byss, "Who goes back from the alluvial?" Mr. Waples got a
breathful of air from an explosion of bubbles, and boldly replied,
"The Great Dipper's assistant."

"Tell him," whispered the hunchback in the roof, "that Priam, the
Fault Finder, is holding the strata back, but wants the relief to come
on three centuries hence, that I may spit upon my hands."

Mr. Waples had no time to reply, for a large bubble of carbonic acid
gas burst at that moment, and blew him through the gap or "fault" of
the rock, into the coldest and clammiest cavern he had ever trodden.
From every part of the walls, ceilings, and floor exuded moisture,
which flowed off in rills and large canals, until they formed the
torrent that disappeared at the Fault Finder's Archway.

"Magnesia, faugh!" exclaimed Mr. Waples, unconscious that he was in
the presence of somebody.

"You don't like Magnesia, then?" rejoined a large, spongy object on
the floor, whose forehead perspired while he looked up through the
chalky-white sockets of sightless eyes. "Why, he's a sixth part of all
that's drunk at the springs. Here, I'll call him up. Come Magnesia!
come Potash! come Lime, Soda, Lithia, and Baryta! Come ye all to the
presence of Prince Saturation."

There glided to the Sponge's feet a number of leather-looking beings,
of broad, circular faces, and to every face a tail was appended on the
other side.

"The gentleman don't like our laboratory," exclaimed the Sponge,
purring the while like a cat. "Apply your suckers to him, ye
percolating angels, and draw him to the forests of Fernandes!"

Mr. Waples felt a hundred little wafers of suction take hold of his
body, and a sense of great compression, as if he was being pulled
through a mortar bed. He opened his eyes on the summit of a stalagmite
in a vast thicket or swamp of overthrown and decaying trees. Birds of
buried ages, whose long, bittern-like cries flopped wofully through
the silence, made ever and anon a call to each other, like the Nemesis
of century calling to century. One of these birds, having authority
and standing on one leg, observed to Mr. Waples, in a very
philosophical manner:

"Stranger, are you of the Fungi family?"

"No, Fernandes," answered our bold adventurer; "I live nearer the
phosphates when at home, and it's a good article."

A mournful chorus of croons from the loons went round the solitude.
"Phosphates! phew! Phosphates! phew!"

"This apartment," exclaimed the one-legged bird, "is