148" Mr. smeathman’s Account of 
Thefe buildings are ufually termed hills, by natives as well 
as Grangers, from their outward appearance, which is that of 
little hills -more or lefs conical* generally pretty much in the 
form of fugar loaves, and about ten or twelve feet in perpen- 
dicular height above the common furface of the ground (7) ( 8 ) 
tab. VII. fig. 1. 
Thefe 
M them at a difiance for an afiemblage of negroes huts or a confiderable village* 
and yet they were only the nefts of certain infe&s. They are round pyramids- 
“ from eight to ten feet high, upon nearly the fame bafe, with a fmooth furface 
** of ridh clay, excefiively hard and well' built." adanson’s Voyage to- Senegal,. 
8 vo, p. 153—33 7* Voyage de Senegal 1 , 4to, p. S3 and 99.. 
Note. What Mr. adanson. fays of the opening which gives ingrefs and regrefs 
is manifefily a miftake, arifing from the natural condufion that thofe infe&s had 
fiome way out and in to their neils, without examining where it was. It will 
appear by this account, that they have many thoufand ways out and in,, but alL 
Subterraneous. 
- (?) jobson, in his* Hifiory of Gambia, fays, u The Ant hills are remarkable 
call up in thofe parts by Pifmires, fome of them, twenty foot in height, of 
“ compafle to coiatayne a dozen men, with the heat of the fun baked into that 
** hardnefle, that we ufed to hide onrfelves in the ragged toppes of them,, when 
il we took up. Hands to Ihoot at deereor wild b.eafi$* ,r burchas’s Pilgrims, voi* 
II. p. 1570. 
* (S) “ The Ants make nefis of the* earth about twice the height of a man.'* 
bos man’s Defcription of Guinea* p» 276 — 493. 
( 9 ) The labourers are not quite a quarter of an inch* in. length % however,, for 
the fake of avoiding fra&ions, and of comparing them and. their buildings with’ 
thofe of mankind more eafily, I e Hi mate their length or height fo much,, and: 
the human ftandard of length or height,, alfo to avoid fra&ions, at fix feet, which 
is likewife above the height of men. If then one labourer is zr to one-fourth of 
-an inchcr to fix feet, four labourers are zz to one inch in height “ 2.4 feet, 
, which multiplied by 12 inches, gives the comparative height of a foot of their 
building zr 288 feet of the building of men, which multiplied by 10 feet, the fup- 
pofed average height of one of their nefis is zz 2880 of our feet, which is 240 feet 
m#re thai* half a mile, or near five times the height of the great pyramid ; and, as it 
