Page:Alerielorvoyaget00lach.djvu/207

and strange. However, the heavens above and the changes there were wonderful. So we rested on a mountain far removed from the lower manifestations of life which filled the plains,—those wierd beings that seemed with little effort to rise from the surface and go where they would. **** I can hardly describe our final journey into the realm of Saturn—the voyage from Mimas to the huge central orb itself. Nothing had we beheld more magnificent or awe-inspiring than those gigantic rings. There was a solemn sense at the approach to the outer ring. We drew near to it purposely, but as we approached nearer its solid appearance dissolved. Rents here and there appeared in its surface, and what looked solid at a distance was manifestly composed of millions of fragments of matter, meteors in millions were sweeping onwards in many streams. If there be anything on earth to which I might liken it, it would be the Lake of a Thousand Islands, only the islands were not rocks rising out of the waters, but shining meteors in space, and the medium in which they floated was ether, not water. As swarms of bees, the millions of meteors rolled on in space around the huge belted orb of Saturn.