"[T]he story goes... that this [true] earth... if it could be seen from above, is to look upon like those balls covered with twelve patches of leather, many-coloured, distinguished with hues whereof the colours here which our painters make use of are, as... samples: but there the whole earth is painted with... colours... far more brilliant and purer than these; for part of it is of purple and of marvellous beauty, and part of the colour of gold, and the part that is white whiter than chalk or snow, and of all the other colours... in like manner, yet... more numerous and fairer than all that we have ever seen. Even these mere hollows of it, filled... with water and air, present a peculiar... colour, glittering in the diversity of the rest... so that its form appears as one unbroken variegated surface. And in this... the plants that grow are in like proportion, trees and flowers and their fruits: and the mountains again in like manner, and the stones have their smoothness and transparency and colours fairer in the same proportion; of which also the pebbles here, those that are so highly prized, are fragments, s and s and emeralds... but there everything without exception is of the same sort, nay, still fairer... And the reason... is that those stones are pure, and not eaten away nor spoiled like those on earth by corruption and brine produced by all the sediments that collect here and engender ugliness and diseases in stones and earth and animals and plants... But the real earth is embellished, not only with all these ornaments, but with gold... and silver and everything else of that kind: for from their great number and size and... multitude of places where... found they are... conspicuous, so... to see it is a sight for the blessed. And not to mention a number of other living creatures, there are also men upon it, some dwelling inland, and some on the shores of the air, as we of the ocean, and others in islands encircled by the air, lying adjacent to the mainland: and in one word, what to us the water and the sea is in regard of our use, that the air is there, and what to us the air is, to them is the sky."