328 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



The void which before had separated them then 

 rapidly disappears, and in less than a year the nest 

 presents externally the appearance of an irregularly 

 conical hillock, having around it a dome-shaped 

 summit, bearing on its sides a variable number of 

 elongated eminences, and having at its base a dia- 

 meter of five or six yards, with nearly the same 

 degree of height.* 



If we take into account the difference of size of 

 the architects, we find, on comparing the hillocks con- 

 structed by these insects with the most colossal mo- 

 numents erected by the hand of man, that the result 

 is such as to excite in us a sentiment bordering on 

 humility. The pyramid of Cheops was, at the time 

 of its construction, and before the base had been 

 blocked up by the accumulation of sand, 479*640 

 feet in height, f It was, consequently, then about 

 ninety- six times the height of a man, if we assume 

 the average human stature at five feet. From what 

 we have already said in respect to the size of the 

 Termites, and of the hillocks which they erect, the 



* Smeathman does not ascribe more thaii a height of ten or 

 twelve feet to the nests of the Termes bellicosus, but Jobson in his 

 History of Gambia says that he has seen them as high as twenty feet. 

 All travellers, moreover, are agreed as to the extreme solidity of the 

 domes erected by these insects. 



f I use the name consecrated by custom, but M. Ampere assures 

 me that we ought to read Choufou instead of Cheops. The follow- 

 ing are the dimensions of this pyramid, as given in 1837 by the 

 English architect Mr. Perring : 



Feet. 



Length of the base in its primitive condition - 767*424 

 Height in its primitive condition - 479-640 



Actual length .-.__. 745-000 

 Actual height ---___ 450'7oO 



