32 AN IMMENSE EDIFICE. 
little form, in which one might have readily con- 
. cluded that a black flame, shining fitfully, had con- 
sumed all that was material, and reserved only what 
was spiritual. 
The coup de thédtre was violent, and the immense 
swarming had its effect. A vivid and unwonted joy 
agitated the much-moved hand that had made the 
happy discovery; and in proportion to the full 
revelation of its greatness, a wild vertigo passed 
from the distracted people to the author of this great 
ruin. The walls of the city fell down, and revealed 
the interior of the edifice; innumerable halls and 
galleries were laid bare; generally four to five inches 
in length, and about half an inch in height,—a 
height certainly quite sufficient, and even majestic, if 
we take into account the size of the members of the 
community. 
A true palace, or rather a vast and superb city ; 
limited in breadth, but to what depth may it not 
penetrate the earth? It is said that some have been 
found which, perseveringly excavated, have numbered 
no fewer than seven hundred stories. Thebes and 
Nineveh were insignificant! Babylon and Babel alone 
might have sustained, in their audaciously towering 
piles, a comparison with these shadowy Babels which 
2) | gontinually expanded in the abyss. 
But more astonishing than the grandeur is the 
interior aspect of these habitations : without, all damp, 
and mossy, and overgrown with tiny cryptogams ; within, an astonish- 
ing dryness, and an admirable cleanliness—every partition firm though 
