d high over our
heads, and far away, I suppose, to the westward. Now they are all gnawed
out into cliffs,--indeed gnawed clean through in the bottom of the
valley, where the famous hot springs break out in which people bathe.

Is that why the place is called Bath?

Of course. But the Old Romans called the place Aquae Solis--the waters
of the sun; and curious old Roman remains are found here, which we have
not time to stop and see.

Now look out at the pretty clear limestone stream running to meet us
below, and the great limestone hills closing over us above. How do you
think we shall get out from among them?

Shall we go over their tops?

No. That would be too steep a climb, for even such a great engine as
this.

Then there is a crack which we can get through?

Look and see.

Why, we are coming to a regular wall of hill, and--

And going right through it in the dark. We are in the Box Tunnel.

* * * * *

There is the light again: and now I suppose you will find your tongue.

How long it seemed before we came out!

Yes, because you were waiting and watching, with nothing to look at: but
the tunnel is only a mile and a quarter long after all, I believe. If
you had been looking at fields and hedgerows all the while, you would
have thought no time at all had passed.

What curious sandy rocks on each side of the cutting, in lines and
layers.

Those are the freestone still: and full of fossils they are. But do you
see that they dip away from us? Remember that. All the rocks are
sloping eastward, the way we are going; and each new rock or soil we come
to lies on the top of the one before it. Now we shall run down hill for
many a mile, down the back of the oolites, past pretty Chippenham, and
Wootton-Bassett, towards Swindon spire. Look at the country, child; and
thank God for this fair English land, in which your lot is cast.

What beautiful green fields; and such huge elm trees; and orchards; and
flowers in the cottage gardens!

Ay, and what crops, too: what wheat and beans, turnips and mangold. All
this land is very rich and easily worked; and hereabouts is some of the
best farming in England. The Agricultural College at Cirencester, of
which you have so often heard, lies thereaway, a few miles to our left;
and there lads go to learn to farm as no men in the world, save English
and Scotch, know how to farm.

But what rock are we on now?

On rock that is much softer than that on the other