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Mark's Reef; Or, the Crater ; a Tale of the Pacific
Mark's Reef Or the Crater a Tale of the Pacific Author:James Fenimore Cooper General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1800 Original Publisher: Routledge Subjects: American fiction Fiction / Anthologies Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary History / Military / World War II History / Oceania Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / American / General Literary Crit... more »icism / Women Authors Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER VI. Odb two mariners had come ashore well provided with the means of carrying out their plans. The Rancocus was far better provided with tools suited to the uses of the land than was common for ships, her voyage contemplating a long stay among the islands she was to visit. Thus, axes and picks were not wanting, Captain Crutchely having had an eye to the possible necessity of fortifying himself against savages. Mark now ascended the crater wall with a pick on his shoulder, and a part of a coil of ratlin stuff around his neck. As he went up he used the pick to make steps, and did so much in that way in the course of tec minutes, as greatly to facilitate the ascent and descent at the particular place he had selected. Once on the summit, he found a part of the rock that overhung its base, and dropped one end of his line into the crater. To this Bob attached the bucket, which Mark hauled up and emptied. In this manner everything was transferred to the top of the crater wall that was needed there, when Bob went down to the dingey to roll up the half barrel of sweepings that had been brought from the ship. Mark next looked about for the places which had seemed to him, on his previous visit, to have most of the character of soil. He found plenty of these spots, mostly in detached cavities of no great extent, where the crust ...« less