force
at the disposal of the engineer which could be used without great
difficulty. For this, it was enough to augment the flow of the little
stream which supplied the interior of Granite House with water. The
opening among the stones and grass was then increased, thus producing
a strong fall at the bottom of the passage, the overflow from which
escaped by the inner well. Below this fall the engineer fixed a
cylinder with paddles, which was joined on the exterior with a strong
cable rolled on a wheel, supporting a basket. In this way, by means of
a long rope reaching to the ground, which enabled them to regulate the
motive power, they could rise in the basket to the door of Granite
House.

It was on the 17th of March that the lift acted for the first time,
and gave universal satisfaction. Henceforward all the loads, wood,
coal, provisions, and even the settlers themselves, were hoisted by
this simple system, which replaced the primitive ladder, and, as may
be supposed, no one thought of regretting the change. Top particularly
was enchanted with this improvement, for he had not, and never could
have possessed Master Jup's skill in climbing ladders, and often it
was on Neb's back, or even on that of the orang, that he had been
obliged to make the ascent to Granite House. About this time, too,
Cyrus Harding attempted to manufacture glass and he at first put the
old pottery-kiln to this new use. There were some difficulties to be
encountered, but after several fruitless attempts, he succeeded in
setting up a glass manufactory, which Gideon Spilett and Herbert, his
usual assistants did not leave for several days. As to the substances
used in the composition of glass, they are simply sand, chalk and
soda, either carbonate or sulphate. Now the beach supplied sand, lime
supplied chalk, sea weeds supplied soda, pyrites supplied sulphuric
acid and the ground supplied coal to heat the kiln to the wished-for
temperature. Cyrus Harding thus soon had every thing ready for setting
to work.

The tool, the manufacture of which presented the most difficulty, was
the pipe of the glass maker, an iron tube, five or six feet long,
which collects on one end the material in a state of fusion. But by
means of a long, thin piece of iron rolled up like the barrel of a
gun, Pencroft succeeded in making a tube soon ready for use.

On the 28th of March the tube was heated. A hundred parts of sand
thirty-five of chalk, forty of sulphate of soda,