557. (2.) Is it true that in those regions there are mountains, plains, rivers, lakes, brooks, rills, trees, flowers, birds, beasts, and every attribute of the most admired portions of this lower sphere? _Ans._ Yes. 558. (3.) Is it true that, by the higher spirits, music, poetry, and all the sciences and fine arts, are highly and zealously cultivated, and that the pleasures of social intercourse are more highly enjoyed than upon earth? _Ans._ Yes. 559. (4.) Are the narratives of their translation to the spirit world, which I have received from my sister, brother, William Wiggins, and the spirit Maria, to be relied on as coming from them, and as correct in their representations of the usual process of transference to the spiritual world after death? _Ans._ Yes. 560. (5.) How many spheres are there, this world being the first in the series? _Ans._ Seven. 561. (6.) How many inhabited by spirits? _Ans._ Six. 562. (7.) Are there subdivisions? if so, how many in each sphere? _Ans._ Six. 563. (8.) Are the subdivisions equidistant? _Ans._ Yes. 564. (9.) How are they designated? _Ans._ Either as circles or planes. 565. (10.) Are they concentric with each other and with this globe? _Ans._ Yes. 566. (11.) At what distance from the terrestrial surface does the lower boundary of the second sphere, or first spiritual abode, commence? _Ans._ Sixty miles. 567. (12.) Are the atmospheres of the spheres more rare in proportion as they are more elevated? _Ans._ Yes. 568. (13.) Do they increase in beauty as they are higher in the series? _Ans._ Yes. 569. (14.) How are they illuminated? _Ans._ By a peculiar sun within the spiritual spheres. 570. (15.) Is our sun visible in the spirit world? _Ans._ No. 571. (16.) If lighted by a peculiar spiritual sun invisible in our mundane region, do the rays of that sun consist of undulations of an all-pervading ethereal fluid, analogous to that assumed to exist by the undulationists? _Ans._ Yes. 572. (17.) Or do they depend upon the last-mentioned fluid for existence? _Ans._ No. 573. (18.) Are there not peculiar elementary principles appropriate, severally, to the spiritual world, and likewise to the material world? _Ans._ Yes. 574. (19.) Is it not an error to suppose that any of the ponderable elements recognised by chemistry can contribute to the organization of the person of an imponderable spirit? _Ans._ Of course, not without a loss of ponderosity, which involves a loss of identity or a transformation. 575. (20.) Is it not luminiferous matter which causes the effulgence of spirits, analogous in its effects to that of luminiferous insects, though consisting of a spiritual material entirely different from those which enter into the luminiferous matter of insects? _Ans._ Yes. 576. (21.) Are spirits in the lowest level of the second sphere destitute of effulgence? _Ans._ Yes. 577. (22.) Are they absolutely enveloped in a dark halo? _Ans._ Yes.