FABLES FOR GOOD OLD BO YS AND -GIRLS. 145 



words, but these did not impair the general clearness of the meaning. It is here 

 presented : ■ • 



'" One thousand ei'ght hundred and forty-seven years ago, the {fires ?) descended and' 

 consumed the whole city. Only some nine hundred souls were saved, all others destroyed. 

 The (king ?) commanded this stone to be set up to .... . (untranslatable) pre- 

 vent the repetition of it."- 



This was the first successful and- satisfactory translation that had been made of 

 the mysterious character left behind him by extinct man, and it gave Professor 

 Woddlouse such reputation that at once every seat of learning' in his native land 

 donferred a degree of the most illustrious grade upon him, and it was believed that 

 if he had" been a soldier and had turned his splendid talents to the extermination 

 6f a remote tribe of -reptiles, the king would have ennobled him and made him rich.' 

 And this, too, -was the origin of that school of scientists called Manologists, whose 

 specialty is the deciphering of the ancient records of the extinct bird termed Man.' 

 [For it is now; decided that Man was a bird and not a reptile]. But Professor! 

 Woodlouse began and -remained chief of these, for it was granted that no translations 

 were ever so free frorti error a« his. Others malde mistakes— he seemed incapable 

 of it. Many a memorial of the lost race was afterward found, but none , ever 

 attained to the retioWfl" and veneration achieved by the " Mayoritish Stone" — it 

 being so called from the word "Mayor" in it, which, being translated "King," 

 *' Mayoritish Stone " was but another way of saying " King Stone." 



Another time the expedition- made a great "find." It was a vast round flattish 

 mass, ten' frog-spans in diameter and five or six high. Professor Snail put on his 

 Spectacles and examined it all around, arid then climbed up and inspected the top.' 

 He said : 



' " The result of my perlustration and persc'ontatibn of this isoperinietrical protu- 

 berance is a belief that it is one of those rare and wonderful creations left by the 

 Mound Builders. The fact that this one is lamellibranchiate in- its formation, 

 simply add's to its interest as being possibly of a different kind from any we read 

 of in the records of science, but yet in no manner marring its authent^ity. Let 

 the' niegalophonous grasshopper soUrid a blast and summon hither the perfunctory 

 and circTimforaheous Tumble.iBug;: to< the ' end ■ that excavatiohss may bc; made, ans^ 

 learning gather new treasures." 



