Page:The Swiss Family Robinson - 1851.djvu/191

174 would he useful to burn in lamps, or even as an ingredient in soap, which I hoped to make at some future time.

At this time I greatly improved my sledge, by placing it on two small wheels belonging to the guns of the ship, making it a light and commodious carriage, and so low, that we could easily place heavy weights on it. Satisfied with our labours, we returned very happy to Falcon’s Nest, to spend our Sunday, and to thank God heartily for all the blessings he had given us.  

went on with our labours but slowly, as many employments diverted us from the great work. I had discovered that the crystals of salt in our grotto had a bed of gypsum for their base, from which I hoped to obtain a great advantage. I was fortunate enough to discover, behind a projecting rock, a natural passage leading to our store-room, strewed with fragments of gypsum. I took some of it to the kitchen, and by repeated burnings calcined it, and reduced it to a fine white powder, which I put into casks, and carefully preserved for use. My intention was, to form our partition-walls of square stones, cemented with the gypsum. I employed my sons daily to collect this, till we had amassed a large quantity; using some, in the first place, effectually to cover our herring-barrels. Four barrels were salted and covered in this way; the rest my wife smoked in a little hut of reeds and branches, in the midst of which the 