pin-point quantities: he wanted bulk results. Yet I believe that, after all, what he sought was a sort of higher power of radium. The phenomena were related. And he had some of that concentrated essence of pitchblende in the chest when we started. Oh, not much: say about twenty thousand dollars' worth. Maybe thirty. For use? No; rather for comparison, I judge.
"Yes, we chased volcanoes. I became used to camping between sample hells of all known varieties. I got so that the fumes of a sulphur match seemed like a draught of pure, fresh air. Wherever any of the earth's pimples showed signs of coming to a head, there were we, taking part in the trouble. By and by the doctor got so thoroughly poisoned that he had to lay off. Back to Philadelphia we came. There an aged seafaring person, temporarily stranded, mulcted the Professor of a dollar—an undertaking that required no art—and in the course of his recital touched upon yonder little cesspool of infernal iniquities. An uncharted volcanic island: one that he could have all for his own; you may guess whether Dr. Schermerhorn was interested.
"'That iss for which we haf so-long-in-vain sought, Percy,' he said to me in his quaint, link-chain style of speech. 'A leedle prifate volcano- laboratory to ourselves to have. Totally unknown: undescribed, not-on-the-chart-to-be-found. To-morrow we start. I make a list of the things-to- get.'
"He began his list, as I remember, with three dozen undershirts, a gallon of pennyroyal for insect bites, a box of assorted fish hooks, thirty pounds of tea, and a
