310 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
of humanity, and the Cardinal of Love (Herschel), justly indig- 
nant at the theories that prevailed here below in regard to her 
ruling passion, had abruptly broken with the earth. 
The courage of the latter yielded under her sufferings ; languor 
took possession of her, and soon a malady of the most pernicious 
character nearly dried up the sources of life in her bosom. This 
disease was unhappily contagious, seeing which, the other planets 
hastened to follow the example of the Cardinal of Love, and to in- 
terrupt all friendly relations with the plague-stricken planet : Ceres, 
Pallas, and Juno fled toward the firmament {entre del) of Jupiter. 
The vestalic planet, Mercury, favorite moon of the group and 
chief of the satellites of the Earth, took refuge in the court (par^;^s) 
of the Sun. 
The moon alone, unfortunate Phoebe, worthy a better fate, chose 
to remain faithful to the earth amid the general desertion ; she 
paid dearly for this act of sublime devotion ; the contagion reached 
her; she died at the third attack. We are all mortal. 
The deluge, about six thousand years ago, was the first conse- 
quence of this deplorable accident ; for Phoebe, disorbited in the 
convulsions of her agony, and approaching a little too near, caused 
the seas of the latter to extravasate, and drowned several con- 
tinents. Would that the catastrophe had been limited to an in- 
undation ; but the blow struck deeper — it shook the earth upon 
its axis, which from perpendicular became oblique to the eclip- 
tic .. . and winter, with its frosts, proceeded from the displace- 
ment. 
Then the magnetic meridian suddenly declined, and the boreal 
crown, which the regular current of the fluid sustained, fell from 
the brow of the earth 1 The double torch of the Poles was extin- 
guished, and the immense Continent of the North, formerly so pop- 
ulous with animals and enameled vffth flowers, suddenly buried it- 
self in its winding sheet of ice. 
The soul is riven by the relation of such catastrophes. The ele- 
phant that was found in 1805 at the mouth of the Lena, in the 
very midst of a block of ice, where it had been preserved 6,000 
years at least, in flesh and hide, this elephant had seen all these 
things and many others besides, and its perfect preservation at- 
