seen from below were but the outer flanks of the layer on layer of foundations laid upon the plateau to save the structure from all but the deepest-sourced tremors. As we entered the mighty portal, I felt that no storm or earthquake could move it. It seemed a city sculptured out of the solid rock; but, as soon as we were in, the sense of this massiveness vanished and the whole appeared as we looked up fairy-like and gossamer. In any one of the vast temples nothing but a film seemed to separate us from the azure sky. In the smaller towers we gazed up a dark shaft roofed by a circle of sky, and the very stars shone out upon our vision by day, so palpable was the column of darkness above us. We soon settled in our hanging rests under the great central dome. Around us were thousands hung in mid-air in different attitudes of rest. Yet the building sounded empty, so vast was it and so silent were all. The slightest whisper rang across its great untrammelled spaces with the sharpness of a word beside us. Not a column or beam or ornament broke the harmonious simplicity of the spacious circle from vault to floor, from side to side. Everyone by instinct kept still; for the mere rustle of a wing appalled by its far-reaching effect. We even held our breath lest the sound should break the colossal stillness. To me it seemed for a time frozen silence. I soon perceived that there was no effort in the self-repression of my neighbours’ movements. They were entranced, their heads erect as if catching the echo of some far-off music. To me there was as deep stillness as before. I listened intently, but felt no change except a slight exhilaration; an electric influence was pulsing around. To the electric sense in them some great harmony was appealing. Yet there was more than this; for their eyes were fixed intently on the dome. I looked up and felt awestruck. There on a scale that seemed to match the sky of night I saw enacting the evolution of a universe. In the blue vault a great sphere of glowing vapour was whirling round; from it sprang off huge concentric rings, that one after the other, themselves became whirling spheres ablaze with the intensity of white heat. Step by step a system of earths revolving round a central sun was developed. On one as it cooled we could see life appear and grow varied, then fade away and finally vanish. Before the last tragedy had closed, another had taken up the strain of existence, had run its course upon the globe, and a third had stepped into the ranks of life-bearers. The torch of generation was passed on from orbit to orbit, the central luminary ever dimming its fires, till at last the system wheeled on through darkness, seeming to have no purpose in the universe; but just as the last light flickered and began to vanish from the surface of the sun, out of the darkness seemed to rush another dead universe; through the eternities the two had been approaching nearer and nearer, drawn by their common doom.