you please, George; but most of the islands are
barren, uninhabited spots. Those worthy of notice are Karen, Bommel,
Sartar, Hittern, at the entrance of the Gulf of Drontheim; the
Victen or Victor Isles, and the Luffoden Isles: the latter are the
most numerous and extensive, and noted for the whirlpool Maelstrom,
which has drawn so many fine ships into its abyss, and from which
even the bellowing struggles of the great whale will not suffice to
redeem him if once he gets within the vortex."
GEORGE. "What causes this whirlpool?"
MR. BARRAUD. "When two currents of a more or less contrary direction
and of equal force meet in a narrow passage, they both turn, as it
were, upon a centre, until they unite, or one of the two escapes.
This is what is termed a whirlpool or eddy. There are three
celebrated whirlpools noticed in geography--the Maelstrom, the
Euripus, near the island of Eubaea, and Charybdis, in the Straits of
Sicily.
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