Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/396

 as to many others, by lines which, with ter-cross strength, passed unscathed through their own and any other solar photospheres; while our own poorer lines, merely cross-electric, whether duplicated, or even reduplicated, were, alas! at once destroyed by contact with those glowing cross-electric furnaces. Then taking a rod in his hand, our instructor next directed our attention to one particular spot, considerably inside, towards the centre of the mist. This, as I correctly surmised, was the location of our own system; but nothing in particular could be distinguished, beyond the general outline of a comparatively very small section of the misty total, representing the particular sub-universe of which our solar system was a minute part.

We were next directed to look through what appeared a telescopic apparatus; and there truly I saw what had been the little fragment of mist now resolved into almost countless stars or suns, but yet on so small a scale, that any of their respective revolving planets were totally invisible. A spring was next touched, and now this first magnifying was itself remagnified. But the magnified field was this time restricted to only one sun, whose principal planets just emerged into distinct sight. This was our own luminary, and around it we made out clearly great Jupiter and diversified Saturn, with Uranus and Neptune feebly visible, while the earth and Venus were but small discless points of light. Another magnifying brought only the earth and the moon into the field; and, in yet one more, it was the earth alone, looming out grandly in all her solitude. Ceaselessly turning on her axis, and