a nature especially adapted to the double art was found it was imported into the family to reinforce it. In spite of the dissertation, I could not but listen, entranced by the intricate splendour of the music; and my eyes were riveted on the growing design within the receiver of the Ooloran. Yet when finished and tested it was found inadequate to the artist’s new conception of the utilities of the ultimate edifice. It was shaken again into dust before I left the workman, and its faults were noted and corrected in the score of music which he had before him. He had been years on this single design, which he had been moulding and improving every day; and he hoped soon to find a form that would be strikingly new and in every feature adapted to the purpose of the building. I could well understand now that the new Oomalefa was no work of magic; but I was still unable to see how its vast proportions could have been shifted from its place of fabrication to its ultimate site. Thyriel led me to a new structure which had just issued from the central sonarchitect; and the master-workman bade me lean upon it; huge though it was, it shifted before my weight and I fell. It was as light as if made of silk, and we two could lift it from the floor. This explained the ease of rafting the great edifices through the air; but how did they resist the winds that blew, or the impact of wave and storm? I was led to a wall of Oolorefa itself; and I was bidden to raise one low parapet of it; not the application of my greatest strength could move it. My guide then waved what seemed to be a magnet above it, and bade me try again; it rose in my hands and my muscular effort landed me on my back. He showed me how the foundations of their buildings were powerful magnets, and how the fabric would be torn to pieces before it could be hoisted off them unless an equally powerful magnet was applied in another direction. I now understood the strength of their structures before winds and the rapid disappearance of Oomalefa after the earthquake.