NORTH AMERICA,, 
1-65 
picious intercourfe performing their evolutions : 
there are no flgns of enmity, no attempt to devour 
each other ; the different bands feem peaceably and 
complaifantly to move a little afide, as it were to 
make room for others to pafs by. 
But behold yet fome thing far more admirable, 
fee whole armies defcending into an abyfs, into the 
mouth of the bubbling fountain : they difappear ! are 
they gone for ever ? is it real ? I raile my eyes with 
terror and aftonifhment ; I look down again to 
the fountain with anxiety, when behold them as 
it were emerging from the blue ether of another 
world, apparently at a vaft diftance ; at their firff 
appearance, no bigger than flies or minnows ; now 
gradually enlarging, their brilliant colours begin to 
paint the fluid. 
Now they come forward rapidly, and inflantly 
emerge, with the elaftic expanding column of crys- 
talline waters, into the circular bafon or funnel: 
fee now how gently they rife, fome upright, others 
obliquely, or feem to lie as it were on their fides, 
fuffering themfelves to be gently lifted or borne up 
by the expanding fluid towards the furface, fail- 
ing or floating like butterflies in the cerulean ether : 
then again they as gently defcend, diverge and move 
off; when they rally, form again, and rejoin their 
kindred tribes. 
This amazing and delightful fcene, though real, 
appears at firft but as a piece of excellent paint- 
ing ; there feems no medium 5 you imagine the 
picture to be within a few inches of your eyes, and 
that you may without the leaft difficulty touch any 
one of the fifh, or put your finger upon the croco- 
dile’s eye, when it really is twenty or thirty feet 
under water. 
M 3 
And 
