516 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



or else worn by frequent treading. It is not the least 

 surprising circumstance attending- this bridge, the Go- 

 thic arches before spoken of, and in general all the 

 arches of the various galleries and apartments, that, as 

 Mr. Smeathman saw every reason for believing, the 

 Termites project their arches, and do not, as one would 

 have supposed, excavate them. 



Consider what incredible labour and diligence, ac- 

 companied by the most unremitting activity and the 

 most unwearied celerity of movement, must be neces- 

 sary to enable these creatures to accomplish, their size 

 considered, these truly gigantic works. That such di- 

 minutive insects, for they are scarcely the fourth of an 

 inch in length, however numerous, should, in the space 

 of three or four years, be able to erect a building twelve 

 feet high and of a proportionable bulk, covered by a 

 vast dome, adorned without by numerous pinnacles and 

 turrets, and sheltering under its ample arch myriads of 

 vaulted apartments of various dimensions, and con- 

 structed of different materials — that they should more- 

 over excavate, in different directions and at different 

 depths, innumerable subterranean roads or tunnels, 

 some twelve or thirteen inches in diameter, or throw 

 an arch of stone over other roads leading from the me- 

 tropolis into the adjoining country to the distance of 

 several hundred feet — that they should project and 

 finish the, for them, vast interior stair-cases or bridges 

 lately described — and, finally, that the millions neces- 

 sary to execute such Herculean labours, perpetually 

 passing to and fro, should never interrupt or interfere 

 with each other, is a miracle of nature, or rather of the 

 Author of nature, far exceeding the most boasted works 



