volcanic eruptions, composed of crumbling diamond-bearing earth, consisting mainly of decomposed tufa. That crater now stands full of the rectangular “claims,” dug out to every variety of depth. Before us are masses of earth, piled up like pillars, clustered like towers, or spread out in plateaus; sometimes they seem standing erect as walls, sometimes they descend in steps; here they seem to range themselves in terraces, and there they gape asunder as pits; altogether they combine to form a picture of such wild confusion, that at dusk, or in the pale glimmer of moonshine, it would require no great stretch of imagination to believe them the ruins of some city of the past, that after the lapse of centuries was being brought afresh to light.
But any illusion of this sort is all dispelled, as one watches the restless activity of the throngs that people the bottom of the deep dim hollow. The vision of the city of the dead dissolves into the scene of a teeming ant-hill; all is life and eagerness and bustle. The very eye grows confused at the labyrinth of wires stretching out like a giant cobweb over the space below, while the movements of the countless buckets making their transit backwards and forwards only add to the bewilderment. Meanwhile to the ear everything is equally trying; there is the hoarse creaking of the windlasses; there is the perpetual hum of the wires; there is the constant thud of the falling masses of earth; there is the unceasing splash of water from the pumps; and
