BUILDING SHIPS INSIDE VOLCANOES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 17, 13 February 1909, Page 4

BUILDING SHIPS INSIDE VOLCANOES.

Saba, mentioned in a recent deaputcli fnmi tin' West indies, is oiii> of Clio most extraordinary places ill thu world. By courtc-v it Is called nil island, ljut it is really nothing inure than the summit nf an extinct volcano slicking up out of lliu sea. Inside the erater live the only inhabitants of Siilw. They Jive there Idealise there is nowhere else for them to live, the outside slopes being nearly as sleep as the sides of a house. The place belongs to Holland, and the people are all Oulch. Nevertheless, they speak Knglish as their native tongue. They eall their crater town Bottom, because it is situated oil top of a mo 1.1t'am. Although surrounded on all sides by tllo sea, they often spend weeks without seeing it. for that involves a long eliuib up to the rim of tlte crater. Still less frequently do they touch salt water, because to do so they must, in addition, climb downwards for a distance of fifteen hundred feel bv a precipitous voekhe\V7i path, known as Hie Ladder. It is, however, in regard to their staple industry that these Dutch people who speak English, and who live aloft in a volcano in a summit city called Bottom, reach the extreme of topsvturveydoni. One might imagine tlk'in milking balloons or kites,, or. in fa-t. anything but what they do make, which is ships. Not ocean-going ll.iers, of course, but good, serviceable schooners and luggers, whose repute is great all over the Windward Islands. The ships, when finished, have to lie hauled up to thu rim of the crater and then lowered over a precipice into the sea.