to find myself able to lean in
any direction, and rest in almost any posture, with but the slightest
support for the body's centre of gravity; and further to find on
experiment that it was possible to remain for a couple of hours with
my heels above my head, in the favourite position of a Yankee's lower
limbs, without any perceptible congestion of blood or confusion of
brain.

I was occupied all day with abstract calculations; and knowing that
for some time I could see nothing of the Earth--her dark side being
opposite me and wholly obscuring the Sun, while I was as yet far from
having entered within the sphere where any novel celestial phenomena
might be expected--I only gave an occasional glance at the discometer
and metacompass, suppressing of course the electric glare within my
vessel, till I awoke from a short siesta about 19h. (7 P.M.) The Earth
at this time occupied on the sphere of view a space--defined at first
only by the absence of stars--about thirty times greater than the disc
of the Moon as seen through a tube; but, being dark, scarcely seemed
larger to the eye than the full Moon when on the horizon. But a new
method of defining its disc was presently afforded me. I was, in fact,
when looking through the lower window, in the same position as regards
the Earth as would be an inhabitant of the lunar hemisphere turned
towards her, having no external atmosphere interposed between us, but
being at about two-thirds of the lunar distance. And as, during an
eclipse, the Lunarian would see round the Earth a halo created by the
refraction of the Sun's rays in the terrestrial atmosphere--a halo
bright enough on most occasions so to illuminate the Moon as to render
her visible to us--so to my eyes the Earth was surrounded by a halo
somewhat resembling the solar corona as seen in eclipses, if not
nearly so brilliant, but, unlike the solar corona, coloured, with a
preponderance of red so decided as fully to account for the peculiar
hue of the eclipsed Moon. To paint this, unless means of painting
light--the one great deficiency which is still the opprobrium of human
art--were discovered, would task to the uttermost the powers of the
ablest artist, and at best he could give but a very imperfect notion
of it. To describe it so that its beauty, brilliancy, and wondrous
nature shall be in the slightest degree appreciated by my readers
would require a command of words such as no poet since Homer--nay, not
Homer himself--pos