The forms can be varied or changed at will, and have so life-like an appearance that I have seen persons go up to the supposed gentlemen or ladies and speak to them, and only discover that they were shadows when they have come up close to them, or when the operator has at will made them vanish.

I should tell you how our attention was first called to the subject of reproducing forms by electricity.

We had observed numberless instances in which copies of forms were reproduced by electricity, as in the case of pictures in water, reflections in mirrors, mirages, apparitions, and pictures in the air; and had noticed that lightning would frequently imprint, on substances like trees, pictures of surrounding objects.  These appearances have, I believe, been observed even in your world.

SUN-FORCING.

There is a highly beautiful flower called Luania, a name of which the approximate translation is the soiree or “assembly” flower.  Its colours are most brilliant, but its blossom only lasts about ten hours.  When that short term has expired, the leaves fall, and nothing remains but a small pod, containing seeds.

In the following year, but not before, the flower blossoms again, and falls in like manner.

The seeds of the Luania do not mature for three years,—­that is to say, until after the flower has blossomed three times; but we have, however, the means of producing flowers from the seeds in three days.

The seeds are placed in handsome vases, which contain fine sand and some new goat’s-milk, and are covered over with perforated zinc, taken from the great ravine, the metal having been previously prepared to attract the rays of the sun.

The vase, with the metal thus prepared, is exposed to the light of the sun, between the hours of seven and eight in the morning.

The power of the prepared metal is great, and so strongly attracts and retains heat, that it renders the surrounding atmosphere quite cold.

One hour in the sun is sufficient to bring leaves from the Luania.  The metal covering is then removed, and the vases are placed under a forcing-glass, the power of which is doubled on the second day, and further increased on the third.  The flowers then appear at once clad in all their brilliancy and beauty.

The forced flowers, like the natural blossoms, which they excel in beauty, live ten hours only, but they so far differ from them that their pods do not contain seeds.

The colours of the flowers are bright pink, golden, lilac, lilac striped with white, and a beautiful green striped with white gold.  The leaves of this, instead of being green like the others, are of a coral colour mixed with purple blue.

The perfume of these flowers surpasses every other fragrance; it is most refreshing, and a lady will have no other for a reunion when she can obtain this flower.