instantly clothed in human form, and but another effort to
rearrange the molecules in such a way as to make the envelope visible.
Some who have been dead longer, or had a greater natural aptitude than
I, have advanced further, and all are learning; but the difference in
the rate at which spirits acquire control of previously unknown natural
laws varies far more than among individuals on earth.

"These forms of organic life do not disintegrate till after death; here
in the natural state they break down and dissolve into their structural
elements in full bloom, as was done by the fungi. The poisonous
element in the deadly gust, against which I warned you, came from the
gaseous ingredients of toadstools, which but seldom, and then only when
the atmosphere has the greatest affinity for them, dissolve
automatically, producing a death-spreading wave, against which your
meteorological instruments in future can warn you. The slight fall you
noticed in temperature was because the specific heat of these gases is
high, and to become gas while in the solid state they had to withdraw
some warmth from the air. The fatal breath of the winged lizards--or
dragons, as you call them--results from the same cause, the action of
their digestion breaking up the fungus, which does not kill them,
because they exhale the poisonous part in gaseous form with their
breath. The mushrooms dissolve more easily; the natural separation
that takes place as they reach a certain stage in their development
being precipitated by concussion or shock.

"Having seen that, as on earth, we gain control of the material first,
our acquisitiveness then extends to a better understanding and
appreciation of our new senses, and we are continually finding new
objects of beauty, and new beauties in things we supposed we already
understood. We were accustomed on earth to the marvellous variety that
Nature produced from apparently simple means and presented to our very
limited senses; here there is an indescribably greater variety to be
examined by vastly keener senses. The souls in hell have an equally
keen but distorted counterpart of our senses, so that they see in a
magnified form everything vile in themselves and in each other. To
their senses only the ugly and hateful side is visible, so that the
beauty and perfume of a flower are to them as loathsome as the
appearance and fumes of a toadstool. As evolution and the tendency of
everything to perpetuate itsel