heroic age, in which it was deemed superfluous to consult the opinions
and feelings of the lady, as to the manner in which she should be
disposed of--that the lovely Miss Cranium should be made the happy
bride of the accomplished Mr Panscope. We shall leave them for the
present to settle preliminaries, while we accompany the three
philosophers in their walk to Tremadoc.

The vale contracted as they advanced, and, when they had passed the
termination of the lake, their road wound along a narrow and romantic
pass, through the middle of which an impetuous torrent dashed over
vast fragments of stone. The pass was bordered on both sides by
perpendicular rocks, broken into the wildest forms of fantastic
magnificence.

"These are, indeed," said Mr Escot, "_confracti mundi rudera_[7.1]:
yet they must be feeble images of the valleys of the Andes, where the
philosophic eye may contemplate, in their utmost extent, the effects
of that tremendous convulsion which destroyed the perpendicularity of
the poles, and inundated this globe with that torrent of physical
evil, from which the greater torrent of moral evil has issued, that
will continue to roll on, with an expansive power and an accelerated
impetus, till the whole human race shall be swept away in its vortex."

"The precession of the equinoxes," said Mr Foster, "will gradually
ameliorate the physical state of our planet, till the ecliptic shall
again coincide with the equator, and the equal diffusion of light and
heat over the whole surface of the earth typify the equal and happy
existence of man, who will then have attained the final step of pure
and perfect intelligence."

"It is by no means clear," said Mr Jenkison, "that the axis of the
earth was ever perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, or that it
ever will be so. Explosion and convulsion are necessary to the
maintenance of either hypothesis: for La Place has demonstrated, that
the precession of the equinoxes is only a secular equation of a very
long period, which, of course, proves nothing either on one side or
the other."

They now emerged, by a winding ascent, from the vale of Llanberris,
and after some little time arrived at Bedd Gelert. Proceeding through
the sublimely romantic pass of Aberglaslynn, their road led along the
edge of Traeth Mawr, a vast arm of the sea, which they then beheld in
all the magnificence of the flowing tide. Another five miles brought
them to the embankment, which has since been com