100 THE CRATER; plements of husbandry, as a peace-offering to the Fejee savages), and went to work with a hearty good-will, landed all this weed, loaded it up, and wheeled it into the crater, leaving just enough outside to satisfy the pigs and the poultry. This task concluded the first week of the labour already mentioned. At the termination of the second week, Mark and Betts held a council on the subject of their future proceedings. At this consultation it was decided that it would be better to finish the picking up of a considerable plot of ground, one of at least half an acre in extent, that was already commenced, within the crater, scatter their compost over it, and spade all up together, and plant, mixing in as much of the sea-weed as they could conveniently spade under. Notwithstanding their success in finding the loam, and this last discovery of a means of getting sea-weed in large supplies to the Reef, Mark was not very sanguine of suc cess in his gardening. The loam appeared to him to be cold and sour, as well as salt, though a good deal fresh ened by the rain since it was put in the crater ; and he knew nothing of the effects of guano, except through the somewhat confused accounts of Bob. Then the plain of the crater offered nothing beside a coarse and shelly ashes. These ashes were deep enough for any agricultural pur pose, it is true, for Mark could work a crowbar down into them its entire length ; but they appeared to him to be totally wanting in the fertilizing principle. Nor could he account for the absence of everything like vegetation, on or about the reef, if the elements of plants of any sort were to be found in the substances of which it was composed. He had read, however, that the territory around active volcanoes, and which was far enough removed from the vent to escape from the destruction caused by lava, scoria? and heat, was usually highly fertile, in consequence of the ashes and impalpable dust that was scattered in the air; but seeing no proofs of any such fertility here, he supposed that the adjacent sea had swallowed up whatever there might have been of these bountiful gifts. With these im pressions, it is not surprising that Mark was disposed to satisfy himself with a moderate beginning, in preference
