Pointing to the other side of the valley, Louis told us that there lay the bones of an immense snake, all turned to stone. This sudden voice from the past ages sounded in the Professor's ears like the blare of a trumpet to a warrior. He hurried us forward in the direction indicated, and, locking arms with the bloody-shirted little Frenchman, strode on in advance. I wish his class could have seen him thus traversing the desolate bed where that old sunken volcano went to sleep. We were glad that the latter was still asleep, and had never acquired the habit of snorting into wakefulness, and pelting explorers with hot rocks. What mysteries, I have often thought, might we not discover, on looking down the throat of a healthy volcano, if some wise alchemist could only brew a dose sufficiently powerful to stop the fiery fellow's foaming at the mouth! Or, better still, if it could reach the bowels of the earth, and keep the whole system quiet, while we, puny mortals, like trichina mites, swarmed down the interior, and bored scientifically back to the crust again. Earth's veins run golden blood, and we might be gorged with that, perhaps, ere making exit into the sunshine again. A shout from the further edge of the ravine cut short our speculations, and called our attention to the Professor. He stood waving his slouched hat for an instant, and then bent close over the ground, in earnest scrutiny. A few moments later, and we all stood beside the huge fossil. It lay exposed, upon a bed of slate, looking very much like a seventy-foot serpent, carved in stone. Part of the remains had been taken up to the town, and spread over the bench, in the shop of Louis. From what was left, the jaws appeared to have been originally over six feet long, the sharp hooked and cone-shaped teeth being still very perfect. A few broad fragments of ribs showed that, in circumference, the animal's body had been about the size of a puncheon. We felt confident that the specimen was a very rare one, as Muggs had never seen any thing like it, even in England. It now rests in the museum at Cambridge, Massachusetts.