WHITE ANTS. 
489 
raneous passages which run under the lowest apart- 
ments in the hill in various directions, and are of an 
astonishing size, being wider than the bore of a 
great cannon. I have a memorandum of one I mea- 
sured, perfectly cylindrical, and thirteen inches in 
diameter. 
“ These subterraneous passages, or galleries, are 
lined very thick with the same kind of clay of which 
the hill is composed, and ascend the inside of the 
outward shell in a spiral manner, and, winding 
round the whole building up to the top, intersect 
each other at different heights, opening either im- 
mediately into the dome in various places, and into 
the interior building, the new turrets, &c., or com- 
municating thereto by other galleries of different 
bores or diameters, either circular or oval. From 
every part of these large galleries are various small 
pipes or galleries leading to different parts of the 
building. Under-ground there are a great many 
which lead downward by sloping descents three and 
four feet perpendicular among the gravel, from 
whence the labouring termites cull the finer parts, 
which, being worked up in their mouths to the 
consistence of mortar, become that solid clay or 
stone of which their hills and all their buildings, 
except their nurseries, are composed. Other gal- 
leries again ascend and lead out horizontally on 
every side, and are carried under-ground near to the 
surface a vast distance : for, if you destroy all the 
nests within one hundred yards of your house, the 
inhabitants of those which are left unmolested 
