Then I saw the Earth sinking down into the yawning depths of immensity; the cupolas of the observatory, Paris with its lights, were rapidly fading away. Although feeling as if I were motionless, I had the same sensation which one experiences on rising in a balloon and seeing the earth descend. I went up, up, in a magic flight toward the inaccessible zenith. Urania was with me, a little higher up, looking at me kindly and pointing out the kingdoms below. Day had come again. I recognized France, the Rhine, Germany, Austria, Italy, the Mediterranean, Spain, the Atlantic Ocean, the Channel, England. But all this liliputian geography soon shrank away. Speedily the terrestrial globe was reduced to the dimensions of the moon in its last quarter; then to a little full moon. "There," said she, "is the famous terrestrial globe on which so many passions stir, within whose narrow limits the thought of so many millions of human beings is confined, whose sight cannot extend beyond it. See how its apparent size diminishes as our horizon develops. We can no longer distinguish Europe from Asia; and there is North America. How very small it all is!" As we passed through the Moon's neighborhood I had noticed our satellite's hilly landscapes, the mountain crests radiant with light, deep valleys filled with shadows, and I should have liked to stop for a nearer study of the surroundings; but Urania did not deign to bestow so much as a passing glance at it, and drew me on in a rapid flight toward the sidereal regions. We were still ascending. The Earth grew smaller and smaller as we receded from it, until it looked like a simple star shining from solar illumination on the bosom of dark and empty space. We turned toward the Sun, which shone in space, but without filling it with light, so that we could see stars and planets at the same time, no longer obscured by its rays, because it could not illumine empty space. The angelic goddess showed me Mercury, in close neighborhood to the Sun, Venus, shining on the other side, the Earth, equalling Venus in appearance and brilliancy, Mars, whose inland seas and canals I recognized, Jupiter, with its four enormous moons, Saturn, Uranus. "All these worlds," said she, "are upheld in vacancy by the attraction of the Sun, around which they revolve with great speed. It is an harmonious choir gravitating about its centre. The Earth is but a floating island, a little hamlet of this great solar country; and the solar empire itself is but a little province on the breast of sidereal vastness."