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274 all the metallurgical operations of nature's laboratory. But here is another gnome who, despite his ugliness, has quite as great a claim to your respect as I have. I leave you with him." So saying, the armour-clad spirit vanishes in a most mysterious manner, before we can shape our grateful thoughts into words.

The gnome who now seats himself on the sparry throne is a sombre-looking little imp, with something so repulsive, and at the same time something so ludicrous, in his whole appearance, that we are undecided whether we ought to run away or burst out laughing. His ugly face wears a very comical expression, and is as black as jet. His crooked body is clothed in a suit of shining black; his legs are black, his feet are black; in fine, he is black all over. But what renders this strange being so terrible, is a circle of flames which surrounds his head and forms a sort of fiery crown.

"I am the gnome of the coal-measures," says the little blackamoor; "those wondrous accumulations of ancient vegetable matter that abound in these subterranean realms. I need not tell you that coal is one of the greatest treasures hidden in the bowels of the earth. By it man heats his apartments, cooks his food, fuses the metals, and produces steam, which sets all kinds of machinery in motion. With it he feeds his iron horses, which drag him from place to place with the velocity of the wind; and with it he raises an agent that propels his ships along the pathless deep against wind and tide.