THE WHITE ANTS. 



fetching clay, wood, water, or provisions ; and they are certainly 

 well calculated for the purposes to which they are applied, by the 

 spiral slope which is given them ; for if they were perpendicular, 

 the labourers would not be able to carry on their building with so 

 much facility, since they cannot ascend a perpendicular without 

 .great difficulty, and the soldiers can scarcely do it at all. 

 It is on this account that sometimes a road, like a ledge, is 

 made on the perpendicular side of part of the building within 

 their hill, which is flat on the upper surface, and half an inch 

 wide, and ascends gradually like a staircase, or like those 

 Toads which are cut on the sides of hills and mountains, that 

 would otherwise be inaccessible ; by which, and similar con- 

 trivances, they travel with great facility to every interior part. 



42. This too is probably the cause of their building a kind of 

 "bridge of one vast arch, which answers the purpose of a flight of 

 stairs from the floor of the area to some opening on the side 

 of one of the columns which support the great arches. Such 

 bridges shorten the distance considerably to those labourers who 

 have the eggs to carry from the royal chamber to some of the 

 upper nurseries, which in some hills would be four or five feet in 

 the straightest line, and much more if carried through all the 

 winding passages which lead through the inner chambers and 

 apartments. 



Smeathman found one of these bridges half an inch broad, a 

 quarter of an inch thick, and ten inches long, making the side of 

 an elliptic arch of proportional size ; so that it is wonderful it 

 did not fall over or break by its own weight before they got it 

 joined to the side of the column above. It was strengthened by a 

 small arch at the bottom, and had a hollow or groove all the length 

 of the upper surface, either made purposely for the inhabitants 

 to travel over with more safety, or else, which is not improbable, 

 worn so by frequent treading. 



43. " Consider," observes Kirby, " what incredible labour and 

 diligence, accompanied by the most unremitting activity and the 

 most unwearied celerity of movement, must be necessary to enable 

 these creatures to accomplish, their size considered, these truly 

 gigantic works. That such diminutive 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 apart- 

 ments of various dimensions, and constructed of different materials 

 that they should moreover excavate, in different directions, and 

 at different depths, innumerable subterranean roads or tunnels, 



110 



