Sor was riot even listening, and did not hear a word of all my eloquence. "To the raft!" he cried, in a hoarse voice, when I paused for a reply. Such was the reault of my strenuous effort to resist his iron will. I tried again; I hegged and im- plored hiih; I got into a passion; but I had to deal with a will more determined than lay own, I seemed to feel like the ,waves which fought and battled against the huge mass of granite at our feet, which had smiled grimiy for so many ages at their puny efforts. Hans, meanwhile, without taking part in our dis- cussion, had been repairing the raft. One would have supposed that he instinctively guessed at the further projects of my uncle. By msar.s of some fragments of cordage, he had again made the raft sea-worthy. While I had been speaking he had hoisted a new mast and saH, the latter already flut- tering and waving in the breeze. The worthy Professor spoke a few words to our imperturbable guide, who immediately began to put our baggage on board, and to pr^are for our departure. The atmosphere was now tolerably clear and pure, and the northeast wind blew steadily and serenely. It appeared likely to last for some time. What, then, eould I do? Could I undertake to resist the iron will of two men? It was simply im- possible ; if even I could have hoped for the support of Hans. This, however, was out of the question. It appeared to me that the Icelander had set aside all personal will and identity. He was a picture of abnegation. I could hope for nothing from one so infatuated with and devoted' to his master. All I could do, therefore, was to swim with the stream. In- a mood of stolid and sullen resignation, I was about to take my accustomed place'on the raft, when my uncle placed his hand upon my shoulder. "There is no hurry, my boy," he said, "we shall not start un- til to-morrow," I looked the picture of resignation to the dire will of fate. "Under the circumstances," he said, "I ought to neglect no precautions. As fate has east me upon these shores, I shall not leave without hav- ing completely examined them." In order to understand this remark, I must ex- plain that though we had been driven back to 'the northern shore, we had landed at a very different spot from that which had been our starting point. Port Gretchen must, we calculated, be very much to the westward. Nothing, therefore, was more natural and reasonable than that we should recon- noitre this new shore upon which we had so unex- pectedly landed. "Let us go on a journey of discov- ery," I cried. And leaving Hans to his important operation, we started on our expedition. As we trudged along, our feet crushed innumerable shells of every shape and size — once the dwelling, place of animals of every period of creation. I particularly noticed some enormous shells — carapaces (turtle and tortoise spe- cies) the diameter of which exceeded fifteen feet. They had in past ages belonged to those gigantic glyptodons of the pliocene period, of which the mod- ern turtle is but a minute specimen. In addition, the whole soil was covered by a vast quantity of stony relics, having the appearance of flints worn by the action of the waves, and lying in successive layers one above the other. It appeared clear that we were walking upon a kind of sediment, formed like all the soils of that period, so frequent on the surface of the globe, by the subsidence of the waters. The Professor, who was now in his element, carefully examined every rocky fissure. Let him only find an opening and it directly became import- . ant to him to examine its depth. For a whole mile we followed the windings of the Central Sea, when suddenly an important change took place in the aspect of the soil. It seemed to have been rudely cast up, convuisionized, as it were, by a violent upjieaving of the lower strata. In many places, hollows here, and hillocks there, attested great dislocations at some other period of the ter- restrial mass. We advanced with great difficulty over the broken masses of granite mixed with ilint, quartz and alluvial deposits, when a large field, more even than a field, a plain of bones, appeared sud- denly before our eyes. It looked like an immense cemetery, where generation after generation had mingled their mortal dust. Lofty barrows of early remains rose at intervals. They undulated away to the limits of the distant ■ horizon and were lost in a thick and brown fog. On that spot, some three square miles in extent, was accumulated the whole history of animal life—? scarcely one creature still a habitant of the com- paratively modern soil of the upper and inhabited world, had there existed, . Ws were drawn forward by an all-absorbing and impatient curiosity. Our feet crushed with a dry and crackling sound the remains of those prehis- toric fossils, for which the museums of great cities quarrel, even when they obtain only rare and curious morsels. I was utterly confounded. My uncle stood for some minutes with his arras raised on high to- wards the thick granite vault which served us for a sky. His mouth was wide open; his eyes spai-kled wildly behind his spectacles (which' he had fortu- nately saved), his head bobbed up and down and from side to side, while his whole attitude and mien expressed unbounded astonishment. He stood in the presence of an endless, wondrous and inexhaustibly rich collection of antediluvian monsters, piled up for his own private and peculiar satisfaction. Fancy an enthusiastic lover of books carried suddenly into the very midst of the famous library of Alexandria burned by the sacrilegious Omar, and which some miracle had restored to its pristine splendor! Such was the state of mind in which uncle Hardwigg was now placed. For some time he stood thus, literally aghast at the magnitude of his discovery. But it was even a greater excitement when, dart- ing wi!dly over this mass of organic dust, he caught up a naked skull and addressed me in a quivering voice — "Harry, my boy — Harry — ^this is a human CHAPTER SXXV Discovery Upon Discovery IT will be easy to understand the Professor's mingled astonishment and joy when, on advanc- ing about twenty yards further, he found him- self in the presence of, 1 may say face to faeg with