“Well, then, Mr. Smith,” replied the sailor, “let us build a house on the edge of the lake. We are no longer without bricks and tools. After having been brickmakers, potters, founders, and smiths, we ought to be masons easily enough.” “Yes, my friend; but before deciding it will be well to look about. A habitation all ready made would save us a great deal of work, and would, doubtless, offer a surer retreat, in which we would be safe from enemies, native as well as foreign?” “But, Cyrus,” answered the reporter, “have we not already examined the whole of this great granite wall without finding even a hole?” “No, not one!” added Pencroff. “If we could only dig a place in it high out of reach, that would be the thing! I can see it now, on the part overlooking the sea, five or six chambers—” “With windows!” said Herbert, laughing. “And a staircase!” added Neb. “Why do you laugh?” cried the sailor. “Haven’t we picks and mattocks? Cannot Mr. Smith make powder to blow up the mine. You will be able, won’t you, sir, to make powder when we want it?” The engineer had listened to the enthusiastic sailor developing these imaginative projects. To attack this mass of granite, even by mining, was an Herculean task, and it was truly vexing that nature had not helped them in their necessity. But he answered Pencroff, by simply proposing to examine the wall more attentively, from the mouth of the river to the angle which ended it to the north. They therefore went out and examined it most carefully for about two miles. But everywhere it rose, uniform and upright, without any visible cavity. The rock-pigeons flying about its summit had their nests in holes drilled in the very crest, or upon the irregularly cut edge of the granite. To attempt to make a sufficient excavation in such a massive wall even with pickaxe and powder was not to be thought of. It was vexatious enough. By chance, Pencroff had discovered in the Chimneys, which must now be abandoned, the only temporary, habitable shelter on this part of the coast. When the survey was ended the colonists found themselves at the northern angle of the wall, where it sunk by long declivities to the shore. From this point to its western extremity it was nothing more than a sort of talus composed of stones, earth, and sand bound together by plants, shrubs, and grass, in a slope of about 45°. Here and there the granite thrust its sharp points out from the cliff. Groups of trees grew over these slopes and there was a thin carpet of grass. But the vegetation extended but a short distance, and then the long stretch of sand, beginning at the foot of the talus, merged into the beach. Smith naturally thought that the over flow of the lake fell in this direction, as the excess of water from Red Creek must be discharged somewhere, and this point had not been found less on the side already explored, that is to say from the mouth of the creek westward as far as Prospect Plateau.