i88o.j The World of the Poets. 747 
very much shortened, but even there they could not entirely 
vanish. 
To what extent a planetary body can be self-luminous, 
and yet sufficiently cooled down to be the abode of organic 
life of a type even remotely approximating to our own, we 
cannot venture to guess. There is, however, one conceiv- 
able arrangement by which perpetual daylight might be 
secured over a vast extent of surface. Suppose, instead of 
planets revolving round the sun at different distances, there 
were one broad belt of solid matter. The concave side of 
such belt would be constantly irradiated, and might be the 
theatre of life. Or, going farther still, suppose the sun fixed 
in the centre of one vast hollow sphere, with a radius of 
say ioo million miles. In this manner all his heat and 
light would be utilised. What a glorious flora and fauna 
might be developed in such a world ! Is it not possible that 
the dark masses supposed by some to exist in different por- 
tions of the heavens may be the outer shells of such 
systems ? 
More desirable and more feasible than perpetual day is 
perpetual summer, or at least the absence of low temper- 
atures. Such a state of things exists even now in many 
parts of the globe, and in the Eocene and Miocene epochs 
it was probably universal. If the human species had begun 
its career so early the traditions of a golden age, ot a 
Saturnian reign, of a lost paradise, might have a solid phy- 
sical basis. We may imagine with what regret our fore- 
fathers, struggling with the horrors of the Glacial epoch, 
would dwell on the memories of the good old times when 
Central Europe enjoyed a semi-tropical vegetation, and when 
even Spitzbergen was clad with luxuriant forests. But not 
content with painting the lost Miocene epoch as it really 
was, they would idealise it, and, in addition to its peren- 
nially mild climate, they would invest it with other and 
often impossible attractions. 
Thus among the foremost charms ascribed by the poets to 
their better worlds are “ never-fading flowers.” The trees 
bud, the blossoms expand, but, instead of withering and 
falling off, they are to become permanent. Yet clusters of 
luscious fruits are all the same included in the picture. 
The absurdities here implied are of a most complicated 
nature. The flowers are, of course, supposed to exist not 
in order to fulfil any function of vegetable life, but merely 
for the delectation of man. How the fruits are to be formed 
and to grow without the displacement of the blossom is 
difficult to comprehend. Still more are we perplexed to 
