"■•SOO"' »■"•"" HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. [Packard. 



■ lost 'atepn^the innumerable chambers and nurseries behind 

 tliera." This nave is covered with a roof sufficient to keep 

 the room dry during the heavy rains. This roof is not ex- 

 actly flat because the Avorkers "are always adding to it by 

 building more chambers and nurseries ; so that the divisions 

 or columns between the future arched apartments resemble 

 the pinnacles upon the fronts of some old buildings, and 

 demand particular notice as affording one proof that for the 

 most part the insects project their arches, and do not make 

 them, as 1 imagined for a long time, by excavation." 



The floor of the nave is very tliick and forms the roof of 

 the royal chamber, though containing several nurseries and 

 magazines. "It is likewise water proof, and contrived, as 

 far as I could guess, to let the water off, if it should get in, 

 and run over by some short way into the subterraneous pas- 

 sages which run under the lowest apartments in the hill in 

 various directions, and are of an astonishing size, being 

 wider than the bore of a great cannon. I have a memoran- 

 dum of one I measured, perfectly cylindrical, and thirteen 

 inches in diameter." 



These subterraneous passages or galleries are lined very 

 thick with the same kind of clay of which the hill is com- 

 posed, and ascend the inside of the outward shell in a spiral 

 manner, and winding round the whole building up to the 

 top, intersect each other at different heights, opening either 

 immediately into the dome in various places, and into tlie 

 interior building, the new turrets, etc., or communicating 

 thereto by other galleries of different bores or diameters, 

 either circular or oval." From these large galleries smaller 

 ones extend to various parts of the building, and a great 

 many run three or four feet under ground, where the Ter- 

 mites obtain the fine soil with which they build their nests. 

 Other galleries," adds Smeathman, "ascend and lead out 

 horizontally on every side, and are carried under ground 

 near to the surface a vast distance ; for if 3'ou destroy all 



12 



