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>The scientific data we offer the reader has been furnished us in the form of a brochure. It is a valuable account that would delight the learned world. It is seen, for example, that glass has a great role on the planet Jupiter; it is an indispensable substance, the necessary complement to all commodious existence in those latitudes. The dead are placed in boxes of glass, which are then used as ornaments in homes. The houses, too, are in glass, so that it is not good to throw stones on that planet. There are rows of these crystal palaces, called Séména. A kind of mystical ceremony is practiced in them, and on such occasions—that is, every seven years—the Holy Sacrament is carried in procession through the glass cities in a chariot of glass. The inhabitants are of gigantic stature, as Scarron says, being seven or eight feet tall. They keep a special species of parrot as domestic animals. On entering a house one of them is invariably found behind the door knitting night-caps. . . . If we believe another medium, no less well informed, rice is what is best adapted to the soil of the planet Mercury, if memory serves. But there it does not grow in the form of a plant as it does on Earth; thanks to climatic influences and to a stipulated manipulation, it sends shoots into the air higher than a great oak tree. The citizen of Mercury who desires to enjoy the perfection of otium cum dignitate [leisure with dignity] must, while still young, place all his assets into the cultivation of rice. He chooses a stalk from among the loftiest of his estate and clambers up to the very top; then, like a rat in a cheese, he enters the enormous husk to eat the delicious fruit. When he has eaten all of it, he begins the same task on another stalk.
