diamonds. Lilama selected from a tray a stone the color of pigeon-blood,
and about the size of an English walnut, which she handed to Pym as she
might have handed him a beautiful rose. In Europe or America this stone
would have purchased a fair-sized town.

"Peters described a strange natural phenomenon that exists on an island
not more than half a mile in length, which the party visited after
leaving Lilama's island. Near the centre of this last-mentioned island,
says Peters, is a volcanic mountain about four thousand feet in height,
with an extinct crater reaching down through the centre of the mountain
to within a hundred feet of the sea-level, and, at its lower part,
communicating with the outer surface by a tunnel some ten feet in
diameter. Upon entering, by means of the tunnel, this sunken crater, a
gallery was found, ascending spirally by at least twenty turns to the
extreme peak of the mountain. The diameter of the crater was about one
hundred feet at the bottom, about two hundred feet at the top--the
diameter widening at each complete circuit of the gallery by from eight
to twelve feet, the breadth of the gallery varying from four feet to
six. Looking from below at the opening above, the spot of sky, says
Peters, looked like the full moon. The length of the gallery, as its
gradient is about forty-five degrees, must be about a mile and a half.
Out of the gallery, at several points in the ascent, passes a small
side-tunnel, communicating with the exterior.

"On still another island, about a hundred miles from Hili-li, but on
about the same meridian--that is to say, in the same warm air-current,
though the heat of the current was there much diminished by
dilution--the party visited certain ruins which had always greatly
puzzled the Hili-lites. The island was quite large, and was covered with
agricultural farms, from which a single crop was taken each year. The