CHAPTER XVII. 
As the afternoon advanced, we had another visit of 
the phenomena of refraction This time they passed 
before us in all the costumes and mutations of a car- 
nival frolic. I am afraid to paint them from recollec- 
tion, and would make an apology, if I could, for the 
seeming extravagance with which they reflect them- 
selves in my journal. 
"6 P.M Refraction again! There is a black globe 
floating in the air, about 3° north of the sun. What 
it is you can not tell. Is it a bird or a balloon ? Pres- 
ently comes a sort of shimmering about its circumfer- 
ence, and on a sudden it changes its shape. Now 
you see plainly what it is. It is a grand piano, and 
nothing else. Too quick this time ! You had hardly 
named it, before it was an anvil — an anvil large enough 
for Mulciber and his Cyclops to beat out the loadstone 
of the poles. You have not got it quite adjusted to 
your satisfaction, before your anvil itself is changing ; 
it contracts itself centrewise, and rounds itself end- 
wise, and, presto, it has made itself duplicate — a pair 
of colossal dumb-bells. A moment ! and it is the 
black globe again." 
