We, with our present lights, our
      vast telescopic improvements, and so forth, of course find it
      difficult to comprehend the ground of an idea such as this. Its
      first propagator was one Mudler. He was led, we must presume, to
      this wild hypothesis by mere analogy in the first instance; but,
      this being the case, he should have at least adhered to analogy
      in its development. A great central orb was, in fact, suggested;
      so far Mudler was consistent. This central orb, however,
      dynamically, should have been greater than all its surrounding
      orbs taken together. The question might then have been asked—“Why
      do we not see it?”—we, especially, who occupy the mid region of
      the cluster—the very locality near which, at least, must be
      situated this inconceivable central sun. The astronomer, perhaps,
      at this point, took refuge in the suggestion of non-luminosity;
      and here analogy was suddenly let fall. But even admitting the
      central orb non-luminous, how did he manage to explain its
      failure to be rendered visible by the incalculable host of
      glorious suns glaring in all directions about it? No doubt what
      he finally maintained was merely a centre of gravity common to
      all the revolving orbs—but here again analogy must have been let
      fall. Our system revolves, it is true, about a common centre of
      gravity, but it does this in connection with and in consequence
      of a material sun whose mass more than counterbalances the rest
      of the system. The mathematical circle is a curve composed of an
      infinity of straight lines; but this idea of the circle—this idea
      of it which, in regard to all earthly geometry, we consider as
      merely the mathematical, in contradistinction from the practical,
      idea—is, in sober fact, the practical conception which alone we
      have any right to entertain in respect to those Titanic circles
      with which we have to deal, at least in fancy, when we suppose
      our system, with its fellows, revolving about a point in the
      centre of the galaxy. Let the most vigorous of human imaginations
      but attempt to take a single step toward the comprehension of a
      circuit so unutterable! It would scarcely be paradoxical to say
      that a flash of lightning itself, travelling forever upon the
      circumference of this inconceivable circle, would still forever
      be travelling in a straight line. That the path of our sun along
      such a circumference—that the direction of our system in such an
      orbit—would, to any human perception, deviate in the slightest
      degree from a straight line even in a million of years, is a
      proposition not to be entertained; and yet these ancient
      astronomers were absolutely cajoled, it appears, into believing
      that a decisive curvature had become apparent during the brief
      period of their astronomical history—during the mere point—during
      the utter nothingness of two or three thousand years! How
      incomprehensible, that considerations such as this did not at
      once indicate to them the true state of affairs—that of the
      binary revolution of our sun and Alpha Lyrae around a common
      centre of gravity! April 7.—Continued last night our astronomical amusements. Had a
      fine view of the five Neptunian asteroids, and watched with much
      interest the putting up of a huge impost on a couple of lintels
      in the new temple at Daphnis in the moon. It was amusing to think
      that creatures so diminutive as the lunarians, and bearing so
      little resemblance to humanity, yet evinced a mechanical
      ingenuity so much superior to our own. One finds it difficult,
      too, to conceive the vast masses which these people handle so
      easily, to be as light as our own reason tells us they actually
      are. April 8.—Eureka! Pundit is in his glory. A balloon from Kanadaw
      spoke us to-day and threw on board several late papers; they
      contain some exceedingly curious information relative to
      Kanawdian or rather Amriccan antiquities. You know, I presume,
      that laborers have for some months been employed in preparing the
      ground for a new fountain at Paradise, the Emperor’s principal
      pleasure garden. Paradise, it appears, has been, literally
      speaking, an island time out of mind—that is to say, its northern
      boundary was always (as far back as any record extends) a
      rivulet, or rather a very narrow arm of the sea. This arm was
      gradually widened until it attained its present breadth—a mile. The whole length of the island is nine miles; the breadth varies
      materially. The entire area (so Pundit says) was, about eight
      hundred years ago, densely packed with houses, some of them
      twenty stories high; land (for some most unaccountable reason)
      being considered as especially precious just in this vicinity. The disastrous earthquake, however, of the year 2050, so totally
      uprooted and overwhelmed the town (for it was almost too large to
      be called a village) that the most indefatigable of our
      antiquarians have never yet been able to obtain from the site any
      sufficient data (in the shape of coins, medals or inscriptions)
      wherewith to build up even the ghost of a theory concerning the
      manners, customs, &c., &c., &c., of the aboriginal inhabitants. Nearly all that we have hitherto known of them is, that they were
      a portion of the Knickerbocker tribe of savages infesting the
      continent at its first discovery by Recorder Riker, a knight of
      the Golden Fleece. They were by no means uncivilized, however,
      but cultivated various arts and even sciences after a fashion of
      their own. It is related of them that they were acute in many
      respects, but were oddly afflicted with monomania for building
      what, in the ancient Amriccan, was denominated “churches”—a kind
      of pagoda instituted for the worship of two idols that went by
      the names of Wealth and Fashion. In the end, it is said, the
      island became, nine tenths of it, church. The women, too, it
      appears, were oddly deformed by a natural protuberance of the
      region just below the small of the back—although, most
      unaccountably, this deformity was looked upon altogether in the
      light of a beauty. One or two pictures of these singular women
      have in fact, been miraculously preserved. They look very odd,
      very—like something between a turkey-cock and a dromedary. Well, these few details are nearly all that have descended to us
      respecting the ancient Knickerbockers.