It was curious to behold the machinery, if such a term may be used, for the drainage, all, with the last trifling exception, perfect, yet without any signs of action. These houses, when perfect, must have been capable of containing a considerable number of persons. They were situated in the most conspicuous and defenceless position, at the bottom of the flat broad valley. At the present day, with the advantage of beasts of burden, a mine, unless it were very rich, could scarcely be worked here with profit. Gill, a civil engineer, who had seen much of the interior country. Is it not most wonderful that men should have attempted such operations, without the use of iron or gunpowder? Near it was the dry course of a considerable river, whence the water for irrigation had formerly been conducted. Gill, therefore, was much astonished, when walking up the bed of this ancient river, to find himself suddenly going down hill. He imagined that the downward slope had a fall of about 40 or 50 feet perpendicular. We here have unequivocal evidence that a ridge had been uplifted right across the old bed of a stream. From the moment the rivercourse was thus arched, the water must necessarily have been thrown back, and a new channel formed. From that moment, also, the neighbouring plain must have lost its fertilizing stream, and become a desert. We continued gradually ascending, and the valley now changed into a ravine. Next to lizards, mice appear to be able to support existence on the smallest and driest portions of the earth even on islets in the midst of great oceans. The scene on all sides showed desolation, brightened and made palpable by a clear, unclouded sky. For a time such scenery is sublime, but this feeling cannot last, and then it becomes uninteresting. Where we slept, there were some considerable patches of snow, but they do not remain throughout the year. The winds in these lofty regions obey very regular laws every day a fresh breeze blows up the valley, and at night, an hour or two after sunset, the air from the cold regions above descends as through a funnel. This night it blew a gale of wind, and the temperature must have been considerably below the freezingpoint, for water in a vessel soon became a block of ice.