But how is a world brought into existence? Water, or rather rain, is the chief agent, operating in the reproduction of a system of nature. During an immense period of time rain pours down with an unabating violence in the space left by the last world that has been destroyed. Meanwhile strong winds, blowing from opposite directions, accumulate the water within definite and certain limits until it has filled the whole space. At last appears on the surface of water, floating like a greasy substance, the sediment deposited by water. In proportion as the water dries up under the unremitting action of the wind, that crust increases in size, until, by a slow, gradual, but sure process, it invariably assumes the shape and proportion of our planet, in the manner we are to describe. The centre of the earth, indeed of a world or system of nature, is occupied by a mountain of enormous size and elevation, called Mienmo. This is surrounded by seven ranges of mountains, separated from each other by streams, equalling, in breadth and depth, the height of the mountain forming its boundaries in the direction of the central elevation. The range nearest to the Mienmo rises to half its height. Each successive range is half the height of the range preceding it. Beyond the last stream are disposed four great islands, in the direction of the four points of the compass. Each of those four islands is surrounded by five hundred smaller ones. Beyond those there is water, reaching to the farthest limits of the world. The great island we inhabit is the southern one, called Dzampoudipa, from the Jambu, or Eugenia tree, growing upon it. Our planet rests on a basis of water double the thickness of the earth; the water itself is lying on a mass of air that has a thickness double that of water. Below this aërial stratum is _laha_, or vacuum.