or cone of sand, clay, magnesia, and lime, well oxidized, and
made rusty-red by the particles of iron in the composition deposited
with the other materials, through ages of overflow. It had never been
above three feet in height, and of little more diameter than a man's
stature. The water, flowing through its middle, sparkled and
discharged diamond showers of bubbles, and ran down the
ochre-besmeared sides, to disappear in the ground, the cavity through
which it came not more than ten inches wide. Such had been the
dimensions of the High Rock Spring.

But it was now a mountain, rising high in the air, and flowing crystal
and gold, like a volcano in an eruption of jewels. The pyrites of
sulphur and motes of iron, that formerly gleamed in the rills that
trickled down its slopes, were now big as cascades, filled with
carbuncles and rocks of amethyst. A mist of soft splendor, like the
light of stars crushed to dust and diffused around the mountain's
head, revealed an immense multitudes of people scaling the slopes, and
drinking; and some were raising their hands to Heaven in praise, and
some were drawing the water from the mountain's base by flumes and
troughs. This extensive prospect fell to a foreground of people, such
as Mr. Waples had been mingling with, and these were clamoring and
supplicating for water faster than a hundred dippers there could pass
it up. The dippers were of all garbs and periods, from Indians and
rustics to boys in cadet uniform. The vessels with which they dipped
were of all shapes and metals, from conch shells and calabashes to
cups of transparent china, and goblets of gold and silver. Amongst the
dippers, conspicuous by his benevolent face and clothing of a
butternut color, was the Great Dipper himself, directing operations.

"Drink freely!" he exclaimed, "for the night is going by. Sir William
Johnson has ordered his litter, and the company is breaking up. Drink
while you may, for the sun is soon to arise, and ye who have no
stomachs will be exposed and disgraced."

"Hark ye! old friend," whispered Andrew Waples to the Great Dipper,
"are there here people alive, as well as dead people, and why do they
fear exposure?"

The Great Dipper replied: "Nobody can be said to live who has lost his
stomach. We make no other distinction here. There are thousands who
have lost them, however, and who deceive mankind. Even these, you
perceive, who drink at the High Rock Spring, flirt while they feel
unutt