On the top, or near the top, of each is a round hole, a finger's breadth, polished to exceeding smoothness, and running down through the cone as far as we could dig.

From each oozes perpetually, with a clicking noise of gas- bubbles, water and mud; and now and then, losing their temper, they spirt out their dirt to a considerable height; a feat which we did not see performed, but which is so common that we were in something like fear and trembling while we opened a cone with our cutlasses.

For though we could hardly have been made dirtier than we were, an explosion in our faces of mud with 'a faint bituminous smell,' and impregnated with 'common salt, a notable proportion of iodine, and a trace of carbonate of soda and carbonate of lime,' {195} would have been both unpleasant and humiliating.

But the most puzzling thing about the place is, that out of the mud comes up--not jumbies, but-- a multitude of small stones, like no stones in the neighbourhood; we found concretions of iron sand, and scales which seemed to have peeled off them; and pebbles, quartzose, or jasper, or like in appearance to flint; but all evidently long rolled on a sea-beach.

Messrs.