eliberated long and profoundly. When he came out at last, they all knew
by his worshiping countenance that he brought light. Said he:

"Give thanks for this stupendous thing which we have been permitted to
witness. It is the Vernal Equinox!"

There were shoutings and great rejoicings.

"But," said the Angle-Worm, uncoiling after reflection, "this is dead
summer-time."

"Very well," said the Turtle, "we are far from our region; the season
differs with the difference of time between the two points."

"Ah, true: True enough. But it is night. How should the sun pass in
the night?"

"In these distant regions he doubtless passes always in the night at this
hour."

"Yes, doubtless that is true. But it being night, how is it that we
could see him?"

"It is a great mystery. I grant that. But I am persuaded that the
humidity of the atmosphere in these remote regions is such that particles
of daylight adhere to the disk and it was by aid of these that we were
enabled to see the sun in the dark."

This was deemed satisfactory, and due entry was made of the decision.

But about this moment those dreadful shriekings were heard again; again
the rumbling and thundering came speeding up out of the night; and once
more a flaming great eye flashed by and lost itself in gloom and
distance.

The camp laborers gave themselves up for lost. The savants were sorely
perplexed. Here was a marvel hard to account for. They thought and they
talked, they talked and they thought. Finally the learned and aged Lord
Grand-Daddy-Longlegs, who had been sitting in deep study, with his
slender limbs crossed and his stemmy arms folded, said:

"Deliver your opinions, brethren, and then I will tell my thought--for I
think I have solved this problem."

"So be it, good your lordship," piped the weak treble of the wrinkled and
withered Professor Woodlouse, "for we shall hear from your lordship's
lips naught but wisdom." [Here the speaker threw in a mess of trite,
threadbare, exasperating quotations from the ancient poets and
philosophers, delivering them with unction in the sounding grandeurs of
the original tongues, they being from the Mastodon, the Dodo, and other
dead languages.] "Perhaps I ought not to presume to meddle with matters
pertaining to astronomy at all, in such a presence as this, I who have
made it the business of my life to delve only among the riches of the
extinct languages and unearth the opulence of their ancient