Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/56

34 If these brilliant traits point out the predilection of Nature for Peru, the influence that territory possesses in the equilibrium of the terraqueous globe, is not less demonstrated. According to astronomical observations, and physical demonstrations, the earth does not repose in the centre of the universe, but turns on its axis from the west to the east, and, by a second revolution, runs through all the signs of the Zodiac. By the means of the first of these movements we are stationed in the twilight of the morning; next, beneath the glare of mid-day; next, within the confines of night; and, lastly, We are buried in its shades. This alternation enables us to see daily the magnificent spectacle of the creation of the earth; since the gently sloping hills, the plains, and the seas, which darkness seemed to have annihilated, rise, in a manner, out of the chaotic void, at the birth of Aurora. By the second movement, we are transported from one region to another; and when we imagine that we do not quit the first points, relatively to the firmament occupied by Peru at the date of its primitive existence, we live in reality a part of the year in the north, and the other in the south.

Such mutations, which truly appal those who contemplate them, being dependent on the motion of the earth, cannot be produced