98 COSMOS. 



landscape painting on a large scale (as decorative pf.intnigs, 

 panoramas, dioramas, and neoramas) have also increased the 

 generality and force of these impressions. The representations 

 satirically described by Vitruvius and the Egyptian, Julius 

 Pollux, as " exaggerated representations of rural adornments 

 of the stage," and w^hich, in the sixteenth century, were con- 

 trived by Serlio's arrangement of Coulisses to increase the de- 

 lusion, may now, since the discoveries of Prevost and Daguerre, 

 be made, in Barker's panoramas, to serve, in some degree, as 

 a substitute for traveling throusfh different regions. Pano- 

 ramas are more productive of effect than scenic decorations, 

 since the spectator, inclosed, as it were, within a magical cir- 

 cle, and wholly removed from all the disturbing influences of 

 reality, may the more easily fancy that he is actually surround- 

 ed by a foreign scene. These compositions give rise to im- 

 pressions which, after many years, often become wonderfully 

 interwoven with the feelings awakened by the aspect of the 

 scenes when actually beheld. Hitherto panoramas, which are 

 alone effective when of considerable diameter, have been ap- 

 plied more frequently to the representation of cities and in- 

 habited districts than to that of scenes in which nature revels 

 in wild luxuriance and richness of life. An enchanting effect 

 might be produced by a characteristic delineation of nature, 

 sketched on the rugged declivities of the Himalaya and the 

 Cordilleras, or in the midst of the Indian or South American 

 river valleys, and much aid might be furLher derived by tak- 

 ing photographic pictures, which, although they certainly can 

 not give the leafy canopy of trees, would present the most 

 perfect representation of the form of colossal trunks, and the 

 characteristic ramification of the different branches. 



All these means, the enumeration of "which is specially com- 

 prised within the limits of the present work, are calculated to 

 raise the feeling of admiration for nature ; and I am of opinion 

 that the knowledge of the works of creation, and an apprecia- 

 tion of their exalted grandeur, would be powerfully increased 

 if, besides museums, and thrown open, like them, to the pub- 

 lic, a number of panoramic buildings, containing alternating 

 pictures of landscapes of different geographical latitudes and 

 from different zones of elevation, should be erected in our 

 large cities. The conception of the natural unity and the 

 feeling of the harmonious accord pervading the universe can 

 not fail to increase in vividness among men, in proportion as 

 the means are multiplied by which the phenomena of nature 

 may be more characteristically and visibly manifested. 



