50 ARCHITECTURE OF ANTS. 
publics, composed of a great number of 
individuals, are less common than those 
of which we have hitherto spoken. 
Let us figure to ourselves the interior 
of'a tree entirely sculptured or hollowed 
out, consisting of numberless stories, 
more or less horizontal, whose floors and 
ceilings are at five or six lines’ distance 
from each other, and as thin as a card, 
supported at one time by vertical parti- 
tions, forming an infinity of chambers ; 
at another time, by a series of small slen- 
der columns, allowing us to observe be- 
tween them the extent of an almost en- 
tire story; the whole, composed of a 
blackish, and as it were smoked wood ; 
‘and we shall have a just idea of the cities 
of these ants. 
The greater number of the vertical 
partitions, which divide each story inte 
compartments, are parallel; they follow 
the course of the igneous layers, and are 
always concentrical, which gives to their 
work some degree of regularity. The 
floors, generally speaking, are horizontal. 
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