In temperate zones
the violence of the storms decreases according to their duration; but
in Africa, however heavy they are, they continue for several entire
days. How can so much electricity be collected in the clouds? How
can such quantities of vapor be accumulated? It is very difficult to
comprehend this. However, such are the facts, and one might suppose
himself transported to the extraordinary epochs of the diluvian
period.
Fortunately, the ant-cone, with its thick walls, was perfectly
impervious. A beaver's hut, of well-beaten earth, could not have been
more water-tight. A torrent could have passed over it without a single
drop of water filtering through its pores.
As soon as Dick Sand and his companions had taken possession of the
cone they occupied themselves in examining its interior arrangement.
The lantern was lighted, and the ant-hill was sufficiently
illuminated. This cone, which measured twelve feet in height inside,
was eleven feet wide, except in its upper part, which rounded in the
form of a sugar loaf. Everywhere the walls were about one foot in
thickness, and there was a distance between the stories of cells which
adorned them.
We may be astonished at the construction of such monuments, due to
these industrious swarms of insects, but it is true that they are
frequently found in the interior of Africa.
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