300 
HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. 
[Packard. 
lost among the innumerable chambers and nurseries behind 
them.” This nave is covered with a roof sufficient to keep 
the room dry during the heavy rains. This roof is not ex¬ 
actly flat because the workers “ are always adding to it by 
building more chambers and nurseries ; so that the divisions 
or columns between the future arched apartments resemble 
the pinnacles upon the fronts of some old buildings, and 
demand particular notice as affording one proof that for the 
most part the insects project their arches, and do not make 
them, as I imagined for a long time, by excavation.” 
The floor of the nave is very thick and forms the roof of 
the royal chamber, though containing several nurseries and 
magazines. “It is likewise water proof, and contrived, as 
far as I could guess, to let the water off, if it should get in, 
and run over by some short way into the subterraneous pas¬ 
sages which run under the lowest apartments in the hill in 
various directions, and are of an astonishing size, being 
wider than the bore of a great cannon. I have a memoran¬ 
dum of one I measured, 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 com¬ 
posed, and ascend the inside of the outward shell in a spiral 
manner, and winding round the whole building up do the 
top, intersect each other at different heights, opening either 
immediately into the dome in various places, and into the 
interior building, the new turrets, etc., or communicating 
thereto by other galleries of different bores or diameters, 
either circular or oval.” From these large galleries smaller 
ones extend to various parts of the building, and a great 
many run three or four feet under ground, where the Ter¬ 
mites obtain the fine soil with which they build their nests. 
Other galleries,” adds Smeathman, “ascend and lead out 
horizontal^ on every side, and are carried under ground 
near to the surface a vast distance; for if you destroy all 
12 
