The superiority of these in power and intelligence over man in his present state is far greater than is the superiority of man over the insect, which can as little understand the human soul as man with unaided powers can comprehend the Beings of whom I have spoken.

My Star Instrument, however, can only bring to light those Beings who, to a certain extent at least, possess a material form, though of a consistency as subtle as electricity.  But the instrument does not possess the power of rendering visible those Superior Beings, whom no man in his ordinary state is permitted to see through a material medium.  He only can see them even in visions who is blessed with a superior order of light—­light in power and beauty far excelling the concentrated light known to us—­a light like that which was sometimes vouchsafed to your Holy Prophets!  And unless a person be inspired with a portion at least of that immortal light, the brightness, power, and glory of these orders of Beings, or their ways, can neither be seen, understood, nor even imagined.

The discoveries made through the Star Instrument, however, are too numerous to relate at present.  I must limit myself now to little more than a few particulars relating to the sun.

THE SUN-OCEAN AND MOUNTAINS.

The Sun is a mass consisting of an immense ocean, surrounded by burning mountains of fire so huge that it would be difficult to speak of their extent, each mountain seeming to be a world in immensity!

I could perceive some portion of the mountains at intervals disengaged from the fire.  The rocks seen between the flames are, with, their varied colours, magnificent beyond anything that your language can convey; though I have seen similar colours, but of far less intensity, in some of our gorgeous sunsets.

CONTINENTS.

In the midst of the Sun-Ocean there is a very large continent, besides many of smaller size, which, relatively to the larger, might be called islands.  These continents are separated by seas from the large continent and from each other, and are all thickly populated by beings which, though human, are somewhat differently formed from ordinary man.

The continents, though immense, are, even in their aggregate mass, small in comparison with the hugeness of the Sun-Ocean.  The nearest is at an immeasurable distance from the mountains; and the ocean is only navigable at certain distances from the outer continents.

HURRICANES.

From a circle surrounding, but at an immense distance from the most extreme of the continents, this great Sun-Ocean throws off currents of wind, terrific in their fury, in the direction of the burning mountains.  Your tempest would give but a puny idea of the force of these winds, which indeed exceeds anything known even in my planet, where the hurricanes are terrific.