re'n I'd've torn out the Book
of Job out of the family Bible.

[Illustration: Stern-lookin' guards a-watchin' over the coins.]

There wuz everything under the sun that could be seen in South America,
from a mule to a orchid.

And in the centre of the buildin' wuz a section of the great Sequois
tree from California. The tree is twenty-five feet in diameter, and has
been hollowed out, and a stairway built up inside of it. Stairs inside
of a tree! Good land!

But what is the use, I have only waded out a few steps. The deep lake
lays before us.

I hain't gin much idee of all there is to see in that buildin', and I
hain't in any on 'em.

You have got to swim out for yourself, and then you may have some idee
of the vastness on't. But you can't describe 'em, I don't
believe--nobody can't.

In front of that buildin' we see one of the two largest guns ever made
in the world.

It wuz made in Essen, Germany. It weighs two hundred and seventy
thousand pounds, and is forty-seven feet long.

It will hit anything sixteen miles off, and with perfect accuracy and
effect at a distance of twelve miles.

Good land! further than from Zoar to Shackville.

It costs one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars to discharge it
once. As Josiah looked at it, sez he--

"Oh, how I do wish I had sech a gun! How I could rake off the crows with
it in plantin' time! Why," sez he, "by shootin' it off once or twice I
could clear the hull country of 'em from Jonesville to Loontown."

"Yes," sez I; "and have you got a thousand dollars to pay for every
batch of crows you kill, besides damages--heavy damages--for killin'
human bein's, and horses, and cows, and sech?"

And he gin in that it wouldn't be feasible to own one. And I sez, "I
wouldn't have one on the premises if Mr. Krupp should give me one."

So we wended onwards.

Wall, about the most interestin' and surprisin' hours I enjoyed at
Columbuses doin's wuz to the stately house set apart for that great
wizard of the 19th century--Electricity.

As wuz befittin', most the first thing that our eyes fell on wuz a big,
noble statute of Benjamin Franklin. He stands with his kite in his hand,
a-lookin' up with a rapt look as if waitin' for instructions from on
high.

He seemed to be guardin' the entrance to this temple, and he looked as
if he wuz glad to be there, and I truly wuz glad to have him there.

For he ort to be put side by side with Christopher Columbus. Both sailed
out on th