Furthermore, there were the _Acthnici_, constituted of “_Acthna_,” an invisible subterranean fire, who, whenever they manifested themselves in forms and became visible, appeared like fiery globes and balls of lightning. They were, on the whole, stupid and dangerous, and it was said that on more than one occasion some of them had entered dreamland--as they called our world--and been seen by the spooks and returned no more; all of which may, perhaps, have been only a fable, believed only by the children of the gnomes. The _Acthnici_ were said to create heat and cause upheavings of the earth, and some of our ancient philosophers believed them to cause explosions in our mines. However that may be, I never saw them at work, for they were uncouth fellows, and I loved to avoid their society. There were also the _Sagani_, and they were the cleverest of all. They were tall and well-formed, resembling the human shape in stature and form whenever they assumed a body. They were from three to five feet high, but they had the power to elongate themselves from the normal size up to a length of twenty-five feet and more. Their principal occupation was to construct the astral models of plants after a certain type for each species, which they did by the power of their imagination (I have no other suitable word); and here I beg to add in parenthesis that, according to my observation among the gnomes, every plant, stone, or tree upon the Untersberg had its “Leffahs,” as it is called by the gnomes, or astral type within the astral body of that mountain; each being in some way which I am unable to explain, connected with the physical part of the corresponding organism; so that the physical and (to us) visible product was always the exact image and corporeal representation of its ethereal progenitor and counterpart that is invisible to us but visible to the gnomes. All the gnomes could at all times and at their own pleasure live in their ethereal states without any definite form, comparable to air or clouds or mists; or they could by an effort of will assume material and corporeal forms, each one according to his or her innate qualities. In their ethereal shape they could travel with the velocity of a thought, and penetrate through the most solid rocks like a current of electricity passing through a bar of iron; but in their corporeal state their locomotion was comparatively slow, and the atmospheric air, not being their own element, caused great obstacles to their locomotion. For the purpose of passing through air, they had to employ cutting and blasting and other methods similar to those which we use for tunnelling rocks.