odical absence of solar
light, as to render it a place of popular resort for the inhabitants of
all the adjacent regions, more especially as its bulwark of hills
afforded an infallible security against any volcanic eruption that could
occur.' Our observers therefore applied their full power to explore it.
'Rich, indeed, was our reward. The very first object in this valley that
appeared upon our canvas was a magnificent work of art. It was a
temple--a fane of devotion or of science, which, when consecrated to the
Creator, is devotion of the loftiest order, for it exhibits His
attributes purely, free from the masquerade attire and blasphemous
caricature of controversial creeds, and has the seal and signature of
His own hand to sanction its aspirations. It was an equi-angular temple,
built of polished sapphire, or of some resplendent blue stone, which,
like it, displayed a myriad point of golden light twinkling and
scintillating in the sunbeams.... The roof was composed of yellow metal,
and divided into three compartments, which were not triangular planes
inclining to the centre, but subdivided, curved, and separated so as to
present a mass of violently agitated flames rising from a common source
of conflagration, and terminating in wildly waving points. This design
was too manifest and too skilfully executed to be mistaken for a single
moment. Through a few openings in these metallic flames we perceived a
large sphere of a darker kind of metal nearly of a clouded copper
colour, which they enclosed and seemingly raged around, as if
hieroglyphically consuming it.... What did the ingenious builders mean
by the globe surrounded by flames? Did they, by this, record any past
calamity of _their_ world, or predict any future one of _ours_?' (Why,
by the way, should the past theory be assigned to the moon and the
future one to our earth?) 'I by no means despair of ultimately solving
not only these but a thousand other questions which present themselves
respecting the objects in this planet; for not the millionth part of her
surface has yet been explored, and we have been more desirous of
collecting the greatest possible number of new facts than of indulging
in speculative theories, however seductive to the imagination.'

After this we have an account of the behaviour of the Vespertilio-homo
at meals. 'They seemed eminently happy, and even polite; for individuals
would select large and bright specimens of fruit, and throw them
arch