dined alone at 18 o'clock, and sat
at table six hours: it was my intention to send him all my reports at the
hour of 23, just as dessert would be served, and he would be in a proper
frame of mind to appreciate my discoveries and my services to the crown.

At 9 o'clock on the 13th of Meijh I left Sanf Rachisco and after a tedious
journey of nearly fifty minutes arrived at Bolosson, the eastern terminus
of the magnetic tube, on the summit of the Ultimate Hills. According to
Tucker this was anciently a station on the Central Peaceful Railway, and
was called "German," in honor of an illustrious dancing master. Prof.
Nupper, however, says it was the ancient Nevraska, the capital of Kikago,
and geographers generally have accepted that view.

Finding nothing at Bolosson to interest me except a fine view of the
volcano Carlema, then in active eruption, I shouldered my electric rifle
and with my case of instruments strapped upon my back plunged at once into
the wilderness, down the eastern slope. As I descended the character of
the vegetation altered. The pines of the higher altitudes gave place to
oaks, these to ash, beech and maple. To these succeeded the tamarack and
such trees as affect a moist and marshy habitat; and finally, when for
four months I had been steadily descending, I found myself in a primeval
flora consisting mainly of giant ferns, some of them as much as twenty
_surindas_ in diameter. They grew upon the margins of vast stagnant lakes
which I was compelled to navigate by means of rude rafts made from their
trunks lashed together with vines.

In the fauna of the region that I had traversed I had noted changes
corresponding to those in the flora. On the upper slope there was nothing
but the mountain sheep, but I passed successively through the habitats of
the bear, the deer and the horse. This last mentioned creature, which our
naturalists have believed long extinct, and which Dorbley declares our
ancestors domesticated, I found in vast numbers on high table lands
covered with grass upon which it feeds. The animal answers the current
description of the horse very nearly, but all that I saw were destitute of
the horns, and none had the characteristic forked tail. This member, on
the contrary, is a tassel of straight wiry hair, reaching nearly to the
ground--a surprising sight. Lower still I came upon the mastodon, the
lion, the tiger, hippopotamus and alligator, all differing very little
from those infesting Cen