Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/340

100 THE CRATER; The price established by these original sales, would seem to give a value of ten dollars an acre to land on the Peak, and of three dollars an acre to land in the group. Some lots, however, had a higher value than others, all these things being left to be determined by the estimate which the colonists placed on their respective valuations. As everything was conducted on a general and understood principle, and the drawing was made fairly and in public, there was no discontent; though some of the lots were certainly a good deal preferable to others. The greatest difference in value existed in the lots in the group, where soil arid water were often wanted ; though, on the whole, much more of both was found than had been at first ex pected. There were vast deposits of mud, and others of sand, and Heaton early suggested the expediency of mix ing the two together, by way of producing fertility. An experiment of this nature had been tried, under his orders, during the absence of the governor, and the result was of the most satisfactory nature; the acre thus manured pro ducing abundantly. As it was the sand that was to be conveyed to the mud, the toil was much less than might have been imagined. This sand usually lay near the water, and the numberless channels admitted of its being transported in boats along a vast reach of shore. Each lot having a water front, every man might manure a few acres, by this process, without any great expense ; and no sooner were the rights determined, and the decisions of the parties made as to their final settlements, than many went to work to render the cracked and baked mud left by the retiring ocean fer tile and profitable. Lighters were constructed for the purpose, and the colonists formed themselves into gangs, labouring in common, and transporting so many loads of sand to each levee, as the banks were called, though not raised as on the Mississippi, and distributing it bountifully over the surface. The spade was employed to mix the two earths together. Most of the allotments of land, in the group, were in the immediate neighbourhood of the Reef. As there were quite a hundred of them, more than ten thousand acres of the islands were thus taken up, at the start. By a I