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Title: The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars

Author: L. P. Gratacap

Contributor: G. V. Schiaparelli

Release date: August 25, 2004 [eBook #13289]
                Most recently updated: December 18, 2020

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Charlene Taylor and PG Distributed Proofreaders


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The Certainty
of a Future
Life in Mars



_Being the Posthumous Papers of_

BRADFORD TORREY DODD

EDITED BY
L.P. GRATACAP


BRENTANO'S
1903

PARIS
CHICAGO
WASHINGTON
NEW YORK





PREFACE BY EDITOR.


The extraordinary character of the story here published, which some
peculiar circumstances have fortunately, I think, put into my hands,
will excite a curiosity as vivid as the incidents of the narratives are
themselves astonishing and unprecedented. To satisfy, as far as I can, a
few natural inquiries which must be elicited by its publication, I beg
to explain how this unusual posthumous paper came into my possession.

It was written by Bradford Torrey Dodd, who died at Christ Church, New
Zealand, January, 1895, after a lingering illness in which consumption
developed, which was attributed to the exposure he had experienced in
receiving some of the wireless messages his singular history details. I
was not acquainted with Mr. Dodd, but some information, acquired since
the reception of his manuscript, has completely satisfied me, that,
however interpreted, Mr. Dodd did not intend in it the perpetration of
a hoax. His scientific ability was undoubtedly remarkable, and the facts
that his father and himself worked in an astronomical station near
Christ Church; that his father died; that his acquaintance with the
Dodans was a reality; that he did receive messages at a wireless
telegraphic station; that he himself and his assistants fully accredited
these messages to extra-terrestrial sources, are, beyond a doubt, easily
verified.

A mutual friend brought me Mr. Dodd's papers, which I looked over with
increasing amazement, culminating in blank incredulity. On rereading
them and considering the usefulness of giving them to the public, I have
been influenced by two motives, the desire to satisfy the fervently
expressed wish of the writer himself and the reasonable belief that if
they are preposterously improbable their publication can only furnish a
new and temporary and quite harmless diversion, and that if Mr. Dodd's
experiment shall be in some future day successfully repeated his claims
to distinction as the first to open this marvelous field of
investigation will have been honorably and invincibly protected.

L.P. GRATACAP.




CONTENTS.


Posthumous Papers of Bradford Torrey Dodd

Note by Mr. August Bixby Dodan

Note by the Editor

The Planet Mars--By Giovanni Schiaparelli



POSTHUMOUS PAPERS

OF

BRADFORD TORREY DODD.




THE CERTAINTY

OF

A FUTURE LIFE IN MARS.



CHAPTER I.


In the confusion of thought about a future life, the peculiar facts
related in the following pages can certainly be regarded as helpful.
Spiritualism, with its morbid tendencies, its infatuation and deceit,
has not been of any substantial value in this inquiry. It may afford to
those who have experienced any positive visitation from another world a
very comforting and indisputable proof. To most sane people it is a
humiliating and ludicrous vagary.

At the conclusion of a life spent rather diligently in study, and in
association especially with astronomical practice and physical
experiments, I have, in view of certain hitherto unpublished facts,
decided to make public almost incontrovertible evidence that in the
planet Mars the continuation of our present life, in some instances, has
been discovered by myself. I will not dwell on the astonishment I have
felt over these discoveries, nor attempt to describe that felicity of
conviction which I now enjoy over the prospect of a life in another
world.

My father was the fortunate possessor of a large fortune, which freed
him of all anxieties about any material cares, and left him to pursue
the bent of his inclination. He became greatly interested in physical
science, and was also a patron of the liberal arts. His home was stored
with the most beautiful products of the manufacturer's skill in fictile
arts, and on its walls hung the most approved examples of the painter's
skill. The looms of Holland and France and England furnished him with
their delicate and sumptuous tapestries, and the Orient covered his
floors with the richest and most prized carpets of Daghestan and
Trebizond, and of Bokhara.

But even more marked than his love for art was his passion for physical
science. His opportunities for the indulgence of this taste were
unlimited, and the reinforcement of his natural aptitude by his great
means enabled him to carry on experiments upon a scale of the most
magnificent proportions. These experiments were made in a large
building which was especially built for this object. It contained every
facility for his various new designs, and in it he anticipated many
advances in electrical science and in mechanical devices, which have
made the civilization of our day so remarkable. I recall distinctly as a
boy his ingenious approximation to the telephone, and even the recent
advances in wireless telegraphy, which has been the instrumentality by
which my own researches in the field of interplanetary telegraphy have
been prosecuted, had been realized by himself.

It was in the midst of a life almost ideally happy that the blow fell
which drove him and myself, then a boy and his only child, into a
retirement which resulted in the discoveries I am about to relate. My
father's devotion to my mother was an illustration of the most beautiful
and tender love that a man can bear toward a woman. It was adoration.
Though his mind was employed upon the abstruse questions of physics
which he investigated, or edified by new acquisitions in art, all his
knowledge and all his pleasure seemed but the means by which he
endeavored to gain her deeper affection. She indeed became his companion
in science, and her own just and well regulated taste constantly
furnished him new motives for adding to his wide accumulations of art.

I can recall with some difficulty the day when with my father in a room
immediately below the bedroom in which my mother was confined he awaited
the summons of the doctors to see his wife for the last time. It was a
rainy day, the clouds were drifting across a dull November sky. Through
an opening in the trees then leafless, the Hudson was visible, even then
flaked with ice, while an early snow covered the sloping lawn and
whitened the broad-limbed oaks. I remember indistinctly his leading me
by the hand through the hallway up the stairs, and softly whispering to
me to be quite still, entered the large room dimly lit where my mother,
attended by a nurse and a doctor, lay on the white bed. I remember being
kissed by her and then being led from the room by the nurse. My father
doubtless lingered until all was over, and the dear associate of his
life, whose tenderness and charity had made all who approached her
grateful, whose genial and appreciative mind had supplied the stimulus
of recognition he needed for his own studies, passed away. After that I
seemed dimly to recall a period of extreme loneliness when I was left in
charge of a private instructor, while my father, as I later learned,
bewildered by his great loss, and temporarily driven into a sort of
madness, wandered in an aimless track of travel over the United States.

On his return the sharp recurrence to the scenes of his former happiness
renewed the bitterness of his spirit, and he reluctantly concluded to
abandon his home. His own thoughts had not as yet clearly formed any
decision in his mind as to where he would go or what he would do. It was
inevitable, however, that he should revert to his scientific
investigations. He found in them a new solace and distraction, but even
then his passion for research would not have sufficed to adequately meet
his desperate desire to escape his grief, if in a rather singular manner
there had not come to him an intimation of the possibilities of some
sort of communication with my mother through these very investigations
in electricity and magnetism in which he had been engaged.

I had become quite inseparable from him. He found in me many suggestions
in face and manner of my mother, and particularly he was interested in
my peculiar lapses into meditation and introspection which in many ways
suggested to him a similar habit in her. On one occasion when, as was
his wont, before we finally left the old home at Irvington, he had taken
me in the summer evenings to the top of the observatory, then situated
about half a mile west of the Albany road, we had both been silently
watching the sun sink into a bank of golden haze, and the black band of
the Palisades passing underneath like a velvet zone of shadow, I turned
to my father and in a sudden access of curiosity said:

"Father, if mother had gone to the Sun, would she speak to us now with a
ray of light?"

My father smiled patiently, half amused, and then standing and looking
at the sun's disk, disappearing behind the Jersey hills, said, "My son,
it was a curious thought of a well-known French writer, Figuer, who lost
his son, who was very dear to him, that his soul with armies and hosts
of other souls, had departed to the sun and that they made the light and
heat of this great luminary, and this wise man felt some comfort in the
thought that the heat and light of the sun as he felt himself bathed in
radiance and warmth were emanations from his boy, and his eyes and body
seemed then in a figurative, and yet to him, very real way,
communicating with his boy. You smile. I know it is with interest. Let
me read to you from Figuer's singular book what he has written about
it."

He disappeared and left me also standing and looking upward at a faint
wreath of cloud, tinged in rosiness, which floated almost in the
zenith. I was then about eleven years old, precocious for my years and
gifted with a sympathy for occult and difficult subjects that became
only intensified through the peculiar concentrated companionship I had
from day to day, and month to month enjoyed with my father.

This narrative may be inadvertently classed with those ephemeral
fictions in which the reader is constantly conscious that the dialogue
and the incidents are veritable creations. It may here be asked how
could I recall with any literalness the conversations and events of a
time so long past. I do not pretend or wish it to be thought that these
interviews with my father are here literally related. That, of course,
is beyond the limits of reasonable probability. But I do insist that in
the following pages the occurrences described are very faithful
transcripts of those connected with the peculiar inquiry and experiments
my father and myself began, and brought to a startling conclusion.
Although conducted in the form of an imaginative story the reader is
importuned to give them his most implicit credence.

My father soon returned with the small volume of Figuer and read, I
imagine, that passage which runs as follows in Chapter XIII:

"Since the sun is the first cause of life on our globe; since it is, as
we have shown, the origin of life, of feeling, of thought; since it is
the determining cause of all organized life on the earth--why may we not
declare that the rays transmitted by the sun to the earth and the other
planets are nothing more or less than the emanations of these souls?
that these are the emissions of pure spirits living in the radiant star
that come to us, and to dwellers in the other planets, under the visible
form of rays?

"If this hypothesis be accepted, what magnificent, what sublime
relations may we not catch a glimpse of, between the sun and the globes
that roll around him; between the Sun and the planets there would be a
continual exchange, a never broken circle, an unending 'come and go' of
beamy emissions, which would engender and nourish in the solar world
motion and activity, thought and feeling, and keep burning everywhere
the torch of life.

"See the emanations of souls that dwell in the Sun descending upon the
earth in the shape of solar rays. Light gives life to plants, and
produces vegetable life, to which sensibility belongs. Plants having
received from the Sun the germ of sensibility transmit it to animals,
always with the help of the Sun's heat. See the soul germs enfolded in
animals develop, improve little by little, from one animal to another,
and at last become incarnated in a human body. See, a little later, the
superhuman succeed the man, launch himself into the vast plains of
ether, and begin the long series of transmigrations that will gradually
lead him to the highest round of the ladder of spiritual growth, where
all material substance has been eliminated, and where the time has come
for the soul thus exalted, and with essence purified to the utmost, to
enter the supreme home of bliss and intellectual and moral power; that
is the Sun.

"Such would be the endless circle, the unbroken chain, that would bind
together all the beings of Nature, and extend from the visible to the
invisible world."

From that moment, moved more and more by the strangeness of the fancy,
which evidently fascinated him, he buried himself in the indulgence of
the thought of the possibility of some sort of communication with his
wife. Singularly and fortunately he did not have recourse to the
fruitless idiocy of spiritualism, nor engage in that humiliating
intercourse with illiterate humbugs who personate the minds of men and
women almost too sacred to be even for an instant associated in thought
with themselves.

In 1881 electrical science had well advanced toward those perfected
triumphs which give distinction to this century. Electric lighting was
well understood, the Jablochkoff and Jamin lamps were then in use, the
incandescent and Maxim light, or arc light were employed, and indeed the
panic caused by Edison's premature announcement of the solution of the
incandescent system of lighting had then preceded by two years, the
excellent results of Mr. Swan in England in the same field. Edison's
first carbon light and his original phonograph were exhibited toward the
end of 1880 in the Patent Museum at South Kensington.

The daily News of New York in April of 1881 published the victory of the
Edison Electric Lighting Company over the Mayor's veto in words that may
be read to-day with considerable interest. It said "the company will
proceed immediately to introduce its new electric lamps in the offices
in the business portion of the city around Wall Street. It consists of a
small bulbous glass globe, four inches long, and an inch and a half in
diameter, with a carbon loop which becomes incandescent when the
electric current passes through. Each lamp is of sixteen candle power
with no perceptible variation in intensity. The light is turned on or
off with a thumb screw. Wires have already been put into forty
buildings."

My father had anticipated the incandescent light in its fuller later
development and had used, before it was announced by Prof. Avenarius of
Austria, a method of dividing the electric current, by the insertion of
a polariser in a secondary circuit connected with each lamp, a method,
it need not be said to electricians, now utterly obsolete.

The rooms of our physical laboratory at Irvington were almost all lit by
electric lamps constructed somewhat on the principle of Edison's, but
using platinum wires, and the old residents of that village may recall
the singular, lonely house half hidden in broad sycamores, sending out
its electric radiance late at night while my father and frequently
myself, then a boy of thirteen years, worked at experimental problems in
physics.

My father gave my precocity for science a very successful impetus and
left me at his death fully in possession of the ideas and projects he
cherished. Amongst these projects, one partially realized, was the
acceleration of plant growth by means of electric light, and heating by
electricity.

Dr. Siemens of England, it may be recalled, had very ingeniously
experimented upon the influence of the electric light upon vegetation.
In a paper read by that distinguished man before the Society of
Telegraph Engineers in June, 1880, he referred to his conclusion that
"electric light produces the coloring matter, chlorophyll, in the leaves
of plants, that it aids their growth, counteracts the effects of night
frosts, and promotes the setting and ripening of fruit in the open air."

I find in an old note book of my father's, dated 1879, "chlorophyllous
matter in leaves encouraged by electric energy, presumably by the blue
rays." In heating and cooking by electricity my father had made some
progress though he had not in 1880 employed his time in this direction.

Perhaps more remarkable than anything else presenting my father's great
scientific ingenuity was his improvements of the dynamo and the
invention of a new successful small traction engine.

In 1880 the complete distinction between alternating and direct currents
had not been made, and the device of a successful converter, for the
change of the former comparatively inert to the latter's dynamic
condition, only dreamed of. Yet in my father's notebook I find this
suggestive sentence: "It seems possible to devise an apparatus which
would deliver from an alternating circuit a direct current to a direct
current circuit."

I have dwelt somewhat upon my father's scientific acquirements and
genius in order to impress upon the reader the strictly legitimate
training I received in scientific procedure, and I have instanced
somewhat the status of his scientific development in 1880, because it
was at that time that he concluded to leave Irvington and locate his
laboratory and observatory elsewhere. And for the sake of his
astronomical interests he determined to find some place peculiarly well
fitted, on account of its atmospheric advantages, for astronomical
observations. It is necessary likewise to recall some of the facts then
known to astronomers and my father's own theories, in order to weave
into a logical sequence the incidents leading up to my positive
demonstration of a future life for some of our race in the planet Mars.

Astronomy had a great charm for my mother. Her enthusiasm was soon
communicated to my father who found his wealth was a requisite in
establishing the observatory he had erected at Irvington and in its
equipment. Telescopes are expensive playthings.

The Lick Observatory was begun in 1880 and my father through
correspondence with the directors of the University of California had
learned many of the details pertaining to this great project. Influenced
by the splendid prospects of this undertaking my father determined if
possible to surpass it. He wrote to Fiel of Paris and expected to be
able to secure an objective of 4 feet diameter, exceeding that of the
Lick Observatory by one foot, a hopeless and as it proved an utterly
abortive design. He spent an entire year in New York after leaving
Irvington examining the various possible locations for his new
observatory. The requisites were nearness to the equator, an equable
climate, elevation and a clear atmosphere. During this year my father
heard that Prof. Hertz of Berlin had generated waves of magnetism and
that it was hoped that these might ultimately prove efficacious as a
means of direct communication between distant points without the
introduction of wire conductors.

This thought of communicating with distant points without fixed
conductors greatly impressed my father and led him along a line of
speculation upon which finally rested my own success in securing the
messages detailed in this book from the planet Mars.

I recall that one evening in the winter of 1881 while he was yet engaged
in making preparations for his departure from the United States to New
Zealand, which he finally chose for the erection of his laboratories,
and especially his observatory, I heard him read with the greatest
satisfaction of the attempt made in the siege of Paris to bring the
besieged French into telegraphic communication with the Provinces by
means of the River Seine.

It was proposed to send powerful currents into the River Seine from
batteries near the German lines and to receive in Paris upon delicate
galvanometers, such an amount of their current as had not leaked away in
the earth. Profs. Desains, Jamin, and Berthelot were interested in these
experiments, although the suggestion had been made by M. Bourbouze, and
after some interruptions when the attempt was to be carried out, the
armistice of Jan. 14, 1871, brought their preparations to a close.

How often my father spoke of these attempts, and half smilingly on one
occasion as we watched the starry skies "thick inlaid with patterns of
bright gold" said to me: "It seems to me within the reach of possibility
to attain some sort of connection with these shining hosts. If we must
assume that the disturbances on the Sun's surface effect magnetic storms
on ours, it is quite evident that a fluid of translatory power or
consistency exists between the earth and the sun, then also between all
the planetary inhabitants of space, and I cannot see why we may not hope
some day to realize a means of communication with these distant bodies.
How inspiring is the thought that in some such way upon the basis of an
absolutely perfect scientific deduction we might be brought into
conversational alliance with these singular and orderly creations, and
actually look upon their scenes and lives and history, and bring to
ourselves in verbal pictures a presentation of their marvellous
properties."

I think it was on this occasion that my father expressed his thought
upon some form of interplanetary telegraphy in a manner that left it in
my own mind a very impressive and majestic idea. He had read at some
length the address of Sir William Armstrong before the British
Association in 1863, when that distinguished observer speaks of the
sympathy between forces operating in the sun, and magnetic forces in the
earth and remarks the phenomenon seen by independent observers in
September, 1859. The passage, easily verified by the reader, was to this
effect:

"A sudden outburst of light, far exceeding the brightness of the sun's
surface was seen to take place, and sweep like a drifting cloud over a
portion of the solar surface. This was attended by magnetic disturbances
of unusual intensity and with exhibitions of aurora of extraordinary
brilliancy. The identical instant at which the effusion of light was
observed was recorded by an abrupt and strongly marked deflection in the
self-registering instruments at Kew."

My father then pausing and walking impetuously across the room
declaimed, as it were, his views:

"Here we are, a group of limited intelligent beings circumscribed by a
boundless space, and placed upon a speck of matter which is whirled
around the sun in an endless captivity, bound by this inexorable law of
gravitation, like a stone in a sling. About us in this ethereal ocean
floats a host of similarly made orbs, perhaps, in thousands of cases,
inhabited by beings throbbing with the same curiosity as our own to
reach out beyond their sphere, and learn something of the nature of the
animated universe which they may dimly suspect lies about them in the
other stars. Why must it not be part of this immeasurable design which
brought us here, that we shall some day become part of a celestial
symposium; that lines of communication, invisible but incessant, shall
thread in labyrinths of invisible currents these dark abysses, and bring
us in inspiring touch with the marvels and contents of the entire
universe."

He turned to me and gazing intently at my upturned face which I am sure
reflected his own in its enthusiasm and delight, continued: "You, my
son, and I, will put this before us as a possible achievement and work
incessantly for that end. Prof. Hertz has generated these magnetic
waves; we will; and by means of some sort of a receiver endeavor to find
out a clue to _wireless telegraphy_." These closing remarkable words
were actually used by my father, and in view of the marvellous
realization of Marconi's hopes in that direction, as well as my own
stupendous success in reaching the inhabitants of Mars, was a distinct
prophecy.

It was a few months later that my father completed all of his
arrangements in regard to the disposition of his investments, and
perfected the necessary arrangements for being constantly supplied with
funds by his bankers in New York. He also had agreed upon the apparatus
to be forwarded, expecting to be largely supplied at Sydney in new South
Wales, as it was from this point he intended to sail or steam to New
Zealand. Much of the equipment for his observatory was to come from
Paris, and he relied upon intelligent assistance both in Sydney and
Christ Church, in New Zealand, for the erection and furnishment of his
various houses.

He finally concluded to place his station on Mount Cook at an elevation
of 1,000 feet upon a well protected plateau, which was described to him
by a Mr. Ashton who had extensive acquaintance and some five years'
experience in New Zealand. We found this position ideal, and in the
perfection of all the conditions necessary for our experiments possessed
by it, made the realization at that time utterly unsuspected by either
of us, of our final designs, commensurately more simple.

I left New York with my father filled with a curious expectancy. I
seemed to cherish no regret at leaving my childhood's home. I only felt
a vague wondering delight to go abroad and see strange and new things.
My seclusion with my father had developed in me a singular inaptitude
for companionship with boys of my own age, and furthermore from the
influence of his rather poetic and dreaming nature, I began to show a
half wistful intensity of interest in things occult, mysterious and
difficult. We left New York in 1882, and it was then that I read for
diversion in my long ride to California, Colonel Olcutt's Esoteric
Buddhism.

The whole central fancy of reincarnation affected me deeply. But I
modified the idea as displayed by Blavatsky and Theosophists generally.
From a long familiarity with the stars, in conjunction with the
inevitable creative and anthropomorphic sensibility of youth, I began to
think that this reincarnation did not occur on the earth, but had its
stages of transmutation placed elsewhere. In short, I amused myself
incessantly with placing the poets in one star, the novelists in
another, the scientists in a third, the mechanicians in a fourth, and in
each I imagined a Utopia. A very little mature thought and the most
ordinary observation of plain men, men who at 20 have far more practical
sense than I possess to-day, would have demonstrated the hopelessness of
this arrangement, and the deplorable social chaos it would have led to.

I think, however, that along this line of feeling I grew more and more
in sympathy with my father's dimly expressed hopes to achieve something
tangible in the way of interstellar or planetary communication. So that
gradually he, by reason of a desire that slowly invaded every emotional
recess of his being, and I, through the vagaries of an imaginative mind
reached successively an intense conviction that we should work in this
direction.

There was much in our scientific work also that encouraged a certain
high mindedness and liberty of speculation, a careless audacity before
the most difficult tasks. The resolution of matter into a phase of
energy, the interpretation of light as an electric phenomenon, the
mysteries of the electric force itself, the peculiar hypotheses about
the force of gravitation, lead men, studying these subjects, and endowed
with speculative tendencies to conceive, moved also by a quasi
sensational desire to reach new results, that the most extravagant
achievements are possible to science.

With us, regarding the physical universe as a unit, recognizing the
notes of intelligence of a deep coercive and comprehensive plan involved
throughout, feeling that our human intelligence was the reflex or
microcosmic representation of the planning, upholding mind, that if so,
no conceivable limitation could be placed upon its expansion and
conquests, that further it would be incomprehensible that the colonizing
(so to speak) of the central mind occurred only on one sphere, when it
doubtless might be embodied in other beings, on hundreds or thousands or
millions of other spheres; that continuance of life after death was a
truth; feeling all this, their concomitant influence was to make us
positive that the human mind in an intelligent, satisfactory,
self-illuminating way some day would reach mind everywhere in all its
specific forms; and that the abyss of space would eventually thrill with
the vibrations of conscious communion between remote worlds.

With feelings of this sort excited and reinforced by my father's
passionate hope to learn something of his wife's life after death we
reached Christ Church, New Zealand, in June, 1883.

I may now revert to the line of suggestions that led my father and
myself to locate in Mars the scene, at least, as we surmised in part, of
those phases of a future life which I am now able to reveal with, I
think, positive certainty.

The planet Mars as being the next orb removed from the Sun after our own
world in the advance outward from our solar center, has always attracted
attention. At perihelion, when in opposition with the earth, it is 35
millions of miles from the earth, and its surface, as is well known from
the drawings of Kaiser, the Leyden astronomer, and of Schiaparelli,
Denning, Perrotin and Terby, has apparently revealed an alternation of
land and water which, with the assumption of meteorological conditions,
such as prevail on the earth, has gradually made it easy to think of its
occupation by rational beings as altogether possible.

During the opposition of Mars in 1879-80, Prof. Schiaparelli at Milan
determined for the second time the topography of this planet. The
topography revealed the curious long lines or ribbons, commonly called
canals, which seamed the face of our neighboring planet. In 1882 this
observation was enormously extended. He then showed that there was a
variable brightness in some regions, that there had been a progressive
enlargement since 1879 of his _Syrtis Magna_, that the oblique white
streaks previously seen, continued, and, more remarkable, that there was
a continuous development day after day of the doubling of the canals
which seemed to extend along great circles of the sphere. In 1882
Schiaparelli expected at the evening opposition in 1884 to confirm and
add to these observations.

My father had read Schiaparelli's announcements with absorbed interest.
They fed his burning fancies as to the extension of our present life,
and offered him a sort of scientific basis (without which he was
inclined to view all eschatology as superficial) for the belief that we
may attain in some other planet an actual prolonged second existence.

His great reverence for Sir William Herschell was indisputable. He
quoted Herschell's own words with appreciation. These pregnant sentences
were as follows:

"The analogy between Mars and the earth is perhaps by far the greatest
in the whole solar system. Their diurnal motion is nearly the same, the
obliquity of their respective ecliptics not very different; of all the
superior planets the distance of Mars from the sun is by far the
nearest, alike to that of the earth; nor will the length of the Martial
year appear very different from what we enjoy when compared to the
surprising duration of the years of Jupiter, Saturn and the Georgian
Sidus. If we then find that the globe we inhabit has its polar region
frozen and covered with mountains of ice and snow, that only partially
melt when alternately exposed to the sun, I may well be permitted to
surmise that the same causes may probably have the same effect on the
globe of Mars; that the bright polar spots are owing to the vivid
reflection of light from frozen regions; and that the reduction of these
spots is to be ascribed to their being exposed to the sun."

"In the light of these larger analogies," my father would continue, "why
are we not further permitted to conclude that there is a more intimate
and minute correlation. Why can not we predicate that under similar
climatic and atmospheric vicissitudes, with a very probably similar or
identical origin with our globe, this planet Mars, now burning red in
the evening skies, possesses life, an organic retinue of forms like our
own, or at least involving such primary principles as respiration,
assimilation and productiveness, as would produce some biological
aspects not extremely differing from those seen in our own sphere.

"If we imagine, as we are most rationally allowed to, that Mars has
undergone a progressive secularization in cooling, that contraction has
acted upon its surface as it has on ours, that water has accumulated in
basins and depressed troughs, that atmospheric currents have been
started, that meteorological changes in consequence have followed, and
that the range of physical conditions embraces phases naturally very
much like those that have prevailed in our planet, how can it be
intelligently questioned that from these very identical circumstances,
an order of life has not in some way arisen."

My father had an interesting habit of snapping his fingers on both hands
together over his head when he declaimed in this way, always circling
about the room in a rapid stride. I remember he stopped in front of me
and continued in a strain something like this:

"For myself I am convinced that there has been an evolution in the order
of beings from one planet to another, that there is going on a stream of
transference, from one plane of life here to planes elsewhere, and that
the stream is pouring in as well as out of this world, and that it may
be, in our case, pouring both ways, that is, we may be losing
individuals into lower grades of life as well as emitting them to
higher. See, what economy!

"Instead of wasting the energies of imagination to account for the
destinations of millions upon millions of human beings, the countless
host that has occupied the surfaces of this earth through all the
historic and prehistoric ages, we can, upon this assumption, reduce the
number of individuals immensely, allowing that spirits are constantly
arriving, constantly departing, and that the sum total in the solar
system remains perhaps nearly fixed, just as in the electrolysis of
water we have hydrogen rising at one electrode and oxygen at the other
by transmission of atoms of hydrogen and atoms of oxygen toward each
electrode through the water itself, in opposite directions, while for a
sensible time the mass of water remains unchanged.

"Let us suppose that in Mercury some form of mental life exists, that it
is individualized, that it expresses the physical constants of that
globe, that its mentality has reached the point where it can make use of
the resources of Mercury, can respond to its physical constants so far
as they awaken poetry or art or religion or science. Suppose that this
life is one of extreme forcefulness, of stress and storm, like some
prehistoric condition on our globe, but invested with more intellectual
attributes than the same ages on our earth required or possessed,
perhaps reaching a permanent condition not unlike that depicted in the
Niebelungen Lied or the Sagas of the North. It might be called the
_brawn_ period. Then the spirits born upon our planet or on any other
planet in an identical condition, would find after death their
destination in Mercury, where they could evolve up to the point where
they might return to as, or to some other planet fitted for a higher
life.

"Then Venus, we may imagine, succeeding Mercury, carries a higher type,
an emotional life, though of course I am not influenced by her
accidental name, in suggesting it. Here in Venus, a period perchance
resembling a mixture of the pagan Grecian life and the troubadour life
of Provence may prevail and again to it have flown the spirits which in
our planet only touch that development, which from Venus flow to us,
those adapted for the religious or intellectual phase we present. This
Venus life might be called the _sense_ period.

"And now our world follows, with its scientific life which probably
represents its normal limit. Beyond this it will not go. As we have
developed through a _brawn_ and _sense_ period to our present stage, so
in Mercury and Venus, ages have prevailed of development which
eventuated in their final fixed stages at brawn and sense. In Venus,
too, the brawn stage preceded the sense period. In us both have preceded
the scientific stage. There has been, may we not think, constant
interchanges between these planets of such lives as survive material
dissolution, and they have found the _nidus_ that fits them in each.
Souls leaving us in a brawn _epoch_ have fled to Mercury, souls leaving
us in a _sense_ epoch have fled to Venus, and all souls in Mercury or
Venus, ready for reincarnation in a _scientific_ epoch, have come to us.

"But there is an important postulate underlying this theory. It is, that
upon each planet the possibilities of development just attain to the
margin of the next higher step in mental evolution. That is, that on
Mercury the period of brawn develops to the possibility of the period of
sense without fully exemplifying it, so in Venus the period of sense
develops to the possibility of the period of science without attaining
it, and in our world the period of science develops to the period of
_spirit_, without, in any universal way, exhibiting it.

"These are steps progressively represented, I may imagine, in the
planets. And, in the further progress outward, we reach the planet Mars.
Let us place here the period of spirit. On Mars is accomplished in
society, and accompanied by an accomplishment in its physical features,
also, of those ideals of living which the great and good unceasingly
labor to secure for us here and unceasingly fail to secure. O my child,
if we could learn somehow to get tidings from that distant sphere, if
only the viewless abyss of space between our world and Mars might be
bridged by the _noiseless and unseen waves of a magnetic current_."

We reached Christ Church in June, in 1883, and for one year were most
busy in completing the station we had selected, in receiving apparatus,
getting our observatory built and a useful, but not large telescope
mounted.

The position taken by us was attractive. It was upon a high hill, a
glacial mound which had been smoothed upon its upper surface into a long
and broad plain. The prospects from this position were exceedingly
beautiful. Christ Church was some ten miles distant and the irregular
shores northward outlined by ribbons of breaking waves lay upon the
seaward margin of our vision, while the broken intermediate landscape,
with interrupted agricultural domains and forests was in front of us and
far above us rose the grander peaks of the New Zealand Alps, a constant
charm through the changing atmosphere, now brought near to us through
the optical refraction of the clear air, and again veiled and shadowed
and removed into spectral evanescent forms. The picture was intensely
interesting and like all commanding views where the most expressive
elements of scenery are combined, the remote sea, reflecting every mood
of light and color, and the snowy peaks carrying to us the opaline
glories of rising or setting sun was a comparison that stimulated and
controlled the spectator with its wonderful charm and strength and
poetic changes.

To me whose emotional nature, inherited from a mother gifted with
delicate tastes and a refined enthusiasm for the beautiful had been
curiously discouraged by association with my father's scientific
pursuits, this lively panorama constantly fed my dreams with pleasing
pictures.

My life has been an isolated and repressed one, except for the one
incident I am about to bequeath to posterity. I had not enjoyed the play
of youthful companions except in a fugitive way, I had not gone to
school nor passed three years of muscular and buoyant activity in the
usual pastimes and pleasures of childhood. I had a precocious nature and
it had been unfolded in an atmosphere of strictly intellectual ideas. My
mother had been a constant joy to me during the short years of her life
on earth, but somehow by reason of sickness I had not enjoyed even her
endearment as I might have.

So in my father and his aspirations, and the later hopes of his excited
and passionate longing to regain some trace of my mother, my life from
four years of age was actually and potentially concentrated. My father
cherished me with a great consuming love. He saw in me the
representation in face and partially in temperament of his wife. He
lavished on me every care. Yet because of his eager affection, and his
complete suspense from social connections I was made too largely
dependent on him alone. I lived in his companionship only. My
conversation became prematurely advanced in terms and principles, and my
childish confidence was nurtured by nothing less wonderful than books
and theories, experiments and dissertations.

The wonderful beauty of our new surroundings, the strangeness of our
sudden removal from America, the long distances travelled, awoke in me
new thoughts and I readily surrendered myself at times to the incoherent
struggles of my nature, to find someone, something, more responsive to
my young feelings than essays on magnetism, and a man, father though he
was, immersed in demonstrations and problems. It was then that this
distant picture in the days of the fragrant and reviving springtime,
filled me with unutterable and touching ecstacy.

My father, as I had said, fully intended to arrive at some definite
conclusions as to the possibilities of wireless telegraphy. At one end
of the grassy plain I have alluded to, our chief stations were erected
and, at the distance of two miles, almost at the other extremity, we
placed a smaller station. Our whole work was to achieve telegraphic
communication between these points without wires. At night my father
bent his telescopic gaze upon the heavens, and as the earth approached
opposition to Mars in 1884 I remember his eagerness and his repeated
adjurations that if we failed in the task in his lifetime I should
devote my life, separated from all other occupations and indulgences, to
carrying on his designs.

At first he only dimly intimated his great ambition, the union of our
world with others by magnetic waves, but as it slowly assumed a
theoretical certainty he talked more and more boldly of this portentous
and transforming possibility.

I cannot refrain from noticing another important scientific activity of
my father's. It was the use of photography in stellar measurement. As is
well known to photographers, in 1871 Dr. R.L. Maddox used gelatine in
place of collodion from which innovation rose the present system of dry
plate photography. My father had always felt the greatest interest in
the use of photography in astronomy. He was acquainted with the splendid
work done by Chapman for Rutherford, New York, in his careful and
exquisite photographs of the moon. As early as 1850 Whipple of Boston
made photographs of the stars.

It was, however, the incomparable advantages, furnished in speed, by
the dry plate photography which made my father realize early as anyone,
the boundless possibilities thus opened in human attainment for the
penetration of the Sidereal firmament. He had made a great number of
photographs at Irvington, and the photographic laboratory was a charming
illustration of my father's ingenuity and precision. At Mt. Cook we
enjoyed a marvellously clear atmosphere for work of this sort, and
amongst the first thoughts of my father was to provide the most
satisfactory means for the continuance of our stellar photography.
Besides our visual telescope we had a photographic telescope which was
used, instead of connecting the visual lens on one and the same
instrument, as in the Lick Observatory.

The innovations introduced by photography have revolutionized the
processes of stellar measurement. Instead of the laborious task of
measuring the stars through the telescope, the photographic plate can be
studied at ease as a correct and identical chart of the heavens and the
results thus obtained placed at the disposal of astronomers. My father
appreciated this and amongst his numerous projects of scientific
usefulness the preparation of photographs of the stars fully occupied
his mind.

We had no Meridian Circle, as it was less in the direction of the
determination of the position of stars than in the elucidation of the
surfaces of planets, that my father's astronomical predilections lay.
Our telescope was a refractor and had an objective of two feet diameter.
It was firmly supported on a trap rock pedestal. The eye piece
adjustment was unusually successful, and the remarkable freedom of the
objective from any traces of spherical or chromatic aberration gave us
an image of surprising clearness. The photographic results were
admirable. I imagine few more satisfactory photographs of the face of
Moon have been made than those we secured, so far at least as definition
is concerned, and the detail within the limits of our powers of
magnification.

The telescope was very slowly installed and it was well in 1885 before
we were able to use it for either observation or photography.

As the surprising messages detailed in the following pages came by means
of wireless telegraphy, I will dwell for an instant for the benefit of
the non-scientific reader, upon the investigations made by my father and
myself in this subject.

The installation of a wireless telegraphic station is not necessarily
difficult. The progress made since my father and myself began these
experiments has been, of course, considerable, and yet so far as I am
able to ascertain the new devices in this direction were largely
anticipated by us. The tuning of wireless messages by which the
interception of messages is prevented was certainly forestalled by us,
though in the communications with Mars herein detailed the ordinary
[_non-syntonic_.--Editor] receiver was employed.

We employed an induction coil, emitted a wave by a spark, and had a wire
rod [_antenna_.--Editor] which was in turn part of an induction coil.
This was the sender (transmitter) and we could regulate the wave length
so that a receiving wire adjusted for such a wave could only receive it.
[There seems to be implied in these words an arrangement known as the
Slaby-Arco system, which American readers have had described for them by
M.A. Frederick, Collins, Sci. Amer., March 9 and Dec. 28,
1901.--Editor.] The receiver consisted of iron filings in which later
carbon particles were added.

My father died in 1892 and we had not at the time of his death learned
of Popoff's microphone-coherer in which steel filings were mixed with
carbon granules. The magnetic waves received at first by us presumably
from Mars, and later, as the communications indisputably show, from that
planet, were taken upon a Marconi receiver, or what was practically
that.

My father became more and more interested in the direction of
interplanetary research by means of the magnetic wave. He argued
vehemently, buoyed up by his increasingly augmented hopes as our own
experiments improved, that the electric wave through space moving in an
ethereal fluid of the extremest purity would progress more rapidly than
in our atmosphere, that the tension of such waves would be greater, that
they could be so "heaped up" as he expressed it--(_In the Slaby-Arco
system an apparatus is employed consisting of a Ruhmkorff coil with a
centrifugal mercury interrupter, by which a steeper wave front of the
disruptive discharge is secured_.--Editor)--that their reception over
the almost impassable distances of space would be made possible.

This idea of piling up the waves was suggested by purely physical
analogies. The enormous waves generated by severe storms upon the ocean
travel farther than the smaller waves, and are less consecutively
dissipated by the resistance of the water, the traction of its molecules
and the occasional diversion of cross disturbances from other centers.

Again some experiments made invacuo upon a limited scale seemed to show
the accuracy of his predictions. Through a glass tube one foot in
diameter and ten feet long we sent magnetic waves both when the tube
was filled with air and when it was exhausted. Our means of measuring
the time required in both cases were quite inadequate--perhaps there was
no appreciable difference--but the records in the latter case, secured
upon a Morse register, were unmistakably more vigorous and audible.

At last our various results had reached a point where we felt justified
in extending the limits of our investigations. We had up to this time
only tried our messages between the two stations upon the plateau of Mt.
Cook. My father now proposed that I go to Christ Church, install a
sender (transmitter) and send messages to him at the observatory. I did
so and the experiment was convincing. The day before I was ready to
transmit a message I had attended an attractive church service--it was
toward the close of Lent in the year 1889--and as my father was entirely
unprepared for the account I proposed to give him of the function, I
thought its correct transmission would afford an indubitable proof of
our success. I wrote out the description. It was received by my father
with only ten imperfect interpretations in a list of 1,000 words.

From this time forward our plans for erecting a receiver in the
observatory were pushed to a completion. We had discovered the
necessity of elevation for the senders (transmitters) and receivers for
long distance work, and a tall mast, fifty feet in height, was put up at
the observatory, which--needlessly I think--was to serve as the
terrestrial station for the reception of those viewless waves which my
father thought might be constantly breaking unrecorded upon the
insensitive surfaces of our earth.

The eventful night came. It was August, 1890. Mars was then in
opposition. The evening had been extremely beautiful. Nature united in
her mood the most transporting contradictions of temperament. It was
August and the day had been marked by changes of almost tropical
severity, although, as we were south of the equator (the latitude of
Christ Church is S. 44 degrees) August was, with us, mid-winter. A
thunderstorm had broken upon us in the morning, itself an unusual
meteorological phenomenon, and the downpour of black rain, shutting off
the views and enclosing us in a torrential embrace of floods, had lasted
an hour when it passed away, and the Sun re-illumined the wide
glistening scene. The line of foam from the breakers along the remote
shore, yet lashing with curbing crests the inlets, promontories, and
islands, was readily seen; the northern Alps shone in their ermine
robes, greatly lengthened and deepened by the season's snows, the washed
country side below us was a patch work of rocks and fields and denuded
forestland. Christ Church like a vision of whiteness sprang out to the
west upon our vision, and immediately about us the mingling rivulets
poured their musical streams through and over the icy banks of half
consolidated snow.

As night came up, the stars seemed almost to pop out in their
appropriate places, like those stellar illusions that appear so
appropriately upon the theatrical stage, and the low lying moon sent its
flickering radiance over the yet unsubdued waters. It was the time of
the opposition of Mars which brings that planet nearest to us. As is
well known to astronomers, the perihelion of Mars is in the same
longitude in which the earth is on August 27; and when an opposition
occurs near that date, the planet is only 35 millions of miles from the
earth, and this is the closest approach which their bodies can ever
make.

Our magnetic receiver had been placed in position, the Morse register
was attached; the whole apparatus was in one of the upper rooms of the
observatory, in proximity with the telescope through whose glass for
days we had watched the approach of our sister planet. As the night
settled down upon us we had taken our seats for a few instants at a
table in a lower room engaged in one of those innumerable desultory
talks upon our project and their, even to us, somewhat problematic
character. Everything connected with that evening, apart from its having
been carefully recorded in my diary and notebooks, is very distinctly
remembered by me. I recall my father reading from a letter to Nature,
May 15, 1884, by Mr. W.F. Denning, discussing "The Rotation Period of
Mars." From my note-book I find the passage literally transcribed:

It read--"Notwithstanding his comparatively small diameter and its slow
axial motion, the planet Mars affords especial facilities for the exact
determination of the rotation period. Indeed, no other planet appears to
be so favorably circumstanced in this respect, for the chief markings on
Mars have been perceptible with the same definiteness of outline and
characteristics of form through many succeeding generations, whereas the
features, such as we discern on the other planets, are either temporary,
atmospheric phenomena, or rendered so indistinct by unfavorable
conditions as to defy measurement and observation. Moreover, it may be
taken for granted that the features of Mars are permanent objects on the
actual surface of the planet, whereas the markings displayed by our
telescopes on some of the other planetary members of our system are mere
effects of atmospheric changes, which, though visible for several years
and showing well defined periods of rotation cannot be accepted as
affording the true periods. The behavior of the red spot on Jupiter may
closely intimate the actual motion of the sphere of that planet, but
markings of such variable, unstable character can hardly exhibit an
exact conformity of motion with the surface upon which they are seen to
be projected. With respect to Mars' case, it is entirely different. No
substantial changes in the most conspicuous features have been detected
since they were first confronted with telescopic power and we do not
anticipate that there will be any material difference in their general
configurations.

"The same markings which were indistinctly revealed to the eyes of
Fontana and Huyghens in 1636 and 1659 will continue to be displayed to
the astronomers of succeeding generations, though with greater fullness
and perspicuity owing to improved means. True, there may possibly be
variations in progress as regards some of the minor features, for it has
been suggested that the visibility of certain spots has varied in a
manner which cannot be satisfactorily accounted for on ordinary
grounds. These may possibly be due to atmospheric effects on the planet
itself, but in many cases the alleged variations have doubtless been
more imaginary than real. The changes in our own climate are so rapid
and striking, and occasion such abnormal appearances in celestial
objects that we are frequently led to infer actual changes where none
have taken place; in fact, observers cannot be too careful to consider
the origin of such differences and to look nearer home for some of the
discordances which may have become apparent in their results."

It was just as he finished reading this extract that the shrill
fluttering call of the maxy bird was heard from the bare branches of a
poplar near the station, and in the next instant, in that intense quiet
that succeeds sometimes a sudden unexpected and acute accent, the Morse
register was audible above us, clicking with a continuity and evident
_intention_ that, weighted as we were with vague sensational hopes, drew
the blood from our faces, and seemed almost like a voice from the red
orb then glowing in the southeastern sky. We sprang together up the
stairs to the operating-room and saw with our eyes the moving lever of
the little Morse machine. We had made ourselves familiar with the
ordinary telegraphic codes, the international Telegraphic Code and that
in use in Canada and the United States. They were useless. The
succession of short or long intervals was entirely different and the
message, if message it was, defied our persistent efforts at
translation. The disturbance of the register continued some three hours,
and though we were unmistakably in communication with some external
regulated and _intentional_ source of magnetic impulses we were
hopelessly confused as to their meaning.

I can never forget our excitement. We were certainly the recipient of
exact careful conscious messages. Their terrestrial origin, strange and
incredible as it might appear, did not seem likely, for the two codes so
generally in use were not represented in it. Could it be--the thought
seemed to stop the beating of our hearts--could it be that we had indeed
received an extra-terrestrial communication? The register of the dots
and dashes cannot be all reproduced here, though a very long record of
them, indeed almost complete, was made by myself. During the whole time
that the register moved hardly a word of conversation escaped our lips.
We were fixed in mute amazement. We were full of unexpressed imaginings,
which were told, however in my father's face, so flushed with eagerness,
as with half-parted lips he bent over the instrument or interrupted his
attention by walking to the window and gazing far out into the heavens.

The record we obtained is here reproduced, in part, as the whole would
occupy altogether too much space. I am interested in giving it as it may
effectually remain a proof of my sincerity in this matter, and will, I
have the firm conviction, be repeated in the future, not exactly or at
all, as I have written it, but some message similarly received will
corroborate the statement here made, and the still further marvellous
facts I am yet to relate.

The record I will select for reproduction is as follows:

. . . - . . .-- . . . - - - . - - . . . - . . .
. . - - - - . . . . . - - - . . . . . . . . . .
- - . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - . . . - - . . . - - - - - . . . . . . . - -
- . . - . . . - - - - - . . . . . . . - - . -
. . . . - - - . . . - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- . . . - . . . - - - . . . - . . . - . . .
- - - - - . . . . - - - . . . . - - - -



CHAPTER II.


As I now know there is a Martian language, if this communication came
from that planet, which was my own and my father's deepest conviction,
it would be impossible to interpret the foregoing record with any
certainty, or indeed, in any way. Absolute ignorance of that language,
except the brief mention in my father's communications, received by
myself from that body--whose publication before I die is the sole
purpose of this manuscript--make it quite certain that it is in the main
a vowel language, consisting of short vocalic syllables. In such a case
it is probable that some abbreviation has been used, and the problem of
its resolution simply is placed out of the question. I may here
partially forestall the facts communicated to me by my father from Mars.
In those unparalleled messages he has told me of the desire of the
Martians to communicate with the earth, and as the Martians themselves
are largely made up of transplanted human spirits, the possibility of
doing so would have been completely expected. But the singular
evanescence of memory amongst these humans which absolutely displaces
details of strictly mnemonic acquirements, except in certain directions
of art and invention, has apparently precluded this.

We remained at the register almost the entire night taking turns in our
tireless vigil. But no more disturbances occurred. My father was deeply
moved and I scarcely less so. Accustomed as we had become to the thought
that wireless telegraphy would place us more readily in touch with the
sidereal universe than with distant points upon our earth, presuming
indeed, that, except for the intervening envelopes of atmosphere
attached to our or any neighboring planet, the path of transmission of
messages through space would be inconceivably swift, we saw nothing
really impossible in the impression that we had that night received
communications from extra-terrestrial sources.

The thought was none the less stupendous, and it seemed almost
impossible for us to allude to the subject without a peculiar sense of
reverential self-suppression, at least for a week or so. Examination and
inquiry showed us no contiguous source of the message and it seemed most
improbable that it had come to us from any distant part of the earth, as
we had become acquainted with the difficulty or impossibility of
bridging our very great distances with the resources then at human
command, and with the unavoidable exigence of the earth's convexity.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a few months after this that my father, returning from a climb in
the neighboring hills, complained of great weariness and a sort of mild
vertigo. I had become exceedingly endeared to him. I found him a most
unusual companion, and unnaturally separated as I had been from more
ordinary associations, our lives had assumed an almost fraternal
tenderness.

I was greatly troubled to see my father's illness, and begged him to
take rest; indeed, to leave the observatory for a while; to visit Christ
Church. We had made some very congenial acquaintances in Christ Church.
A family of Tontines and a gentleman and his daughter by the name of
Dodan had often visited us, and while we had become somewhat a subject
of perennial curiosity, and were more or less visited by curiosity
hunters and others, actuated by more intelligent motives, the Tontines
and the Dodans remained our only very intimate friends.

Indeed, Miss Dodan had come to me, buried in scientific speculations and
denied hitherto all female acquaintances, like a beam of light through
a sky not at all dark, but gray and pensive and sometimes almost
irksome. Miss Katharine Dodan was gentle, pretty, and unaffectedly
enthusiastic. Her interest in all equipment of our laboratories was
boundless. When I found myself alone with her at the big telescope
adjusting everything with--oh! such exquisite precision--and then
sometimes discovered my hand resting upon hers, or my head touching
those silken brown curves of hair that framed her white brow and
reddening cheeks, the throbbing pleasure was so sweet, so unexpected, so
strange, that I felt a new desire rise in my heart, and the newness of
life lifted me for a moment out of myself, and started those fires of
ambition and hope that only a lovely woman can awaken in the heart of a
man. I mention this circumstance that led to the fatal train of
occurrences that led to my father's death.

I urged my father to go to Christ Church and stay with the Dodans. Mr.
Dodan had frequently invited him, and Miss Dodan's brightness and her
cheerful art at the piano would, I know, cheer him, inured too long to
his lonely life, subject to the periodic returns of that bitter sadness,
which was now only accentuated by his self-imposed exile from the home
and scenes of his former happiness.

He at last consented, and in October, 1891, accompanied by the Dodans,
whom he had summoned from Christ Church, he went down the steep hillside
that slanted from our plateau to the lowlands, and was soon lost from
view in a turn of the road, which also robbed me of the sight of a
waving, small white handkerchief, floating in front of a half-loosened
pile of chestnut hair.

A few days later I received a visit from Miss Dodan. I was then working
at some photographs in the dark room. My assistant told me of her
arrival. I hurried to our little reception room and library, where a few
of my father's "Worthies of Science" decorated the walls, which for the
most part were covered with irregular book cases, while a long square
covered table occupied the center of the room, littered with charts,
maps, journals and daily papers.

Miss Dodan sat near the wide window looking toward Christ Church and the
quickly descending road over which only a few days ago my father had
journeyed. I caught in her face, as I entered, an anxious and disturbed
glance, and I felt almost instantly an intimation of disaster. She
turned to me as I came into the room and with a quick movement advanced.

"Mr. Dodd, your father is ill. I hardly know what is the matter with
him. He is quite strange; does not know us when we talk to him, and
wanders in a talk about 'magnetic waves' and 'his wife' and 'different
code.' Won't you come to see him? You may help him greatly."

The kind, clear eyes looked up into mine and the impulse of real
sympathy as she pressed my hand seemed unmistakable. I asked a few
questions and was convinced that my father was the victim of some sort
of shock, perhaps precipitated by the continuous excitement caused by
our unaccountable experience in the observatory.

I was but a few moments getting ready for the drive to Christ Church. I
remember the cold, crisp air, the rapid motion, and can I ever forget
it--the nearness and touch of Miss Dodan's person, perhaps only a
hurried brushing past me of her arm, the stray touch of her floating
hair, or the accidental stubbing of her foot against my own. It seemed a
short, delicious drive. I fear my heart was almost equally divided
between apprehension for my father's health and the joy of simple
nearness to the woman I loved. At last we reached Christ Church. The
Dodans lived in the suburbs in a pretty villa on a high hill, from whose
top the city lay spread before them in its modest extent with its
neighboring places and Port Lyttelon eight miles away.

I found my father better, but it required my own zeal and affection to
thoroughly restore him, and bring him back to his characteristic
interest and alertness, which made him so original and delightful a
companion. At length, by a week's nursing, during which Miss Dodan and
myself were frequently together, becoming more and more attached to each
other, my father renewed his wonted studies, and strongly desired to
return to the "plateau."

I almost regretted, harsh as the thought may seem, our return. Such
incidents are now a kind of sweet sadness to recall, for as I write
these words, I hear nearer and nearer the summons that must put me also
in the spirit world, while she, in whose heart my own trustingly lived,
has been taken away, I think wisely and prudently, to live with her
father's people in a charming, rustic village of Devonshire. But oh! so
far away! and this picture which daily I draw from beneath the pillow of
my sick couch must alone serve to replace the companionship of her face
and voice.

I can permit myself in this last record of an unrecoverable past to
describe a treasured incident just before I left the Dodan home with my
father. I was coming out of my room when I found Miss Dodan also
emerging from her own bedroom at the opposite end of an upper hall. We
met and I said: "Miss Dodan, it is a treacherous confession, but I wish
you were going back with us, or that my father would stay a little
longer here. I shall miss you."

"Yes," she answered. "Aren't you a good nurse?"

"Oh, I think you need not misunderstand me," I insisted.

"Misunderstanding is rather an English trait, you Americans say," she
retorted.

"But in this case," I continued, "I hoped any disadvantages of that sort
would be overcome by your own feelings."

She blushed and looked quite dauntlessly into my eyes: "You mean," she
inquired, "that you are sorry to leave me?"

My face was very red, I knew, and I felt a puzzling sensation in my
throat, but I did not hesitate: "Of course, I am sorry to leave you,
more sorry than I can say, but I fear more, that leaving you may mean
losing you."

This time confusion seemed struggling with a pleased mirth in her face,
and with a laugh and a quick movement toward the stairway she exclaimed:
"Well, Americans, they say, never lose what they really care to win."

I darted forward, but she was too quick for me and the chase ended in
the lower hall in a group of people--her parents, my father, visitors
and servants--and I saw her disappear with a backward glance, in which,
I could swear, I saw two pouting lips.

My father was overjoyed to return to our really very comfortable
quarters on "Martian Hill," as Mr. Dodan, in reference to my father's
infatuation over his imaginary (?) population of Mars, was accustomed to
call our professional home.

It was, I think, only a few weeks after this that my father called me to
his room. He was standing in his morning apparel, a strange garb which
he sometimes affected, made up of a black velvet gown brought together
at the waist by a stout yellow cord, a bright red skull cap, a sort of
sandal shoe, picked out with silver ornaments, his arms covered with
loose, puckered sleeves of lace, dotted with black extending up to the
close fitting sleeves of the velvet gown which only descended to his
elbow. Beneath the gown, when he was thus theatrically attired, he wore
a shirt of pale blue silk with a flat collar, over which came a black
vest meeting his black trunks and blue hose.

My father was a really striking and beautiful picture in his incongruous
habiliment. His strong and thoughtful face, over which yet clustered the
curly hair of boyhood, just touched with gray, lit up by his earnest,
sad eyes, seemed--how distinctly I recall it--almost ideally lovely that
morning, and I compared him in my thoughts with the father of Romola,
only as wearing a more youthful expression. He was seated when I came
in, and as his eyes encountered mine, I detected the traces of tears
upon his cheeks. My heart was full of love for my father, or childlike
adoration it might have been called. I hurried to him and embraced him.
The tenderness overcame his habitual self-restraint and he seemed to
fall sobbing in my arms.

"My son," he finally whispered, "my days are drawing very fast to a
close. The shock I experienced at Christ Church prepared me to believe I
would die in some attack of paralysis. A slight aphasia occurred this
morning. It, too, as suddenly disappeared. But these warnings cannot be
neglected. I and you must at once make preparations for that future
colloquy which we must endeavor to establish between ourselves, when I
have left this earth and you yet remain upon it.

"I have been thinking a good deal on this subject and my reflections
have resulted in this conclusion."

His voice had now resumed its usual melody and power, and we sat down
while he turned the pages of Prof. Bain's little work entitled "Mind and
Body." He read (I marked at the time the passage): "The memory rises
and falls with the bodily condition; being vigorous in our fresh moments
and feeble when we are fatigued or exhausted. It is related by Sir Henry
Holland that on one occasion he descended, on the same day, two mines in
the Hartz Mountains, remaining some hours in each. In the second mine he
was so exhausted with inanition and fatigue, that his memory utterly
failed him; he could not recollect a single word of German. The power
came back after taking food and wine. Old age notoriously impairs the
memory in ninety-nine men out of a hundred."

My father then continued: "It seems to me quite clear that our memory,
at any rate, however little of our other mental attributes is engaged in
matter, is quite constructed in a series of molecular arrangements of
our nervous tissues. No doubt there is memory also in that subtle fluid
that survives death, but, inasmuch as memory is so closely expressed in
physical or material units or elements, does it not seem plain that as
spirits we shall probably lose memory?

"The material structure in which it existed, which in a sense was memory
itself, is dissipated by death. Memory disappears with it. But perhaps
not wholly. Some shadow of itself remains. What will most likely be
treasured then? The strongest, deepest memories only. Those which are
so subjectively strong as to leave even in the spirit _flesh_ an
impression. In this same little book of Bain's this sentence occurs:
'Retention, Acquisition, or Memory, then, being the power of continuing
in the mind, impressions that are no longer stimulated by the original
agent, and of recalling them at after-times by purely mental forces, I
shall remark first on the cerebral seat of those renewed impressions. It
must be considered as almost beyond a doubt that the _renewed feeling
occupies the very same parts, and in the same manner as the original
feeling_, and no other parts, nor in any other manner that can be
assigned.'

"It seems to me, my son, in view of all this, that, as the fondest hope
of my life is to send back to you from wherever I may be, a message, and
as we both believe the means must be something like this wireless
telegraphy, I must imbed in my mind the whole system we have developed,
and especially make myself almost intuitively familiar with the Morse
alphabet. Beating, beating, beating upon my brain substance this
ceaselessly reiterated mechanical language, it will become so
incorporated, that even in the surviving mind I shall find its traces
and be able to use it.

"So I have concluded to put aside almost everything else and think and
live in the thought only of this coming experience. You understand me?
You sympathize in this? Yes, yes, I shall get ready for this supreme
experiment which may at last, to a long waiting world, bring some
reasonable assurance that death does not end all. As I think of it, as I
look forward to meeting your mother, the whole prospect of death grows
wonderfully interesting and sublimely welcome. And yet, my son, you, you
who have been so patient, so kind, giving up your life for my
convenience and pleasure, I dread to leave you. But I will speak to you!
Watch! wait! and at that instrument upstairs, which I know responded to
some waves of magnetism crossing the oceans of space, I shall be heard
by you in English words, opening up the mysteries of other worlds!"

He stopped in sheer exhaustion with his whole face charged with almost
frantic ecstacy. It seemed to me so natural, nurtured in the same
impossible dreams, that I saw nothing ludicrous in his hopes.

From that day on we gave ourselves up to telegraphing from our two
stations, while my father again and again consulted models of our
transmitters and receivers. This excitement lasted a long time and it
did seem psychologically certain that in any disembodied condition my
father would be likely to recall some important parts or all of this
well learned lesson.

For years my father, as I mentioned before, in his astronomical studies,
had limited himself to the study, photography and drawing of the
surfaces of our planetary neighbors. Mars particularly fascinated him,
for he had, by some illusion or accident of thought fixed his belief
firmly that Mars represented his future post mortem home.

The progress of study of the physical features of Mars had been
considerable. With these results my father and I were very familiar, had
been in correspondence with certain astronomical centers with regard to
them, and had even contributed something toward the elucidation of the
problems thus presented.

In 1884, before the Royal Society, some notes on the aspect of Mars, by
Otto Baeddicker, were read by the Earl of Rosse. They were accompanied
by thirteen drawings of the planet and showed many features represented
on the Schiaparelli charts. W.F. Denning in 1885, remarked upon "the
seeming permanency of the chief lineaments on Mars, and their
distinctiveness of outline." Schiaparelli confirmed his previous
observations upon the duplications of the canals and Mr. Knobel
published some sketches.

In 1886, M. Terby presented to the Royal Academy of Belgium notes on
drawings made by Herschell and Schroeter, indicating the so-called
Kaiser Sea. M. Perrotin at the Nice Observatory was able to redetect
Schiaparelli's canals, which elicited the remark that "the reality of
the existence of the delicate markings discovered by the keen-sighted
astronomer of Brera seems thus fully demonstrated, and it appears highly
probable that they vary in shape and distinctness with the changes of
the Martial seasons."

These observations of M. Perrotin were detailed at length in the
_Bulletin Astronomique_, and the distinguished observer called attention
to the fact that these markings varied but slightly from Schiaparelli's
chart, and indicated a state of things of considerable stability in the
equatorial region of Mars. M. Perrotin recorded changes in the Kaiser
Sea (Schiaparelli's _Syrtis Major_). This spot, usually dark, was seen
on May 21, 1886, "to be covered with a luminous cloud forming regular
and parallel bands, stretching from northwest to southeast on the
surface, in color somewhat similar to that of the continents but not
quite so bright." These cloud-like coverings were later more distributed
and on the three following days diminished greatly in intensity. They
were referred by Perrotin to clouds.

In March and April of the year 1886 a study was made of the surface of
Mars by W.F. Denning in England. Mr. Denning's drawings corroborated the
charts of Green, Schiaparelli, Knobel, Terby and Baeddicker. He found
the surface of Mars one of extreme complexity, a multitude of bright
spots in places, but with a general fixity of character which led him to
believe that the appearances were not atmospheric. He indeed attributed
to Mars an attenuated atmosphere and thought that some of the vagaries
in its surface characters were due to variations in our own atmosphere
He did not find the Schiaparelli canals as distinct in outline as given
by that ingenious observer. He noted many brilliant spots on Mars and
indicated the disturbing influences of vibrations produced by winds on
the surface of our earth in connection with changes in the earth's
atmospheric envelope.

In 1888 M. Perrotin continued his observations on the channels of Mars
and noted changes. The triangular continent (Lydia of Schiaparelli) had
disappeared, its reddish white tint indicating, or supposed to indicate,
land, was then replaced by the black or blue color of the seas of Mars.
New channels were observed, some of them in "direct continuation" with
channels previously observed, amongst these an apparent channel through
the polar ice cap. Some of these seemed double, running from near the
equator to the neighborhood of the North Pole. The place called Lydia
disappeared and reappeared. A strange puzzling statement was made that
the canals could be traced straight across seas and continents in the
line of the meridian. M. Terby confirmed many of these observations.
Later the so-called "inundation of Lydia," observed by M. Perrotin, was
doubted. Schiaparelli himself, Terby, Niesten at Brussels, and Holden at
the Lick Observatory, failed to remark this change. These observers did
not double the canals satisfactorily, but all agreed upon the striking
whiteness and brightness of the planet.

M. Fizeau (1888) argued that the Schiaparelli canals were really glacial
phenomena, being ridges, crevasses, rectilinear fissures, etc., of
continental masses of ice. Again (Bulletin de l'Academie Royale de
Belgique, June) M. Nesten averred that the changes on the surface of
Mars were periodic.

In 1889, Prof. Schiaparelli reviewed what had been observed upon the
surface of the planet in a continued article in _Himmel und Erde_, a
popular astronomical journal published by the Gesellschaft Urania and
edited by Dr. Meyer.

Some remarkable photographs taken by Mr. Wilson in 1890 were commented
on by Prof. W.H. Pickering in the "Sidereal Messenger." They showed the
seasonal variations in the polar white blotches.

In 1889 there reached us from Chatto and Windus of London a most
entertaining book by Hugh MacColl, entitled "Mr. Stranger's Sealed
Packet." It was a work of fancy, ingeniously constructed upon scientific
principles. It described a hypothetical machine, a flying machine, which
was made up of a substance more than half of whose mass had been
converted into repelling particles. Such a fabric would leave the earth,
pass the limits of its attraction with an accelerating velocity and move
through space. In such a way Mr. Stranger reached Mars. He found it
inhabited by a people--the Marticoli--happy in a state of socialism, and
with abundance of food manufactured from the elements, oxygen, hydrogen,
carbon and nitrogen, with electric lights, phonetic speech, but without
gunpowder or telescopes.

Its inhabitants had been derived from the earth by a most delightful
scientific fabrication. A sun and its satellites in its course around
some other center draws the earth and Mars so together that on some
parts of the earth's surface the attraction of Mars would overcome that
of the earth and gently suck up to itself inhabitants from the earth,
who would not suffer death from loss of air, as the atmosphere of both
bodies would be mingled.

These observations and this last scientific myth have some interest in
view of the actual knowledge now vouchsafed to the world through my
father's messages. I have very briefly reviewed them.

My father's premonitions were fully realized. He grew sensibly weaker as
the months of 1891 passed. His mind became eager with the cherished
expectation which grew day by day into a sort of a mild possession. It
seemed to me that there was a moderate aberration involved in his deeply
seated convictions, and when sometimes I saw him walking past the
windows on the plateau with his head thrown back, his arms outstretched
as if he were inviting the stars to take him and his murmuring voice,
repeating some snatches of song, I felt awed and frightened.

My father was stricken with paralysis on September 21, 1892, became
speechless the following day, but for a day thereafter wrote on a pad
his last directions. Some of these were quite personal, and need not be
detailed here. It was indeed pathetic to see his strenuous and repeated
efforts to assure me that he remembered all the parts of the telegraphic
apparatus, and his smile of saddened self-depreciation when he
hesitated over some detail. At last he sank into a torpor with the usual
stertorous breathing, flushed face and gradually chilled extremities.
His last words were scrawled almost illegibly by his failing
hand--"Remember, watch, wait, I will send the messages."

Miss Dodan came to the plateau and was helpful; to me especially. She
kept up my breaking spirits, and her womanly tenderness, her brave
grace, and the joy my loving heart felt in seeing her, enabled me to go
through the trial of death and separation.

All was finished. My father was buried in Christ Church cemetery by his
own request, although thus separated by a hemisphere from his wife.

       *       *       *       *       *

A year had passed. I had received nothing. Mr. and Miss Dodan came to
the observatory. They both were acquainted with the singular
prepossessions which controlled both myself and my father, and I think
Mr. Dodan was himself, though he admitted nothing, most curious and
interested in the whole matter. Miss Dodan frankly said she was. But I
know, to Miss Dodan's fresh, healthy, human life there was something
weirdly repellent in this thought of communication with the dead. She
thought of it with a nervous dread and excitement. It just kept me in
her thoughts a little shrouded in mystery and superiority and closed a
little the avenues of absolute confidence and peaceful self-surrender.

I had forgotten nothing, although at first an overwhelming sense of the
uselessness of the attempt, the almost grotesque absurdity of expecting
to hear from beyond the limits of the earth's atmosphere any word
transmitted through a mechanical invention, upon the earth's crust, made
me feel somewhat ashamed of my preparations, yet I arranged every
portion of the receiver and exercised my best skill to give it the most
delicate adjustment.

Whenever I had occasion to rest I either sent an assistant to the post,
or kept on my pillow, adjusted to my ear, a telephone attachment to the
Morse register, so that its signals might instantly receive attention.
At length as time wore on I arranged a bell signal that might summon us
to the register.

On the occasion of this visit by the Dodans I was in the loft at the
receiver which was in a room to one side of that we called "the
equatorial," where the telescope was suspended. I was as usual waiting
for a message that never came, and my failing hopes, made more and more
transitory by the brightness of the southern spring and all the instant
present industry of the fields below me on the low-lands, seemed to
dissolve into a mocking phantom of derisive dreams.

I stood up hackneyed and forlorn. Had I not done everything I could? Had
I not kept my promise? I heard the voices below me; one, that musical
tone, that made the color come and go upon my cheeks, and as I turned
hastily to descend to them while the breathing earth seemed to send
upward its powerful sensitizing odors that turn energy into languorous
desire, and touch the senses with indolence; at that moment the Morse
register spoke!

Could my ears have deceived me? No! It was running, running, running,
intelligible, strong, definite; it seemed to me of almost piercing
loudness, although just audible. I bent over, seized my pad and wrote.
The Abyss of Death was bridged! From behind the veil of that inexorable
silence which lies beyond the grave came a voice--and what a voice! The
clicking of a telegraphic register in signals, that the whole world knew
and used. I was quiet, preternaturally so, I think, as I took down the
message. I became almost aged in the intense rigidity of my absorption.

I was told the Dodans came up and saw me, heard the telltale clicks of
the register, and unnoticed left me. Still I wrote on, unheeding the
time. My assistants, pale with wonder, stood around me. The measured
tappings were the ghostly voices of another world. This message began at
10 a.m., Sept. 25, 1893. It ended at 10 p.m. on the same day. It came
quite evenly, though slowly, and was unmistakably intended to be
inerrantly recorded, as indeed it was.



CHAPTER III.


"My son," it began, "I am indeed in the red orb of light we have so
often looked up to when we were together on the earth, and about which
our wondering minds hazarded so many fruitless guesses. I have been here
a short time, and now am able to return to you, by that cipher we so
fortunately printed upon the tablet of memory, word of my existence.

"I can hardly describe to you my occurrence on this planet. I found
myself here without any recollection of whence I had come, without a
traceable thought of anything I had ever heard before.

"I was suddenly sitting in a high room, brilliantly lighted by a soft,
tranquillizing radiance, listening to a chorus of most delicately
attuned voices, indescribably sweet, penetrating and moving. Around me
upon white ivory chairs arranged in an amphitheatre sat beings like
myself, all looking outward upon a sloping lawn where were gathered
beneath blossoming fruit trees an army, it seemed, of half shining
creatures, unlike myself, singing these wonderful choruses.

"I have since learned that I did not reach Mars in that identical moment
when I found myself sitting in the hall. I had come to it, as all
disembodied spirits from the earth come to it at one receiving point, a
high hill not far from the tropic of Mars. This hill, crowned and
covered with glass buildings, is known as the hill of the Phosphori.
Here, for nearly one of our months, the incoming souls, which are little
more than a sort of ethereal fluid, presenting a form only observable by
refracted light, or I should say polarized light, are bathed in a
marvellously phosphorescent beam procured by absorption from the sun.
These souls are intermingled in a chaotic stream that I may liken to the
streaming currents of heated air in convection from a source of heat
upon our earth, and this continuous tide is caught in a great spherical
chamber or a series of chambers extending over five miles around the
bald summit of this eminence.

"In these colossal chambers the phosphorescent light from enormous
radiators beats incessantly through and through the slowly, oscillating,
vibrating, revolving soul matter. And here the process of
individualization is achieved. A soul, or many souls, are separated
from the great tide, by flashing, under the bombardment of the
phosphorescent blaze into shining forms. They assume a shape outlined by
light, and just slightly subject to gravity from the atomic compression
necessary to maintain their illumination, they fall lightly out from the
domes of the spheres, touch the floors beneath, and are led away.

"In this way I found later I had arrived at Mars. When the spirits, thus
shaped in light and otherwise almost immaterial and unclothed, emerge
from the Hill of the Phosphori, they are taken along wide, white roads
to some of the many chorus halls which fill the City of Light, where I
am now, and from which I am sending this magnetic message. They remain
for hours, even days and weeks in these halls listening in a sort of
stupor or trance to beautiful music; for music is the one great
recreation of the Martians, and is spontaneous, appearing as a vocal
gift in beings who have never enjoyed its exercise on earth.

"Gradually under the influence of this musical immersion, as under the
bombardment of the phosphorescent rays, a mentality seems developed;
voice and language come, and the soul moves out of the concourse of
listening souls, moved by a desire to do something, into the streets of
the city. This is called, as we might say, the Act Impulse. From that
time on the soul rushes, as it were, to its natural occupation. Its
mentality, aroused by music, becomes full of some sort of aptitude, and
it enters the avenues of its congruous activity as easily, as quickly,
as justly as the growing flower turns toward the Sun wherever it may be.

"Let me present to you the curious scene my eyes encountered as I sat in
the great Chorus Hall. I say my eyes. It is hard perhaps for you to
realize what an organ can be in a creature, so apparently, as we are,
little more than gaseous condensations. The physiology and morphology of
a spirit is not an easy thing to grasp or define. I am yet ignorant upon
many points. But dimly, at least, I may make your natural senses
cognizant of it.

"You have seen faces and forms in clouds. How often you and I from Mount
Cook on the earth have watched their changing and confluent lineaments
in the clouds above the New Zealand Alps. It is the same way with
Martian spirits. They are tenuous fluids, but the individual pervades
them and a material response is evoked, and the light from their
surfaces is so halated, intensified, or reduced as to form a figure with
a head and arms and legs.

"In some way I imagine the organs are optical effects, ruled by mind,
which is located in this luminous matter. Later I will describe the
process of _solidification, the resumption of matter_, for these spirit
forms slowly concrete into beings like terrestrial men and women. There
is, therefore, a dual population here, the extreme newly transplanted
souls, and the flesh and blood people, and between them the transitions
from spirit to corpuscular bodies. But all this takes place in the City
of Light. Elsewhere over the whole planet the spirits are seldom seen,
but only the vigorous and beautiful race of material beings into which,
they--the spirits--have _consolidated_.

"To return to my first experience in the Chorus Hall in the City of
Light. I seemed to be in a great alabaster cage enormously large and
very beautiful. Its shining walls rose from the ground and at a great
height arched together. The front was a network of sculpture, it held
the rising rows of what seemed like ivory chairs on which the motionless
white and radiant assemblage were seated. The whole place glowed, and
this phosphorescent prevails throughout the City of Light, just as it
does in the Hill of the Phosphori, when we first landed in this strange
existence.

"The music came from a field in front of the Chorus Hall, which held a
wonderful array of beings who, while not radiant as we were, had a
_lustrous_ look over their smooth and lovely bodies, which were tightly
clad in the palest blue tunics and leggings. These creatures were
consolidated spirits. They are constantly augmented by new arrivals,
and, as the number remains almost unchanged, as new arrivals appear,
others leave and then move off from the City of Light into the vast
regions of Mars outside and beyond the city.

"A word of explanation would make this all clear. The Hill of the
Phosphori begins the transmutation of the psychic fluid which makes up
the souls as they flow into Mars from space. At the Hill the very
moderate condensation begins, just enough to bring them to the ground by
gravity. The psychic fluid is susceptible to the light, absorbs and
emits it, and so the spirit forms are shining like great _ignes fatui_
on our old earth. The spirits thus individualize, pass in companies to
the City of Light, and come to the huge chorus halls which surround the
city on its outskirts, in the country margin.

"They reach these chorus halls by a sort of suasion produced apparently
by their sympathy with music. Music and Light are the energies, which at
first and measurably throughout all the latter days of Martian life,
direct work and thought and being. The music is quite audible for long
distances, especially in the direction of the Hill of the Phosphori
where the spirits land. Drawn by it they move unconsciously toward the
singing centers. Now there are perhaps a hundred of these chorus halls
about the City of Light grouped in the direction of the Hill of the
Phosphori, and the music is quite different in them. There are four
principal sorts, the grave, the gay, the romantic and the harmonic. By
their interior sympathy the kinds of spirits move to the choruses which
afford the music they respond to and it is wonderful how infallibly this
attraction acts.

"The bands separate and strings and lines of the phosphorized spirits
train away without direction to the choruses that attract them, although
only a sort of subdued and confused murmur reaches them from the halls.

"Throughout the first stages of life here, the spirits are somnambulous.
They move and act unconsciously and in obedience to their imbedded
instincts and tastes. Only, as under the influence of music and light
and afterwards occupation, they are transmuted by consolidation into the
fair material race, which outside of the City of Light controls the
planet, does consciousness and curiosity and language arise. I sat a
long, long time in the chorus hall, to which I was drawn, which
produced _grave_ music. I knew nothing, felt nothing, was but dimly
cognizant of what was about me, but I thrilled with the music.

"I felt the process of condensation going on, and it was a process
exquisitely blissful. Now and then, a spirit form would arise and step
down the rising forms and go out, another and another, while as silently
spirits from the Hill of the Phosphori would enter and take their seat
and bathe in the almost unbroken surges of music that come from the
field outside, from the multitude beneath the almond blossom laden
trees. Movement is without volition in the spirit stage; attraction that
follows a hidden impulse, that seems indescribable at first, directs
them. It is only as the process of consolidation in the City of Light
individualizes, that the spirits become, as you would say, human. But it
is a humanity of great beauty. Material particles invade or transfuse
them, replacing the diaphanous phosphorescent spirit fluid, and they
grade into supple white and rosy figures, strong, strenuous and
splendid.

"After remaining a long time, perhaps, in the chorus hall, I felt the
restlessness that causes one after the other of the spirits to go out. I
followed the solitary line out into the city, the solemn, swaying music
still heard as I stepped out upon the broad steps which face the city.
I was now more observant, something like sight and feeling and memory
were slowly generated within me, and I noticed that whereas the arriving
spirits moved like apathetic ghosts, those with whom I now was, turned
with interest this way and that, seemed apprehending and alive.

"The spirits from the Hill of the Phosphori came on the broad avenues
leading to the chorus halls like waifs of cloud driven by a zephyr, with
no visible distention of parts, no leg, or arm, or head or body motion.
Now they moved with some anatomical suggestions.

"I stood amid a colonnade of arches, the white shining columns rose
around me to the high, shining roof, before me a long descent of steps,
and beyond me and around on a softly swelling eminence was spread the
City of Light. It was a marvellous picture.

"The City of Light is simple and monotonous in architecture, but its
composition and its radiance quite surpass any earthly conception. The
buildings are all domed and stand in squares which are filled with fruit
trees, low bush-like spreading plants, bearing white pendant lily-like
flowers or pink button-shaped florets like almonds. Each building is
square, with a portico of columns, placed on rising steps, a pair of
columns to each step. Vines wind around the columns, cross from one
line of columns to another and form above a tracery of green fronds
bearing, as it was then, red flowers, a sort of trumpet honeysuckle.

"The walls of the buildings are pierced on all sides with broad windows
or embrasures, filled, it seemed, with an opalescent glass. Avenues
opened in all directions, lined on both sides with these wonderful
houses, which are made of a peculiar stone, veined intermittently with
yellow, which has the property of absorbing and emitting light.

"It is indeed a phosphori as, if I recall it aright, the sulphides of
barium, strontium, and calcium were upon our earth. Later I shall see
the great quarries of this stone in the Martian mountains. Another
strange feature in these Martian houses was the hollow sphere of glass
upheld above each house. It is a sphere some six feet in diameter made
up of lenses. It encloses a space in the center of which is a ball of
the phosphorescent stone. During the day the rays of the sun are
concentrated upon this ball of stone, and at night the stored-up
sunlight is radiated into lambent phosphorescent light.

"It was the close of a Martian day that I felt the returning impact of
volition and left the chorus hall. I emerged, as I said before, upon the
broad platform with its colonnade of columns and arches and saw the
city as the night drew on. It is difficult to put in words, my son, the
wonderful effect.

"Each house built of this strange substance, which throughout the day
had been storing up the energies of light, now, as the fading day waned,
became a center of light itself. At first a glow covered the sides of
the houses, the colonnade and dome, while the glass prisms above them
sent out rays from their imprisoned balls of phosphori. The glow spread,
rising from the outskirts of the city in the lower grounds to the
summits of the hills where the sun's last rays lingered. It became
intensified. The green beds of trees were black squares and the houses,
pulsating fabrics of light between them. A slight variety of
architecture in places was accentuated by diverse and varying lines or
surface light.

"The whole finally blended and a sea of radiance was before me in which
the beautiful houses were descried, the illuminated groves, and like
enormous scintillations the glassy spheres--the Martians call them the
_Plenitudes_ above them. Many other developing beings were around me,
and voiceless, mute, impassioned, with an admiration which we had as yet
no adequate organs to express we gazed upon the throbbing metropolis,
ourselves luminous spectres in the vast eruption of glorious light
before, above, around us.

"As the night settled down the light grew more intense, more beautiful.
I could discern the opalescent glasses in the houses sending out their
parti-colored rays, patching the trees with quilts of changing colors,
and far away there came, still unsubdued by the night, the continuous
elation of music.

"All night, all day, the choruses kept on with intermissions, but the
singers change. This musical facility is the mental or emotional
characteristic of the Martian. There is more in music than you
earthlings know or dream of. It is a part of the immortal fiber of men,
and in Mars it _creates_ matter, for the slow assumption of material
parts, as I have said, is propagated and accomplished by music, and the
parts thus made are the most perfect expression of matter the divine
form of man or woman can know, I think. They are tuned to health, to
beauty, to inspiration, but all of this you shall know.

"So I went down the steps into the city. I was with a group of spirits
who noticed me, and whom I noticed, but as yet the listless, strange,
doomed expression was on our faces, and though memory was beginning to
light its fires within us, though the transmission of viewless particles
of matter into our fluent bodies of spirit had begun, though mind and
desire were awakened, not a word passed our shining lips, and we moved
on in silence.

"The City of Light is often called in the Martian language also the City
of Occupation, for here the forming spirits work. I have told you that
as _consolidation_, through Music and Light, goes on, the aptitudes or
tastes are awakened, and this first birth of desire in Mars carries the
spirits off from their ivory seats in the Chorus Halls to the City,
where like an animal ferreting its purpose by intuition, they seem
impelled whither their needs are best satisfied.

"I now know that the City of Light is generally divided,--not exactly,
but as association would naturally impel, into four quarters, the
quarter of art, the quarter of science, the quarter of invention, the
quarter of thought. This is simply that the artists, the scientific
minds, the designers, and the philosophers are somewhat by themselves.
The population of the City of Light is made up of a fair, white race of
Martians, and of the forming spirits. As the forming spirits attain
materialization through occupation, they may remain in the City or go
out into the other cities, and into the country to work and live.

"Besides the quarters I have mentioned, there is the business section
and the offices of the government.

"In the light of all I have learned since I came, I may at once explain
something about the actual life and social organization of this strange
world.

"The Martian world is one country. There are here no nationalities. The
center of the country is in the City of Scandor, quite removed from the
City of Light. Business is carried on as with you on the earth, but its
nature and its physical elements vary, as you will see. There is a
circulating medium, banks and business enterprises, but it is more
veiled, more hidden, less, far less, insistent than with you. A great
socialistic republic is represented in Mars, and the limits of
individual initiative are very narrow. Still they exist.

"One prime element of difference is in the nourishment and the area of
population. The Martian lives only on fruit, and he lives only a few
degrees on either side of the Equator. All the businesses that in your
earth arise from the preparation and sale of meat and all the various
confections, disappear there, and also all the mechanism of house
heating and lighting. Also there are no railroads, but innumerable
canals, which form a labyrinth of waterways, and are fed from the tides
of the great northern and southern seas.

"The business is largely agricultural, but in the cities the pursuit of
knowledge still continues. There is, however, on Mars a much lessened
intellectual activity than on the earth. It is a sphere of simplified
needs and primal feelings exalted by acutely developed love of Music.
Mars is the music planet. There are not on Mars newspapers, journals,
magazines, books. The tireless production of these things on the earth
has but one analogy in Mars, the publication of music scores, the
recitation of poetry and symposia, and the great illustrated journal,
Dia. But these things I will explain later.

"I wandered on that night through the city with other spirits. We went
through the city streets in the radiance of the _Plenitudes_ above the
houses. The night air was blowing through the trees, and the city was
filled with people. They were the Martians. We were scarcely noticed. In
the City of Light the new arrivals are not questioned until they begin
to "take shape," as they say here, and then they are closely examined,
and their origin, if it can be traced, is written down and kept in great
registers.

"The groups were moving in streams toward the higher ground, and as my
companions were gradually separated from me and were lost like wisps of
moving light here and there, I went on alone. I came up long, wonderful
avenues between walls of light, regularly punctuated by the dark squares
of trees, and the spherical radiations of the Plenitudes above the
houses.

"The people about me seemed all young, or scarcely more than, as we say,
in middle life. They speak less than the earth folk, and when they speak
they utter very simple sentences, and seem very sincere. I often stood
by little groups gathered at the corners of cross streets, and listened
to their musical intonations. The language is vocalic and monosyllabic.
It sometimes suggests a Mongolian tongue, but without the guttural
clicks and coughs. The Martians are all gifted in music. It fills their
lives.

"From point to point crowds were assembled about platforms where singing
was in progress, and every now and then a man or woman in the street
would sing loudly and passionately with such power and beauty that the
impressionable Martians would follow the refrain of the song and the
whole street for blocks and blocks would resound in waves of delightful
melody. There are no mechanical modes of propulsion in the streets of
the City of Light. _The Martians all walk_.

"I approached the top of the broad hill on which the City is built, and
came suddenly out into a square filled again in its park-like center
with trees. From amid these trees rose a massive building, which I
instantly recognized as an observatory; the many round domes, as on
earth, were unmistakable.

"I passed up the walks of the square to the building and entered it.

"It was illuminated by balls of phosphori in glass globes, and its cool,
broad halls and stairways were, in the soft light, very beautiful. But
their wonderfulness consisted in the insertion upon the walls of
illuminated plans and maps of the heavens. These miniature firmaments
were all afire, so that each opening, carefully graded in size to
represent stars of the first or second or third magnitude, was filled
with a beaming point of light, and I walked in these noble corridors
between reduced patterns of the universe of stars. I can hardly tell you
how astonished and entranced I was.

"I had for the first time since I reached the planet the impulse of
speech, and I raised my hands with that motion of snapping the fingers,
which you recall was characteristic of me on earth, and _spoke_. I
cried, 'Here is my home.'

"As my hands dropped to my sides I felt resistance. I looked down upon
myself and could behold the changing surfaces of my body. Under this
completing stroke of volition the work begun upon the Hill of the
Phosphori and the Chorus Hall in reducing the intangible spirit fluid to
corporeal expression was now hastening to an end. I do not stop here to
consider the reflections this suggests as to the nature of matter, those
abstruse speculations we indulged in so often over the pages of Muir and
Helmholz and Tait and Crookes.

"I had reached the ascending stairway, when my hand--for hand it now
seemed to be--was taken in a friendly pressure, and I turned and saw a
tall figure with a face of extreme nobility, somewhat scarred, I
thought, dressed in the usual Martian attire of a flowing tunic and
closely fitting body clothing. He said in English, 'You are from the
earth as I am.'

"My son, how can I, in this dull, mechanical method of conversation with
you, ignorant, indeed, whether the magnetic waves loaded with my
message, are traversing or not the millions of miles of space to your
ear, how can I make you realize the wonderful and blessed feelings of
amazement and happiness that the stranger's words brought me. Here I
was, a disembodied soul from Earth, which at that moment I only dimly
recalled, undergoing the strange process of re-establishment in flesh
and blood, and slowly appropriating those natural appetites which come
with flesh and blood, a waif of spiritual being in the great voids of
creation, impelled by some implanted power of affinity to this remote,
strange, phantasmal and unreal place, overwhelmed in a stupor of
confusion, like some awakening patient from the vertigo of a terrifying
dream!

"I looked upon my friend, and in the rapidly rising flood of emotions
that came with the acting members of my body, flushed and throbbing with
excitement, and with a wild joy besides, I flung myself upon his neck
and pressed him with arms that seemed once more those natural physical
ties that have held upon my breast those I best loved on earth.

"The stranger led me slowly up the stairway and past great celestial
spheres which filled the higher hallways, conducting me to a room at one
corner of the great structure. The room was a singular and unique
apartment. It consisted of a large central space, furnished with the
usual ivory chairs, and a broad, massive center table, also of ivory,
curiously inlaid with particles of the omnipresent _phosphori_, which
gave out a liquid light and imparted indescribable chasteness and beauty
to the carved ornaments upon them. The floor was dark, a leaden color,
lustrous, however, like black glass, and made up in mosaic. Around the
room were alcoves lit by lamps of the phosphori, and in each alcove a
globe of a blue metal upon which were painted sketches like charts or
maps. A chandelier of this blue metal was pendant from the ceiling, and
in its cup-like extremities, arranged in vertical tiers, were round
balls of the phosphori, glowing softly.

"Wide windows, unprotected by glass or sashes, just embrasures framed in
white stone which everywhere prevails in Mars, looked out upon the
marvellous City, which thus seemed a lake of glowing fires, over which,
rising and refluent waves of light constantly chased each other to its
dark borders, where the surrounding plain country met the City's edges.
But throughout the distance I could trace lines of light marking
highways or roads leading interminably away until quite extinguished at
the optical limits of my vision.

"The walls of this beautiful room rose to an arched ceiling which was
inlaid with this wonderful blue metal, seen in the globes, designed in
scrolls and waving ribbons, and just descending upon the walls
themselves in attenuated twigs and strings. The walls were bare and
shining.

"My friend led me to one of the great windows and placed me in a chair.
Drawing another beside me, placing his hand on mine, and leaning outward
toward the burning splendor below us, above which in the still, clear
heavens shone those stellar hosts you and I have so often watched with
wonder, he said:

"'Ten Martian years ago I came to this world as you have come. As a
spirit I entered the chambers on the Hill of the Phosphori. I sat in the
Chorus Hall. I entered the City and slowly changed, as you are changing,
into one of the Martian white people. I found my work, as you will, in
this Patenta, for by that name in Mars is called this home of astronomy
and physical philosophy. Here, amid telescopes and apparatus of
experiment and investigation, I have spent the years, mapping with many
others the skies, and above all beating the earth we left, as have many,
many, whom you will meet, with magnetic waves, hoping against hope, that
some response might be gained, some hint of that connection through
space which the physicists of this planet expect, ere long, may make all
the beings of the universe one great sidereal society.'

"He stopped and leaned away from me, perusing my face with interest.
Words came to my lips, memory again asserted its triumphant declaration
that I was the same being as had lived upon the earth, and with it the
sudden turbulence of hope that she, your mother, whom we so often
expected to regain, might, as I had, have reached this planet, too, and
to me, renewed in youth, might come the glory and the joy of knowing her
again.

"I turned to him and spoke: 'Kind friend, I am yet dazed and stricken
with the marvellousness of my being here. It seems but a short time, a
lapse of even a day, that I bade good-bye to my son on the death-bed in
my home on earth. I am too tormented with wonder to speak to you much. I
can tell all I know of myself in a little while. But now as I grow
stronger, tell me of this new world, and oh! give me, sir, food. I feel
the quickening fevers of appetite and desire.'

"The man arose and left the room. In a few moments he returned followed
by a boy and a young woman bearing a basket. They spread a yellow cloth
upon a small ivory table and set down two plates of the bright blue
metal; upon one they placed a pile of small round cakes and on the other
a number of red and yellow gourd shaped fruits. At a signal from my
companion I arose and sat at the table.

"He remained at the window and continued: 'While you break your long
fast, let me tell you what I know about this new world which will now be
your home for a long time. You will learn all, but I am not watching
to-night. In seeing you and hearing the familiar English speech I am
moved myself by currents of retrospection; my earth home comes back to
me. I will satisfy your curiosity, and, you in turn, must tell me what
has happened in the old home.'

"He paused; from the streets of the city rose a sacred song. It came
like a slowly increasing torrent of sound, soft and low, rising with
impetuous fervor until it seemed to engulf us in its melodic tide.
Individual tones were heard in it, but its solidity and mass were most
impressive. I shook and trembled beneath the impact of its vibrations;
in its surging glory of sound I became fully reincarnated. I awoke naked
and ashamed. The man saw my confusion. He hurried to a niche in the wall
and handed me the tunic of the Martians with its girdle of blue cord and
its cap and shoes of the blue metal exquisitely wrought and light. I put
them upon me and lifting the cakes and the mellow-soaked pears to my
lips, listened.

"'The Martians,' he continued, 'are both a natural and supernatural
race. The natural race are largely prehistoric, though many yet exist;
the supernatural race are made up of beings from other worlds and a
great majority come up from the earth. How reincarnation first began on
Mars is unknown, though the natural people, the Dendas, have traditions
about it, vague and contradictory. It must have been slow. The
supernatural people thus brought to Mars have created its civilization,
discovered the phosphori, and established Music, which is so much of
their life, and accelerated in the way you have learned the process of
materialization.

"'They built this City of Light from phosphorescent stone quarried from
the Mountains of Tiniti. Formerly the spirits came helter skelter to
Mars all over its surface and went wandering about, helped to
reincarnation by the various villagers or citizens. The great new
improvement in the last half century has been the creation of the
receiving station at the Hill of the Phosphori, the building of the
Chorus Halls, and the establishment of the City of Light. Light draws
the spirits, and though spirits reach other points of Mars, the
centralization of Light here, draws most of them to this side. The
Martians are not immortal. They vanish in time.

"'As reincarnated all spirit becomes young but nourishment has undergone
a change. The physiological process is singular. I need not dwell upon
it. Evaporation replaces defecation. Love enters the Martian world, but
it has lost much of the earthly passion. The physiological effects are
also different. There are no children here.

"'We live in the tropical regions mostly of Mars, and the polar and
north temperate zones are empty. The natural Martian races are found
more plentifully there. They are strong and small and work under the
supervision of the supernaturals. They are like the earthlings and eat
meat. Our food is bread and fruit. Our language does not lend itself to
composition; it only sings. Literature, as we knew it on earth, does not
exist here. The natural Martians have tales and stories and plays and
some books. These things no longer interest the supernaturals. Our life
is quite simple, almost expressionless, except for the power of our
music. The souls from different parts of the earth recognize each other
and converse in human language, but, unless practiced, it is forgotten
and our euphonies take its place. I have used my earth language with a
friend and still speak English well.

"'We have art here, but it is almost wholly sculpture and architecture
and design. Color, except in glass, does not greatly please the Martians
and there are few painters. They survive from other worlds, but cannot
secure pigments, and draw only in black and white for the most part.
They are cartoonists, as we would say, on the earth. But we grow fruits
and flowers, the former in varieties and richness unknown upon the
earth and the latter in delicate tints with blues and yellows, the only
primary strong tints the Martians admire.

"'Mechanical invention is discouraged, except as it assists astronomy.
Astronomy is the great profession. Cars, railroads and conveyances, as
you say on earth, do not exist. We walk or sail and float upon our
canals. Our industry is agriculture and building. Architecture is
studied and advanced beyond all you have ever known on the earth. Mars
is filled with beautiful cities. Its whole government consists in a
council at the City of Scandor, from which representatives issue to its
various departments. One is here in the City of Light. His motives are
always just. There are no parties, for there are no policies. Life is so
simple. Beauty and knowledge only rule us. Character, as you, as I, knew
it on the earth, does not exist. There are no temptations, and we live
as children of Light, in a sort of childhood of feeling, with great
gifts of mind. But even living is noble. There is indeed rivalry. Yes,
envy is with us. We worship God in great temples in services of song.
Sermons are never heard.

"'In this city the great designers live, also the men who work at the
deep problems of life and thought and matter; and the sculptors. It is
the next largest city to Scandor. Scandor is far away. I never saw it.
Glass work is done here and throughout Mars. Making the blue metal which
you see, quarrying stone and ore and coal for the smelters and glass
factories, the fabrication of dress material and fabrics for houses,
making our boats and canal ships, cutting down the forests in the
Martian highlands, cultivating fruits and flowers and the great wheat
fields are the chief industries, and there are lesser lines of work, as
the potteries and the instrument makers.

"'There are no industries in the City of Light. It is employed as I told
you. Its population is constantly changing, for spirits like you are
reincarnated here, and these new multitudes come and go. To-morrow, the
ships on the canals will carry many away. The spirits, as you did, when
they enter the city, wander as they will; they enter the houses, the
workshops, the laboratories, everything in obedience to their
instinctive choice. The people of the City of Light are therefore
largely engaged in caring for them as they fall into bodily forms,
clothing, feeding, housing them.

"'Each householder and all citizens report to the Registeries what
spirits have come to them, and whence they came, and the great diversion
and entertainment of our people is to listen to the stories of other
worlds, which these new arrivals bring. Memory does not survive long
and they soon forget their past history. It is best so, except in
fugitive and dreamlike fragments, unless they are great.

"'According to their desire or aptitudes, the spirits are sent away when
Martianized to the different parts of Mars, and many stay here with us
in the workshops and laboratories.

"'Besides Music, the people of Mars delight in recitation, and in the
City of Scandor I hear there are great theatres or public places where
recitations and concerts and even noble operas are held. Many of these
are brought to us by great spirits from other worlds, their own works in
poetry or prose or music. In Scandor there are great orchestras with all
the instruments we had upon the earth, and the paper, Dia, is published
there, which is read everywhere in Mars. There are few books, no schools
in the common sense. The thinkers have assemblies and there are
announcements and explanations of discoveries.

"'Our life in many ways is like the life on earth, but less active, more
contemplative, and sin and money-making are almost absent. The wicked of
all sorts have one fate; they are fired off the planet. We can overcome
the attraction of gravitation by our Toto powder. These executions are
strange to earth eyes. You will see them. The Toto powder is also a
motive power.

"'We have a medium of exchange, silver, and there are rich and poor with
us, but no poverty. There can be no armies nor navies. The government
carries on extensive works of improvement and keeps the canals and pays
its laborers. The government supports this City of Light and the people
here are paid for the number of spirits they care for and assist.
Happiness reigns on Mars, but it is a pensive happiness. We never,
because of the singular physiology of our bodies, can know the
boisterous and passionate joys of earth, neither do we know many of the
ills of the flesh. We have sickness and there are accidents. We have a
death, but it is like evaporation. We decline again after a long life to
the spirit stage and vanish. So there are partings here, and the old
sadness of the end as on earth; but the gaiety of children, the ambition
of youth, the devotion of parents is unknown.'

"His voice sank, he bent his head upon his hands, and a sort of tremor
ran through him, and when again he looked upon me his eyes shone with
moisture, and the hot tears ran down his cheeks. Memory might be
fleeting on Mars, but the loved ones of the earth were yet remembered,
and the abysses of the eternal void of space could never be crossed by
the wave of speech or recognition. This was the pathos of the Martian
life.

"I was shown by him, as the slowly arising sweetness of fatigue showed
itself within me, to a bedchamber of charming simplicity. The graceful
bedstead of the blue metal was covered with snowy covers, curtains hung
at the windows also white. The furniture of the room was of a sort of
pale, red wood obtained in the great Martian forests where the trees
known as the Ribi grow, whose leaves and flowers have a pink tint, which
in seasons of fruitage is more intense, and present enormous areas of
extraordinary beauty.

"This room was at the top of one of the many branching wings of this
composite astronomical laboratory. To reach my room we walked through
hallways all illuminated with the phosphorescent glowing balls while the
radiant patterns in the walls shone also with a pale beauty. These balls
possess a wonderful lighting power and besides their self-illumination
can be stimulated into the most intense brilliancy by electric currents
with which the Martians are profoundly acquainted. The electrical
displays on Mars surpass description and the waves of magnetism I am now
utilizing to send to you these messages are ten miles in amplitude.

"I fell asleep, quickly lulled into an almost death-like slumber by the
cadence of innumerable fountains. Near the _Patenta_ is the Garden of
Fountains, which I shall tell you about in another message. It was the
plash and rivulous current of these water courts that brought on sleep.

"I awoke when the Martian dawn was coming on. Slumber had given me the
last reassurance of identity of body, and I awoke with a delightful
sense of health and youth. I stood at the wide window near my bed and
gazed out upon the yet luminous City of Occupation. The picture was of
surprising strangeness and beauty. Far off, until melting into the
encroaching edges of an outer blackness, the City extended its folds and
surfaces of light. The streets were empty, the music of the Chorus Halls
stilled. Here and there, a spirit was moving slowly through the streets,
a half-made Martian; a breeze soft and salubrious stirred the thickly
leaved trees and the firmament shone with the larger stars, beginning to
pale before the rising sun. As the sun rose higher, the effulgence of
the City died away, the light of the same great orb which brings the
dawn to you, covered with its rays the white and glorious City, the
music seemed again revived, and from the doorways of the houses I could
see forms issuing, while far off the Hill of the Phosphori raised its
glass domes in the air, where the homogeneous tide of spirit was
undergoing differentiation, as we might say, into separate cognizable,
discreet beings. An unspeakable delight filled me. I felt the power of
mind and with it the radiant energy of manhood."

No more words came. The message ended. Not a motion or sound succeeded
this wonderful trans-abysmal dispatch.

Well, here, at last, was the long expected, impossible, amazing reality.
When I had deciphered the last word, when I had it borne fully in upon
me, the significance of it all, I turned to the one natural effort to
answer this Martian communication. I sent out from the battery of our
transmitter the longest wave of magnetic oscillation I could emit. The
message was simple: "Have received all. Await more. Transmission
perfect."



CHAPTER IV.


Again for weeks I watched the station. My assistants relieved me, and
amongst them was now included Miss Dodan. It was only a few days after
the Dodans found me at the register, absorbed in receiving my father's
message, that Miss Dodan called. She ran toward me at the open door of
the station, her face fixed in an anxious expression of half-alarmed
expectation.

"Did you really, Mr. Dodd, hear anything? Is it true that something came
from your father. Oh, tell me, can it be possible?"

I took her clasped hands in my own, looked into her face and told her
everything. She was the first visitor to the station since the day of
the marvellous experience. My assistants had promised secrecy, which I
reinforced effectively by doubling their salaries. I felt I ought not to
have revealed this thing to Miss Dodan, and when in the first impulse of
confidence everything so unwittingly passed my lips, I took her arm in
mine and walked out upon the broad plateau toward the opposite end
where our smaller experimenting station had been built.

"Miss Dodan," I said, "I am going to ask a great favor of you."

"Yes," she answered, half musingly, for the tremendous fact I had
related had half robbed her of her consciousness of passing things.

"I want you solemnly for the present to promise me not to reveal the
strange thing I have told you. It would hardly be believed. No, I am
sure it would be laughed at, and I would become in the eyes of everyone
a foolish, impossible dreamer. This would give me a deep sorrow. My
father's name would be dragged into the mire of this common ridicule.
You revered my father."

I bent more closely over her, I felt her breath upon my cheeks, her eyes
seemed fixed in mine, and then I did what I had never done before, I
kissed the lips of a woman and it was also the lips of the woman I
loved. There was no resistance, no withdrawal; a tremor--was it
pleasure?--seemed to disturb her for a moment and again I kissed her.
This time with a quiet effort toward release she separated herself from
me, and while I still held her hands, our walk stopped and we faced each
other, just where looking westward the spires, and flocking houses of
Christ Church came fully in view.

"Miss Dodan," I began, fearful to use her first name through a
reluctance that was itself the expression of the deep love I bore her,
"Miss Dodan, I may for some time yet be engaged in this now imperative
work. I cannot, you know, now leave it. It is the most marvellous thing
the world has ever known. It means so much to me, indeed to us all.
These messages are erratic--fitful. I have now waited for weeks for a
renewal of these strange communications and there is nothing. But in the
midst of this, a distracting love for you seems to unnerve and torment
me. I beg you to wait until those days may come when I can show you all
the devotion I yearn now to give you, but must not, for every moment
that voice may reach me from beyond the grave, and I would be recreant
to the most sacred obligations, and deep responsibilities that seem now
to shape themselves before me, to our common humanity, if I forfeited an
instant of inattention. I beg you to remember all this and wait, wait,
until the depthless power of my love for you can be made clear."

I would have sunk upon my knees in the abasement and passion of my
desire for her, had she not suddenly drawn me to her, flung her arms
about my neck and placed her head where--well, I am no connoisseur in
love scenes--but that day Agnes Dodan, without a syllable of sound gave
her heart to me.

We passed back in silence, and when she left me the fluttering
handkerchief that had so often waved back its salutation on the winding
distant road was now in my hands, and its signals sent by me came to her
from the plateau. It was the simple pledge of our mutual love, a pledge
that even now as I prepare these last pages of a manuscript that is a
testament to the world, soothes my pain and renews the happiness of that
day, forever and forever lost.

The next message came a few days after my interview with Miss Dodan. It
was a rainy day in November--the spring time of that Southern land. The
register was heard by one of my assistants, Jack Jobson, a man who had
unremittingly taken my place when I was absent, and who seemed more than
anyone else dazed and wonder stricken over the experience we had. He
came running to me, a wild terror in his face, exclaiming, "It's going
again, sir. Hurry! It's running slow." I sprang upstairs, and before I
had reached it heard the telltale clicks. It was not altogether a
sheltered position, and as I reached the table I felt the bleak and
chilly air penetrating the crevices of the window, a raw ocean breeze
that in a few instants crept through my bones. But I was again
unconscious of everything; that marvellous ticking obliterated all
thought of earth, its affairs, accidents, dangers, loves, hopes,
despairs, all forgotten, swallowed up in the immeasurable revelation I
was about to receive.

The second message began at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon of November
25, 1893, two months exactly after the first. Its very opening sentences
I failed to get. It lasted late into the morning of the next day. The
strain of taking it was somehow singularly intense upon me. I was taken
from the table the next morning unconscious. I had fainted at the close.
It began, as I received it, a few opening sentences having been lost:

"...was sent to you I was in the City of Light, and now I am in the City
of Scandor.

"The morning of that wonderful night in which I became a flesh and blood
Martian, strong and young and beautiful, dawned fair. My friend came for
me, and we went together to the great 'Commons' of the Patenta, a superb
hall where all the professors, investigators, and students in the great
Academy sit at many tables. This huge dining room is at the center of
the group of buildings which make up the Patenta. Corridors lead into it
from the four sections of the Patenta, and as we entered, from the
different sides there were many men and some women taking the ivory
chairs at the side's of the long tables of marble, on which rose in
beautiful confusion of color crowded vases of fruits.

"Surrounding the room are niches instead of windows, and in each niche
one noble symbolic figure in white or colored marble.

"Light fell in a torrent of glory through the faintly opalescent glass
compartments of the ceiling, from which, at the intersection of the
broad and long rafters of blue metal, hung chandeliers formed in
branching arms with cup-like extremities, and holding spheres of the
omnipresent _phosphori_.

"I stood a moment with my companion at the entrance of the great dining
room, and watched the groups and individual arrivals, as they assorted
themselves into companies or engaged in some short interchange of
greetings. It was a very beautiful scene. The faces of all were
wonderfully clear and strong, and in the commingling of forms, the bold,
intellectual features of some, the more rare, delicate outlines of other
faces, the flowing of the graceful tunics and robes, the pleasant,
musical confusion of voices, with the quick, glancing movements of
attendants, the heaped up chalices and baskets, vases and broad
spreading plates of fruit, the many carelessly arranged and profuse
bunches of radiant flowers in tall receptacles of glass or alabaster, in
all this, with the strong, simple architectural features of the Hall,
the eye and mind and senses seemed equally stimulated and satisfied.

"Amongst the glorious throng my companion pointed out to me many of
those great men and women whom I seemed to know by their writings and
portraits when on the earth. At one table sat Mary Somerville,
Leverrier, Adams, La Place, Gauss and Helmholz; at another Dalton,
Schonbeim, Davy, Tyndall, Berthollet, Berzelius, Priestly, Lavoisier,
and Liebig; here were groups of physicists--Faraday, Volta, Galvani,
Ampere, Fahrenheit, Henry, Draper, Biot, Chladini, Black, Melloni,
Senarmont, Regnault, Daniells, Fresnel, Fizeau, Mariotte, Deville,
Troost, Gay-Lussac, Foucault, Wheatstone, and many, many more. At a
small table immediately beneath a dome of glass, through whose softly
opaline texture an aureole of light seemed to embrace them, sat
Franklin, Galileo and Newton. It would be impossible to describe to you
my amazement at the astonishing picture.

"It almost seemed as if the air vibrated with the excitement of its
impact and use, as these giant minds conversed together. Endowed again
with youth, scintillating, brilliant, the flush of a semi-immortality
impressed upon their faces, which again bespoke the eminence of their
intellects, in picturesque and effective, almost pictorial groupings,
this wondrous gathering filled me with new rapture. My comrade led me to
other branching halls similarly occupied. Chemists were here
conspicuous--Chevreuil, Talbot, Wedgewood, Daguerre, Cooke, Fresenius,
Schmidt, Avogadro, Liebig, Davy, Berthollet, and many, many more.

"It formed an equally striking scene. I turned to my companion and asked
him how it was that the mathematicians, chemists, physicists,
astronomers, were so crowded together. He said, 'The Patenta covers,
with all its buildings, a space about one mile square, and here in
laboratories and in the great observatories these men have flocked
because of a sympathy in their tastes and talents. Although astronomy is
the great profession, and, as I will show you, the marvels of the
Universe are being more and more fully known, yet the study of the
elements and the laws of matter is popular and also followed
unremittingly. It is true that we know these people are from your earth;
they have reported all that to the Registeries, to whom I will soon
conduct you; they yet retain strong memories of the earth, though it is
confined more largely to knowledge than to experience. In some, the
Martian life and habit has almost obliterated their earthly notions and
designs. It is singular that of the scientific workers of the earth the
astronomers, physicists, and chemists alone reach Mars. The biologists,
zoologists, botanists, geographers, and geologists rarely are booked at
the Registeries as coming from the Earth. Their lives may be prolonged
elsewhere, they seldom reach us.

"'There are some exceptions. The plants of Mars are numerous, its rocks
and animal life curious, and they are well understood. A few doctors
from the earth are here, but medicine and surgery are not so much
needed, yet in the study of life our philosophers have made great
strides. Your thinkers and poets, artists, composers, dramatists,
musicians, come here, but of all the wonderful students of Nature the
earth has produced, as far as I know or have heard, Lamarck and Agassiz,
Owen, and Cuvier alone have been reincarnated on our globe. And the
warriors and generals of the earth are unknown here.'

"We had reached a table unnoticed, unheard. There was a constant rush of
words about us. The melodic charm of the Martian tongue, like the soft
vocalization of Italian pleased me. If the Martians are without books
or papers, they possess all the resources of conversation. Animation,
pleasure, salutation, cheerfulness and joy was everywhere, the perfume
of flowers filled the air, the shafts of sunlight broken into the most
enticing iridescence filled the great noble rooms with lovely colors,
and the clear white tables, beautifully spread with fruit, seemed to
chasten appetite into something ethereal and rare.

"As we stood an instant at our places the people arose, and from some
distant and concealed place, so situated I afterwards learned, as to
gain access to all the dining halls, there came a swell and burst of
jubilant music. It was so fresh and free and bewitching in its glee and
ringing cadences, so consonant and accordant with the glad and
illustrious feeling of the place and time, that my heart seemed to leap
within me; and then it softened, and changing into notes of melodic
gravity, ended in a splendid outcry of soaring, piercing notes--the
salute to the morning. Long after the voices had finished, the rolling
notes of an organ continued the loud outburst.

"As we sat down, the conversation was again resumed and I noted then the
singular clearness and suavity of this Martian language. I must hasten
my narrative. I have so much to tell you. We ate the great cereal of
Mars--the Rint--a delicious food, in which, as it seemed to me, the
substance of a sort of rice was mingled with a creamy exudation in all
of which was enclosed the flavor of the orange and the peach. This, with
a fruit, a kind of milk, and many wines, forms the nourishment of the
Martians. The fruits are most various, and every hidden or patent fancy
of the gourmet seems elicited or satisfied in them. I cannot now
describe them even if I recalled them. One commended itself to my taste
strongly, a sort of nodular banana, holding a fragrant nucleus, like a
large strawberry immersed in a savory juice, and coated with a rind
stripped from it by the hand. It is of most stimulating qualities. It is
called Ana.

"Few implements are in use; the Rint is taken in short spoons and the
fruit is usually manipulated with the fingers. The milk and wine are
drunk from the most ingeniously devised and ornamented glasses, napkins
of the Tofa weed are used, a pale green cloth, and large bowls of
acidified water in which floats a morsel of soap are served at the end
of meals. Great variety prevails, and individual fancy, taste, desire,
or invention sway as with you on earth.

"The breakfast over, the companies arose and moved out in clusters and
trains to the avocations of the day. Many of these workers in the
Patenta have houses throughout the city, while others living singly
congregate in the numerous apartments, and enjoy these commons. The
extraordinary assemblage I saw here is repeated in the other great
communal halls where the artists, philosophers and inventors congregate.
But the Halls are of quite different construction in each quarter of the
City.

"Accompanying or associated with these Halls are the Courts of
Announcement and Recreation. Here lectures, conferences, entertainments,
are given, and the people of the City flock in droves not infrequently
accompanied by numbers of the new Spirits who here are often enabled to
gain their final solidification; '_Gell_' as the Martians say.

"My companion led me out of the Hall. Men and women were moving slowly
in various directions and as we made our way over the campus and between
the many noble buildings I saw many of the lambent spirits half emergent
into fleshly shapes accompanied by the watchers, who are in great
numbers in the City, carrying over their arms the white and blue dresses
with which to clothe them as the spirits fall into solid forms.

"Amongst these buildings I easily noted the marvellous observatories
where objectives twenty feet in diameter are used with which the
astronomers actually discern the life of our earth. The reports they
make from week to week of their inspection of the Solar system, and of
the commotions, changes, births and demolition of Stars, are the
sensations of Mars. These Reports are read aloud in the Halls of
Announcement and Recreation. But astounding beyond belief, they
photograph the surfaces of these distant bodies, and report in moving
pictures the disturbances of the cosmic universe. No wonder that the
whole Mind, as it were, of Mars is concentrated on the fabulous results
of their cosmic studies.

"We descended from Patenta Hill in an avenue that led between the white
columned houses with their spheres of Phosphori and their umbrageous
squares around them. It was a season of flowers, though I understood
that by the use of fertilizing injections the number of flowers in a
shrub and even in an herb can be here greatly multiplied. The windows of
the houses were open and their sills crowded with blossoms. The use of
the red blossoming vine was strangely extravagant. In many cases it had
thrown its branches over an entire house, clambering over the roof and
encircling the phosphoric cage, so that the white house was dissected by
its twigs and tendrils, while the red honeysuckle flowers depended in
clusters from the walls, the roof gutters, and the light house globes
above them.

"The Court of the Registeries was a long low structure made of the
prevalent white stone with a roof of what seemed to be red copper. It
was built upon one of the canals which here enter the city and formed
one side of a long pier or dock to which and from which interesting
little boats were constantly approaching and as constantly departing.

"A hum of business and everyday work surrounded the place, and it seemed
refreshing to note the stir and bustle of affairs. Streams of people
were entering the Court as we arrived. They were inhabitants and
watchers bringing the new incarnations to the Registeries to have their
origin recorded if they could recall it. Indeed many spirits fail
utterly to remember their former condition, and happen, as we might say,
upon Mars, unexplained and inexplicable. They even are without speech
and learn the Martian language as a child learns to talk.

"We pushed in with the jostling crowd, and even as I entered I could
hear the murmurous chant of the Chorus Halls, borne hither-ward on the
morning wind. It now seemed a long time, although but one day apparently
had elapsed since I sat, a trail of luminous ether, undergoing the
strange process of materialization.

"How incredible it all was, how incomprehensible. I pinched myself until
I could have cried out with pain, and at that very instant a voice
saluted me, calling me by name and a rushing figure encountered me. I
stood transfixed. Before me was Chapman, the mechanic, workman, and
photographer for Mr. Rutherford, in New York in the seventies, a man
whom I knew well, from whom I had learned much, and whose skill helped
so largely in the production of Rutherford's negatives of the Moon. My
repulsion was over in an instant. I clasped him heartily. It seemed so
good, so human, to embrace something in this strange world. An equal
resistance met my own. We were indeed substance.

"'Mr. Dodd,' exclaimed my old acquaintance, 'are you here? This is
wonderful. Have you just become one of us? What luck! what a great
providence for me! I am in the observatory. Must sail to-morrow to
Scandor to report a sudden confusion in Perseus. They call it here
_Pike_. You shall go with me. I have a long leave of absence I will show
you many marvels. And you can tell me everything about Tony. He was a
baby when I knew you.' Turning to my smiling companion, he spoke in
Martian, of which to give you some semblance I cipher these words: 'Aru
meta voluca volu li tonti tan dondore mal per vuele vonta bidi ami.'

"I returned Chapman's hearty salutation. I yet retained the human speech
of earth and I was struck with the miraculous incident that in the
planet Mars, in a populous city, I was addressing a friend in the
English tongue.

"But the joy of it was inexpressible. Oh, the sweetness of old
acquaintanceship in strange, and as here, impossible surroundings! I
gazed on him with unspeakable curiosity. I talked to him just to hear my
own voice and his in response, to realize if words were still words with
the old meaning, if the intangible mutation I had undergone was a
reality, if I was indeed alive, if my lungs and throat, the
configuration of my mouth, the vocalic impact of the air, was a fact, a
sound, a meaning, or whether it all was some phantasmagoria, beautiful
and fair indeed, to be dispelled with a shock of annihilation.

"No! we were breathing, sensate things, were human kin and kind. The
sudden vertigo sent me throbbing, like a stricken animal, against the
high pillars of the room we had entered, and a reflex tide of emotion
swept over me in a storm that shook me with convulsive sobs.

"My companion handed me a black wafer. I took it, it dissolved, a
fierce acridity seemed formed in my mouth, and in an instant I felt
strong and bold.

"The Registeries were offices in the alcove-like openings in the sides
of this very long building. In the same building were the Courts, which
are few, and here the rooms for the reception and storage of supplies
for the City. The Hall of Registeries is prolonged into a series of huge
buildings extending along the walls of the Canal.

"I was led by my unknown friend and Chapman to one of these recesses on
which I recognized a globe of our earth with its continents in relief.
Here upon simple tables were spread great bound books made up of thick
creamy leaves of white paper. These were the Registers. The original
home, planet, world, or star, from which each emigrant spirit had
departed was, as far as possible, determined, and appropriately
recorded. The details of their lives were inquired into, the condition
and history of the sphere they had left examined, and thus by the
revision and comparison of these narratives the history of the various
worlds was in a fair way known, almost as accurately as their present
inhabitants knew them.

"The alcoves of the Registeries were really ample rooms. Cases holding
voluminous records were ranged upon their walls; maps, charts, even
paintings and drawings, as made by the arriving spirits hung upon the
walls, and in broad albums were gathered the portraits, in small size,
of the incarnated persons. The Registeries were young men who, from long
intercourse with the affairs and occupants of each of the different
extra-Martian bodies, whence spirits came, had become familiar with
their languages and circumstances and avocations.

"The keeping, indexing, compiling, illustration, of these extraordinary
records is a difficult and inexhaustible task.

"The results are often reproduced to the Martians in lectures,
bulletins, or in sections of the great newspaper Dia.

"The young men approached us as we entered the room, and after saluting
my guide and also Chapman with the Martian cry, Tintotita, led me to a
chair, and giving me one of the black wafers, whose acidity had a short
time before so vigorously renewed my consciousness, began their inquiry.

"The photograph of each visitor is taken, and a process quite like our
collodion or wet process is used. The portraits are more permanent than
with the perishable dry plates. It is a curious thing to learn that for
100 years these records and pictures have been taken, and that there
are on Mars hosts of unidentified spirits, who entered its wondrous
precincts before that time.

"The duration of life in Mars is very various. There seems here an
undiscovered law, and a group of observers in Mars are to-day trying to
penetrate this mystery. It is asserted that there is evidence that
Egyptians of the ante-Christian epoch are to-day living in Mars, but
their identification is now almost impossible. On the other hand, it is
a fact ascertained and recorded that in one hundred years many Martians
die, while others scarcely survive the ordinary limit of our human life
on earth. This gives a great interest to Martian society. Here for ages
have possibly flown disembodied spirits from our earth; in their
reincarnation they have assumed the features and faculties of youth;
they have also, under changed conditions of life, and moderated
functions and activity in living, been physically, perhaps mentally,
modified. Their own memory of their past on Earth, however vivid, and
then in exceptional beings, has slowly disappeared or left only vague
cloud-like waverings and congeries of reminiscences.

"So that great human souls that have entered Mars in the early centuries
of our earth's historic periods may be living here almost unrecognized.
They have drifted into occupations suitable to their genius in some of
the many great cities, and no vestige of their past remains. The system
of the Registeries is scarcely a century old, and while now from the
marvellous industry and persistence of the investigators, the great ones
of the neighboring worlds, and even the most obscure are in some
cognizable way identified, yet from the long ages before that there is
almost no authentic registration.

"This is more to be regretted as the law of life on the planet might
then be better formulated. Essentially it seems necessary for existence
here to be in unison with the conditions; contentment means longevity.
Of course, the remarkable men and women I saw at the Patenta were all
well known. They had made themselves known, and not only were their
earthly names and lives put down on the pages of the Registers, but all
their knowledge had been as inquisitively and scrupulously impressed.
Nor is this all. From many worlds and earths there is flowing constantly
to this planet new, strange, wonderful beings. Here is a cosmos of
races, tastes, nationalities, destinies, civilizations, and instincts,
from whose amalgamated and fused vortices of tendency this marvellous
life has been formed.

"However completely the mere memory of detail vanishes, the traits of
nature remain, and these mingling beings present a kaleidoscope of
contrasted or blending talents. But union of beings comes in here as in
our States to combine all together and create this unique expression of
social beauty, tenderness, scientific power, progress and spiritual
exaltation. Marriage is here as with us, and love holds its deathless
sway among the white and noble Martians as on earth, while the affection
of friendship seems to weave every atom of society to every other atom
in a social texture over which only moves the refining powers of thought
and aspiration.

"Mars does indeed seem a sort of Paradise, for it is quite certain that
the best, the truest, the deeper and emphatic souls come here; and while
a sort of sin or social incompatibility is found here, and there are
crimes, and while death and sickness and accidents occur here, as I have
told you, yet these things have a moral or mental, rather than physical
expression. At least, in a great measure, and they are rare. No!
accidents of matter pertain to Mars; its materiality is complete. As I
send this to you I feel my warmth, the heat of my body, the expiration
of my breath, the movements of my eyes, the beating of my heart, all,
all, these bodily phenomena seem unchanged--their physiology is changed,
their corporate reality seems the same, their corporeal consequences
are different. But I cannot explain clearly this to you. Do I know it
clearly myself?

"I was questioned by the Registeries, both of whom had come from the
earth, though in them, as in all the less highly endowed, memory was
fading. Because of this, Registeries quickly succeed each other, since
the later arrivals from the other worlds are better adapted to elicit
the information needed from the new spirits. And this applies to other
worlds, to Mercury and Venus, etc., whose Registeries are, so far as
possible, appointed from previous occupants of those spheres.

"The larger, far larger percentage of spirits come from the three
planets, Mercury, Venus and the Earth; but there are singular
inexplicable arrivals from distant stars, and of these the records are
in many instances of extraordinary wonderfulness. I must not pause to
recount this. I know it very imperfectly.

"My examiners had little to do. My memory seemed of great power, and I
told them the story of our experiments, discoveries and our compact to
communicate with each other. This portion of my story was listened to
with admiration. Chapman, my guide, and the two Registeries leaped to
their feet, exclaimed with delight and embraced each other in ecstacy.
'At last! At last!' cried out all of them, while hastily calling
officers of the building to them they rapidly explained my singular
announcement. It seemed to run like fire through the throngs. A great
crowd was soon pressing in upon us on every side, while the Martian
ejaculation '_Hi mitla_' rang in all directions. I was astounded. What
was this strange excitement, and why had my simple tale awakened this
fierce commotion?

"My guide noting my dismay and alarm, laughingly explained the reason of
the confusion. 'For years and years,' he said, 'it has been hoped by the
Martians to send some message to the Earth. We understand wireless
telegraphy, we can bridge almost infinite distances with the monstrous
waves of magnetic disturbances, it is possible for us to generate. We
have bombarded the earth with magnetic waves, but no response, no single
indication has been returned to us that our messages were received. Our
knowledge of the earth language is complete, even our knowledge of the
telegraphic codes is partially so. But we have hopelessly repeated, are
even now repeating these efforts.

"'You, my friend, are the first man from Earth who tells us that
wireless telegraphy is understood upon Earth, that receivers have been
invented; but above all it amazes and transports us to know that you
have perfected means, before leaving the Earth, to have such messages as
you may deliver from Mars properly received. There is, though,' he
exclaimed, as he turned to the eager, shining faces about me, 'still a
grave doubt whether our good friend can assure us of the ability of the
_Earthlings_ to send us back any communication. They may be unable to
force through this enormous distance waves of sufficient magnitude to
reach us.'

"There was a loud murmur of disappointment, mingled with exclamations of
dissent and reproach. Once more I was plied with questions, and then, my
son, there came to me, singularly clouded in forgetfulness until that
instant, the memory of that fruitless message which we received about a
year before my death on Earth.

"I arose, and amid a hush of expectation excited by this motion,
accompanied as it were with a gesture inviting silence, spoke aloud in
English:

"'My friends, I recall a night in August, 1890, in the Earth's
chronology, when my son and myself, then hoping against hope that the
carefully adjusted receiver we had, would ever be called upon to herald
a message from another world, were suddenly surprised to see and hear
the register of our instrument move and sound. It was indeed animated
by some extra terrestrial power. Could that power have come from your
Mars; were we the first to receive one of your messages that you have so
long been raining on the Earth?'

"I looked around in enthusiasm, and with a conscious sense of
companionship, pride and affection. I do not think I was altogether
understood, except by a few, but the contagion of my own pleasure seized
the multitude, and a great melodious shout arose, while cries of '_Hi
mitla_' echoed in the Hall, and then, carried away with an emotional
impulse, these excited Martians broke into a song, a swinging chant,
that brought to the doors of the room new accessions of spectators whose
instantaneous sympathy was expressed by the added volume of sound they
contributed, until beneath the vibrant power of the great chorus the
building seemed itself to tremble.

"And then a curious and astounding thing happened. My old acquaintance,
Chapman, leaped up in the dense clusters, and springing on a table
shouted, 'To the Patenta.' The words seemed understood by almost all. I
was seized by powerful arms, swung upon the shoulders of two splendid,
vigorous youths. While by one impulse the throng surged through the
doors in a sort of triumphal progress, I found myself moving in the
midst of the excited populace up a broad avenue to the central hill of
the city again, which was crowned by the many towers, halls, domes and
aggregated arms and facades of the wonderful Patenta, the great communal
home of Experiment and Observation.

"The clamor of our approach brought to the scene the dwellers in the
houses and the wanderers in the streets. And amongst the great density
of forms and faces I saw the phosphorescent figures of many forming
spirits swept on in this friendly anarchy of delight and anticipation.

"My son, as I send these words out into the ether-filled realms of space
across the millions of miles that intervene between that speck of light
on which even now I know you lament my departure, and this new home of
mine, which to you also is but a speck of light, I feel in a desperation
of doubt that you will never hear them.

"How thrilled and awe-struck I became as I gazed around me, and looking
over the surging mob beheld their multitudinous lineaments, the faces of
the races of our earth, its many nations, the faces of men or women who
had lived in Venus, in Mercury, in the fixed stars, perhaps, as we call
those globes from whose lambent surface light reached the earth after
the expiration of a century of years. What a beautiful exhilaration of
feeling it imparted, these flushed and shining faces, the liquid eyes of
the south now charged with the fires of transporting expectation, the
steady gaze of blue-eyed northerners firm and rapt and steadfast; the
power of huge, colossal frames of muscle, the sinuous activity of spare
and slender forms all attired in that consummate garb of blue and white,
their caps of metal reflecting the light in cerulean lustres.

"On, upward, we moved, impelled by an impulse quite indefinable but
sufficient to condense about us by its contagion the Martian populace,
quick, responsive, inquisitive, intelligent and excitable as children.
We were approaching the Patenta by an ever widening avenue, our rustling
approach announced by a chant of vociferous and yet melodious notes.

"The avenue of Approach is known as the _Imprintum_. On either side rose
lines of marble columns, their lofty capitals crowned with statues,
their bases clustering with marble groups, while breaking now and then
the white monotony, spiral and intertwining pillars of colored glass
sprang into the air, like titanic tropical vines holding in extended
fingers the balls of phosphori.

"The pavement we trod was made of blocks of the phosphori, and at night
this magnificent, indescribable and transcendent street becomes a path
of flame, showering upon the files of silent marble statues above it the
splendor of this spectral effulgence.

"As we came near the buildings of the Patenta our outcry and the
sonorous pulsations of the singing brought to its windows and doorways
the many workers in the laboratories, lecture halls, and offices. We
were regarded with wonder. But there seems present amongst these people
a telepathic power, not perhaps what we call that in the Earth, but an
intuitive construction of meaning upon the passing of a word or a hint.
Forerunners furthermore had given some account of the strange new spirit
from the Earth, who had prearranged with people on the Earth itself, to
return to them, if possible, messages of his experiences after a human
death. It had been the dream of the Martians, the sensation of their
daily lives, the hope of returning to their former dwelling places, some
token, word, salutation, indeed to somehow begin that almost apocryphal
conception of binding the Universe into a conversational unit.

"No marvel that they were now excited, transported; no wonder that I,
the accidental being, who falling in their world, as it were, from
outside, should be the agency to lead to the eventual conquest of these
great designs.

"On we swept like a tide that advances upon a coast, encompasses each
salient rock, island and projection, and evading it by embracing it,
rises still further into the bays and harbors, and brings the full tide
at last to its most remote limits. So columns and stairways, halls, and
wings, and arms, of buildings successively were surged round, and the
vast complex pushed its way to the great Hall of Attention.

"This enormous structure was built somewhat to one side of the great
Observatories. It was rectangular, elevated and attained to by stairs on
every side. It resembles a huge Grecian temple, but the interior
treatment was quite contrasted. Externally it was made of the white
phosphorescent marble with colonnades of columns of the blue metal
supporting its projecting roofs. I was carried as by a cataract of
waters up its stairways. Already its bronze gates were swung wide open,
and through them the Martian army passed with impetuous stride. Learned
men, the leaders and great physicists, many of those I had seen in the
morning had reached the Hall. These were constantly augmented by new
arrivals from the more distant Schools of Philosophy, Design and Art,
while streaming in at every door came the joyous multitude, and the
great vault of the Hall of Attention resounded with the rolling chorus.

"It was a moving, an impossible spectacle. The balconies swept upward
to a wall of polished granite. They were supported by columns of mosaic
marble; the floor of roughened glass was concealed with benches of a
gray stone, whose backs were carved in a tracery of branches, over which
were thrown pale yellow rugs or shawls; the broad ceiling was divided
into deep, rectangular recesses _plafonded_ with opalescent glass, and
these recesses were made by the intersection of huge girders of the blue
metal, while provisions were made throughout for electric lighting by
tall glass cylinders, which glow like pillars of lambent flame, and
stood upright, affixed to the walls at regular intervals, or concealed
in cavities along the ceiling, or grouped like the fasces of the Roman
lictors, at the railings of the balconies.

"A wide platform occupied the center of this vast auditorium, and upon
this I was carried as by a wave of the sea. Here I touched the floor;
the accompanying crowds dispersed through the hall, which became filled,
and as it filled some unnoticed signal ushered the glow of the electric
ether in the cylinders, until a glory of radiance mingled with the
sunlight and illuminated the audience, whose songs had died away, and
who sat in attitudes of attention, their faces upturned, their blue
caps shining resplendently, like a surface of tempered steel.

"I stood alone with my former guide, and Chapman. I felt moved by some
singular enthusiasm; the exaltation of the moment possessed me, and
unannounced, as yet unquestioned, I rose to my full height upon a narrow
rostrum in the platform, and turning from side to side spoke with an
elation that seemed to propel my ringing words over the great assembly
with the power and shock of a trumpet:

"'Men and women,' I cried, 'I have reached your wonderful world from
that habitation of mortal men known to many of you as the Earth, where
death ceaselessly destroys generation after generation, and only the
incessant processes of birth as quickly renew the falling ranks of life.
To us on earth, the disappearance of those we love and cherish, the
sundering of ties which a lifetime of love and companionship has
established, the sharp vanishing away into nothingness and silence of
the faces and spirits of the great and glorious, the good, the helpful,
the true and noble, has made death an awful, hideous, to some a hopeless
mystery.

"'We stand on earth speechless before the unseen power which snatches
from our caresses all that we most cherish, all that makes our life
there worth living. There is no solution of the mystery, no voice, no
return, no message, only a blankness of doubt, misgiving and desperate
yearning in those who must continue. There is indeed with those on Earth
a partial confidence by reason of religious faith, but strong as that
seems to be, the endless succession of centuries, each crowding the
viewless habitations of the dead with the still more and deeper streams
of disembodied souls, unaccompanied by any response, any utterance or
return, limit or telltale apparition, has somehow filled all minds with
a creeping wonder if even the assurances of Revelation can be believed.

"'Dying on the Earth may have continued in historic, and what is called
prehistoric time, for over 50000 years, and yet from those unnumbered
millions not a cry or a whisper, note, or vision, is heard or seen to
betray their destiny, if destiny beyond the grave there is.

"'But back of Religion, back of experience, back of rational doubt or
infidelity, the heart keeps up its importunate cry of hope. We dare not
crush out within us the sweet thought of reunion. Upon that earth I lost
a wife, who summed up to me everything of value, virtue, and beauty
human life can claim. The passionate desire to regain her, the defiant
mutiny of my heart against any thought of her annihilation, made me
turn to the shining hosts of heaven for reassurance. In them somewhere I
believed the vanished soul of my companion had flown. This wonderful
world was known to me, and what the wise men of the Earth said of its
possible population. It was then that with my son I devised, following
certain suggestions, a system of wireless telegraphy. We have both, my
son and myself, felt certain that some disturbance was recorded by our
instrument from some planet beyond the earth. From that moment my son
and myself felt convinced that we might be permitted to bring about a
release of the inhabitants of the Earth from the narrow limits of its
own surface, and launch out upon the spaces of the universe the messages
that would return to us with some news of other worlds, or bring
assurance that the Death of the world was but the swinging door to some
new existence.

"'Men of Mars, that Death which tore from me my wife set his seal at
last on me, but before the summons was executed, I had made arrangements
in every possible detail to communicate with my son. We agreed upon a
cypher, and I have so imprinted each measure of our compact upon my
memory that all of it is as clear to my mind as it was before I left the
Earth. Give me possession of your great instruments, let me bridge the
millions of miles to our earth, and in an instant stir the populations
of the Earth into fierce attention, so that from now on through all the
coming years you Martians shall speak with the people of the earth and
again from Mars, as from some relay station, messages shall pass outward
to the stars, and thus from planet to planet the reinforced utterance
may pierce the universe of worlds.'

"I finished; a great shout arose from the immense multitude; with one
impulse the light blue metal caps were swung from their heads and tossed
upward, while the cheers passing out into the streets were caught up,
and in refluent waves of sound rolled back upon me like the murmur of a
distant storm at sea.

"I do not think I was quite understood, but the chief feature of my
speech was realized, and the Martians, quick to respond to any
suggestion, and inflammable of nature, had become enthusiastic over the
prospects of this new revelation.

"I stood an instant uncertain what I should do, or what new development
would follow my evident popularity. Suddenly a strong, ringing voice
spoke from the gallery immediately in front of me. It said--I could not
quite separate the speaker in the moving throng: 'Come to the _Manana_.'

"Chapman and my friend whispered together 'Volta,' and then turning to
me told me to follow them. I followed. Already the hall had become
partially emptied, and we pushed onward amongst radiant men and women,
who received me with smiles and gestures of approval. Once outside the
Hall of Attention, we hurried through some narrow corridors, up winding
stairways, until at length we emerged upon a lofty platform carrying a
railing about it, and so elevated above all the surrounding buildings of
the Patenta that my glance seemed to sweep the circuit of the City, and
swept outward over a rolling and low country through which ran wide
mirror-like ribbons of water, the great canals of Mars, while afar off
melting into the crystalline hazes of the horizon rose dark masses of
mountains.

"I stood an instant stupified and overcome. The deep voice of a
salutation came to my ears, and turning I saw the face of Volta. Beside
me was a large induction coil, and above it two huge plates of copper
about ten feet apart. The next instant a flash passed between the
electrodes, and I was caught and turned aside with my companions. The
light of the spark was intense, and the spark itself of great
dimensions.

"Volta then spoke: 'My friend, your arrival on the surface of our planet
is a sensation. We are all delighted. You have solved our difficulties.
With this transmitter you can yourself send to the earth the message you
wish. And this receiver will catch the waves of the smallest
amplitudes.'

"He pointed to a singular train of tubes, each filled apparently with a
shining line of straw shaped metallic bodies. This was raised by some
silk cord passing to a pulley and arm, perhaps a hundred feet above us.

"Volta spoke with difficulty; he seemed preoccupied, and after I was
shown the transmitter, and its mechanism was explained, he took my hand
warmly, pressed it between his own, and then speaking in the Martian
tongue to Chapman, left us.

"I then sent you, my son, my first message. What pleasure! The great
sparks flashed magnificently. Chapman and my friend were in ecstacies. I
worked steadily until the night. And when all was over I waited until
the stars came out, until again the City of Light shone like some huge,
myriad faceted stone, and then there came, while Chapman and my friend
stood mute beside me, your faint response.

"I scarcely caught the lisping ticks, but they came, and it seemed
indeed as if the power of the Creator had passed into the hands of men.

"With a joy too deep for the futile hopelessness of words to express,
we both descended from the high station and through the great halls. I
found my way to the charming, peaceful room above the glowing city and
fell asleep with prayers upon my lips for all the dead and dying upon
the Earth.

"The next day as I awoke I found my friend and Chapman waiting for me. I
felt wonderfully refreshed, and the exultant mood of the Martians
possessed me. I sang with an interior tumult of excitement. I drew
before my mind the beauty of your mother reincorporated in this gay,
lovely world of Mars, so full of power and light and youthful impulse.
Again I sang, and it was the very air your mother so often played to me,
'Der GrŘne Lauterband,' of Schubert. A few passers by, below my window,
caught the refrain, my voice rose higher and higher, and their
disappearing figures seemed to carry the merry, hopping notes far away.
How fair and glorious it all was!

"And I was to visit Scandor, to visit the beautiful Martian country, the
mines, the huge fossil ivory deposits, to sail on those canals, whose
resplendent lines we had detected from the earth.

"My door was shaken, and almost as if yet living on the earth, I cried
out 'Come in.' Chapman and my friend entered with laughter and
congratulation. Chapman spoke first: 'Dodd, you are summoned to the
Council of the Patenta. All are anxious to see you. At present it is
hoped you will not push further the matter of the telegraphy with the
Earth. The disturbances in Pike increase daily--flashing stars seem to
emerge from nothing, meteoric showers, like a rain of sparks rush across
the fields of the telescopes, gaseous disengagements from what seem like
shining nuclei, shoot upward for thousands of miles from their surfaces;
all is chaos, and these disturbances have been noticed in other regions
of the heavens. Again spirits have ceased arriving at the Hill of the
Phosphori, the Chorus Halls are almost empty, and the singers have no
employment. Such a dearth of spirits has not been known before for
months. It is not uncommon for long intervals to occur when only a few
spirits arrive, but now there are none.

"'The Registeries report that many lately reincarnated spirits speak the
languages of Venus and Mercury, and tell of the terrific physical
convulsions in both planets, that wars are raging in Mercury, and a
singular plague devastating Venus. The country people have sent in word
by the canals that rockets in clusters covering hundreds of square miles
are arising from Scandor. The cause is unknown, cannot even be
surmised, and last night Herschell and Gauss, at the big telescopes,
detected a comet charging towards us with an incredible velocity. The
Council believe I should at once start for Scandor to bring the month's
report, and these new excitements, to the paper Dia, while they urge
that you should recount to the governors at Scandor your story, and the
marvellous fact of the answer sent back from the Earth to you by your
son. We will go, after an audience with the Council, together, and
because of some need of more stone from the quarries, we will stop on
our way out and leave orders at Mit and Sinsi, where the quarries are.
The trip is full of beauty and wonder, and Scandor, I am told, is Heaven
itself.'

"He paused. I thought there was a shade of disappointment in my friend's
face, as Chapman drew me to one side, and I stepped quickly back to him,
and said: 'Will you not go with us, too? You first cared for me and
brought me food and raiment.' His eyes were again bright with peace.
'No, my new friend, I cannot go now. I am waiting, waiting here at the
City of Light, watching the spirits, if perchance my son from your earth
is amongst them. Surely he will come some day, and then my happiness
will be all God can make it.'

"We hurried away to the Chamber of the Council. Once more through the
devious paths of the great groups of buildings which make up the
Patenta, between the flowering trees and the tulip flowered vines we
made our way, with feet so buoyant and so strong that we seemed almost
to fly.

"The Chamber of the Council of the Patenta was a beautiful room. It was
one of the few great chambers in the City of Light, dressed in color and
tapestries. A deep carpet of scarlet Talta wool covered the floor, and
there hung at irregular intervals from a silver cornice deep green
curtains. The furniture was very wonderful. A dark wood, like teak,
opulently fitted with silver, formed the great table that occupied the
center of the room, as also the heavy chairs on which were placed
cushions of a golden yellow silk. There were no windows in the room. The
light entered from above through two simple round apertures covered with
white glass. Book cases stood about the room filled with large folios,
which, as I observed from a few spread upon the table, were not printed
books, but filled with writing in a round, clear hand, legible at some
distance.

"But the most extraordinary feature of the room was a marvellous
colossal figure at one end of the room, in a recess richly hung with
green tapestries. It was cast in silver upon which dull shades and
frosted and polished surfaces were appropriately combined, as their
position required, in the portrayal of a Being of incredible benignity
of expression, attired in flowing robes with an outstretched hand, his
face invested with a harmonious union of power and sweetness. Beneath it
upon the enormous black pedestal the letters in silver were
conspicuous--Tarunta--the Deity. This amazing creation arrested the
attention of my friend Chapman, and myself, and we stood half
spell-bound under the influence of its seraphic and potent beauty.

"The next moment we were conscious of the throng filling the room. There
were many of the great physicists and chemists and astronomers and
observers whom I had seen at the breakfast in the Dining Hall the
previous morning with a few others who were the first men I had seen in
Mars wearing the expression of age. They almost seemed venerable. I
remembered then what I had learned on my arrival at the Patenta--that
age and death also supervene in Mars.

"I was observed at once, and friendly hands were extended to me from all
sides. I was led to the head of the table. There I was invited to
enlarge my story as given in the Hall of Attention, and I was told to
tell it in English. A scribe near me conveyed to pads of paper my
narrative.

"When I had finished an audible murmur of approval filled the room, and
the most aged of the older men arising, and speaking in Martian,
translated to me by the scribe, said:

"'My friend, you have delighted us. The time is approaching when we can,
I trust, receive such visitors from all the worlds, and gradually bring
it to pass that the visible universe may be bound together through the
power and sympathy of language. The Council desires that at present you
refrain from sending your second message until you have visited Scandor,
and seen something of this new world upon which you have so auspiciously
alighted.

"'Heroma (Sir, Sire, etc., etc.), Chapman will accompany you. The
government at Scandor should be apprized of certain strange celestial
conditions, and we are in receipt of news that at Scandor also unusual
things are happening. While all we know or have observed could be
transmitted to Scandor, and all their own knowledge in turn sent to us
by wireless telegraphy, for reasons which we are not at liberty to
explain at present, it has been thought best to send the approved diary
of the Patenta to the government, and also learn in return, by word of
mouth, what has transpired at our capital. It will afford you some
opportunity to visit the Martian Mountains, and be more informed for the
second message you are expected to transmit to the Earth when you
return.'

"After a few salutations, in which interview I found myself face to face
with the reincarnated forms of some of the greatest scientific thinkers
who have lived upon our globe, I left the Council Chamber with my friend
and Chapman, to prepare for our coming journey. It was then that I
entered more deeply the City of Light, and saw the unspeakable splendor
of the Garden of the Fountains.

"The Garden of the Fountains lies over toward the great Halls of
Philosophy, Design and Invention, whose domes and temple-pointed roofs
of copper and blue metal I could easily discern. It covers over half a
square mile of space. It is supplied with water from an enormous lake
resting in the hollow of an extinct volcano, fifty miles to the east of
the City of Light, at an elevation of 5,000 feet. A great conduit or
water main, as we would say, conveys the water to the garden. The Garden
is built actually upon piers of concrete and stone, connected by arches
of brick, and through the subterranean chambers, thus formed, the
division of the streams is made, and there controlled. The whole was
designed by the great Martian artist, Hinudi, whom some aver is the
reincarnated Leonardo da Vinci of our Earth.

"The Garden is approached through a labyrinthine avenue made up of
Palms, which on that side of the City seem to be plentiful, and over
these palms in extraordinary profusion the vines of the red flowered
honeysuckle. You cannot see beyond the wall of green on either side in
this winding way, and only as you gaze upward does the eye escape the
imprisonment of its surroundings, where above the waving summits of the
palms you see a lane of the bluest sky.

"As you draw near the debouchment (into the garden) of this oscillating
road, the splash and roar of falling waters invades your retreat. And
then suddenly as if a curtain had arisen or dropped to the earth you
emerge upon a great marble terrace of steps, and before you is spread a
forest of geysers distributed in entrancing vistas in a lake of tumbling
and scintillating waters. The scene is amazing and transporting. Rushing
jets of water are enclosed in hollow pillars of glass, whose lines are
ravishingly combined in the separate clusters of fountains.

"The heights of these fountains vary from 150 to 200 feet, and they are
arranged in a peculiar disorder, which, however, conforms to an
elaborate plan. The water rises in these colored tubes in green columns,
then breaks into sheets and bubble-laden cataracts of spray above them,
pouring far outward like blazing showers of little lamps in the full
sunlight. Many of the tubes are inclined, and the ejected shafts of
water collide above them, producing explosive clouds of shattered
vesicles of moisture that float off or drop in miniature rains over the
lake. This wildness of fountains extends over many a mile. All the jets
are not in tubes. Many uncovered fountains are interjected amongst the
glass pillars.

"The pillars vary in form, and have much diversity of aperture, so that
the water shoots from them in every posture and form. It makes a
bewildering picture. The exposure of water in the great lake or pond
which holds these fountains is broken with waves, and the tempestuous
scene with the constant excitement of the rising and flowing avalanches
of water creates feelings of abounding wonder. The marble steps extend
around the lake, and behind them on all sides rises the wall of the
palms, beaten into motion by the wind blowing ceaselessly. The
esplanade-like margin between the top step and the palm enclosure
accommodated great numbers, while the benches in retreating alcoves,
were also filled.

"It was a varied, exhilarating scene. The moving throngs, the wonderful
confusion of the spouting fountains in their chrysalids of glass against
the sky line, the perpetually waving fronds of the palms!

"We hurried to the pier of the Registeries after Chapman had secured the
sealed envelope, in which were placed the communications to the
government at Scandor. The canal which enters the City of Light at this
point is divided into a number of branches whose confluent arms, about a
mile from the City, unite into two parallel canals whose course we were
now to follow to the City of Scandor. The small boat we entered was a
curious vessel of white porcelain, broad and short, with raised keel,
prow, and expanded stern.

"It was moved by some motor, electric in nature. A pilot took his place
at the bow, and, under a canopy of silk, in the light of a setting sun,
followed by the music of the City, we passed away from the City, which,
even as we left it, slowly, in the descending darkness of the night,
began to kindle into light, and send upward into the velvet zenith its
phosphorescent glows."



CHAPTER V.


"It was afternoon when Chapman and I, fully equipped and provisioned,
moved off from the long granite pier at the Registeries, after an
affectionate parting from my guide and friend, who returned sorrowfully
to resume his watch for his son, whose coming to Mars seemed to him so
assured.

"How wonderfully strange and exciting it all seemed! Down the crowded
canal we slowly moved, amidst the calling crews, the pleasant cheers,
and beckonings of sightseers; and back of us rose on its hills the City
of Light, that, as we passed still further away, and watched it in the
fading sunset, began to glow, and finally, to shine like some titanic
opal in the velvet shadows of the night.

"These numerous arms of the canal some miles from the City coalesce and
merge into the enormous trunk canal that passes on to Scandor through
hills and mountains and the plain country, excavated by the wonderful
Toto powder. This trunk canal is doubled; upon one member, the boats
pass outward to Scandor, and on the other the boats return. Branches
pass north and south at centers of population, and of some of these
which pass actually into the frozen depths of the polar countries, I may
tell you later.

"As we slowly progressed into the undulating plain country, with its
villages and farm lands, diversified by woods, and sometimes solitary
projections of rock, as the stars stole urgently into the sky, as the
phosphori lamps began their soft illumination of the decks, and while
murmurs of songs from merrymakers on the land came to us in snatches
bewitchingly, though incongruously mingled with the delicious odors of
the Napi grass, I turned to Chapman, and felt that now, throughout the
hours of the genial night, I would pour out unchecked the flood of
inquiry that had risen again and again to my lips in this strange new
life.

"'Chapman,' I began, 'you must feel that I have a great deal to ask you.
This new life, with its surprises and the strange incidents of the two
or three days I have already lived here have suggested so many
questions, can we not now talk about these marvels?'

"'Certainly,' replied Chapman, as he lifted a glass of delicate pearl
pink, filled with the pungent and keenly stimulating _Ridinda_, to his
lips. 'Put on your thinking cap, and perforate me with all the puzzles
you can think of. I am a trifle rattled myself in this new ranch--have
not been here long--but I tell you, Dodd, Mars is first class. It suits
me. Never enjoyed living so much, never found it so much a matter of
course, and as to livelihood, when I think of those freezing nights on
the earth in Rutherford's cheesebox shooting at the moon with wet
plates, I can tell you this sort of thing isn't a long call from all I
ever hoped to find in Heaven. Open your batteries. To-morrow will be
full of sight-seeing, and I guess you will forget all you want to know
to-day in trying to remember what you will see then.' He took another
sip of the snapping liquid, drew his chair closer to my own, and while a
sort of musical echo lingered in the air, I began:

"'Chapman, where on Mars are we? I seem to feel neither heat nor cold. I
see these flowers, the palms in the Garden of the Fountains, day passes
into night, and there is no very apparent change of temperature, so far
as feeling goes. What are we made of? Is this new body we carry
insensible to heat or cold? I feel indeed my pulse beat. I am conscious
of warmth in the sun, and of coolness in the shade. I feel the wind blow
on my cheeks, but all these sensations are so much less keen than on the
earth, and yet again I realize that sensations are in some ways as vivid
as on the earth. The pleasure of my ears and eyes is wonderfully deep
and exhaustive, the sense of taste rapid and delightful. I am happy,
supremely happy, and affection, even the hidden fires of love, burn in
my veins as on the earth.' Chapman looked at me with that bright smile
he wore on earth, and his gestures of expostulation were amusing. 'Wait,
Dodd, don't talk so fast. You remember I had a slow way on the earth. I
have no reason to think it will prove any less pleasant to stay slow on
Mars. One thing at a time. My own sense of position is not so secure
that I can tell exactly all you want to know, and there are a good many
things that the heavyweights up here don't pretend yet to explain. Now,
where are we? Well, the City of Light is about 40 degrees south of the
Martian equator, not so far from what on earth would be the position of
Christ Church, where you "shuffled off the mortal coil." Don't frown.
Mars is a serene, sweet place, but I am not yet so intimidated by the
lofty life here as to drop my jokes. Some Martians strike me as a trifle
heavy in style, just a suggestion of a kind of sublimated Bostonese
about them, don't you know. Curious! However, the ordinary Martian is
gamy, good company, full of happiness, with a considerable fancy for
jokes, absurdly addicted to music, and as credulous as a child. Somehow,
Dodd, a good deal of my earthly nature has stuck to me, and I revel in a
dual life. I have my Martian side, but I can't, and this life can't,
knock the old foibles of the world you left, out of me yet. I may get
the proper sort of exultation in time, but just now I've imported
considerable human horse sense.'

"He looked at me whimsically; I walked away, and watched the receding
city.

"The motion of our white boat was so smoothly rapid, that soon, and
almost unnoticed we had threaded all the many lanes, windings, and locks
that led to the broad canals some twenty miles from the city. We had
passed laden barges, flat and storied boats carrying excursions or
freight, and trains of smaller craft crowded with fruit brought in from
distant farms for the great population of the City of Light. The scene
assumed a fairy-like unreality as night settled down, and the boats
swarming with light, or else carrying a few red lanterns, passed us
while their occupants or owners chanted the lonely lullaby of the
Martians, which begins: 'Ana cal tantil to ti.'

"It was yet to me all a wonderful dream, from which each moment I
dreaded awakening. It was all so beautiful!

"I sat again with Chapman under the canopy, talking of the earth.
Strange Mystery! Here we were with our earth memories yet vivid,
recalling incidents of life in New York City, and summoning amid all the
appealing charm of this strange new life, the little, sordid variances
and trials, vexations and minor sufferings that had marred his own life
on earth. We turned to these things, not because they were grateful or
pleasing to remember, but because it seemed to _establish_ us, or rather
me, to give me identity, and build up the growing certainty that I had
come from the earth, and was re-embodied in this new sphere of active
feeling and experience.

"I told him of you, of the death of your mother, of our flight to New
Zealand, our experiments, the Dodans, and then turning to him, as we saw
the Martian moon rise in ruddy fullness far away over the hill of
_Tiniti_, I said, searchingly: 'Chapman, you remember Martha? How
beautiful and good she was! I have kept one long, sad, and still
deathless hope in my repining heart. I shall see her again! It must be!
I have felt so certain of this that no argument, no appeal to reason,
can drive away the keen sense of its realization. Have you seen her on
Mars amongst the thousands you have met, and is there on this entrancing
orb any other place than the Hill of the Phosphori, for the disembodied
of other worlds to enter this new world?

"Chapman smiled. 'Yes,' he answered, 'I remember your wife very well. I
could pick her out from ten thousand, but I have never seen her yet in
the City of Light. You may, my dear friend, cherish only an illusion,
and yet I am half willing to agree with you; such intuitive feelings
have a deeper philosophy of truth than we can fathom, and no laughing
skepticism, no mere frivolous doubt can expel them. Wait, my friend; it
may yet be meant for you to meet her. And now I do recall some accounts
told me of occasional visitants to Mars entering its life at different
points; many indeed have been received near Scandor, and on one or two
occasions the prehistoric peoples, the little strong men of the
mountains and the northern ice have brought in such a chance waif that
has become body amongst them. How wild and frightened they become! And
quite naturally! Ghosts dropping out of the air becoming flesh and blood
might startle a rational being into a rigid course of religious
practices, not to say superstition. But look, how fair the night has
become.'

"The landscape about us was wonderfully illuminated by the two
satellites, Deimos and Phobos, which, as you well know, were made known
to astronomers on the earth by Prof. Asaph Hall in 1877. What a
marvellous spectacle they presented, moving almost sensibly at their
differing rates of revolution through a sky sown with stellar lights.
The combined lights of these singular bodies surpassed the light of our
terrestrial moon, by reason of their closeness to the surface of Mars,
while the more rapid motion of the inner satellite causes the most weird
and beautiful changes of effect in the nocturnal glory they both lend to
the Martian life.

"We were sailing in a broad river-like canal, perhaps one mile or more
wide. On all sides the undulating ground, covered with cultivation,
varied with thick patches of trees, with here and there shining lights
from villages and isolated homes, carried the eye onward to a rising
hill country, beyond which, again, silhouetted against the shining sky
where Phobos began to rise mountain tops were just discernible.

"Deimos, the outer moon, was already shining, and its pale, sick light
imparted a peculiar blueness impossible to describe upon all surfaces it
touched. Here was the phenomenon we witnessed with increasing pleasure.
Phobos was emerging from a cloud and its yellow rays possessing a
greater illuminating power, mingled suddenly with the blue and spectral
beams of Deimos and the land thus visited by the complimentary flood of
light from these twin luminaries seemed suddenly dipped in silver. A
beautiful white light, most unreal, as you mortals might say, fell on
tree and water, cliff, hill, and villages. The effect was not unlike
that instant in photography when a developing plate shows the outlines
of its objects in dazzling silver before the half tints are added, and
the image fades away into indistinguishable shadow.

"It was a print in silver, and while we gazed in mute astonishment the
sharp shadows changed their position as Phobos, racing through the
zenith, changed the inclination of its incident beams. The effect was
indescribable. I walked the deck in an agitation of wonder and delight.
Chapman, to whom the novelties of this Martian life were still
wonderful, followed me, and was the first to speak.

"'Dodd, you know that the strangest thing about this whole place is your
body. It's body all right enough, but I can't quite understand what sort
of a body it is. It hurts in a way, and is pleased in a way, but it
seems a better made affair in texture and parts than anything we
possessed on earth. Exertion is so easy.'

"'Well, Chapman,' I answered, while my eyes rested on the water, through
which an approaching barge rose like a vessel of frosted or burnished
white metal, 'we were taught on the earth that, with gravitation reduced
one-half, the same weight on Mars would seem only half as heavy as on
the earth, and that the effort which there carried us eight feet would
here send us sixteen.'

"'It is true,' returned Chapman, 'but that doesn't explain everything.
We sleep less here, we scarcely touch meat, and yet exertion, prolonged
by hours, scarcely accelerates the blood or vexes the nerves, and
generally we don't grow old. Our bodies are light; the texture,
apparently firm and resisting, is somehow diaphanous. I've seen the
light through the palm of my hand. And then again I haven't. Somehow
mind works in the body here and changes it, and changes it different at
different times. Why, Dodd, the other day at the Patenta, a student
jumped up with a cry of delight at something, and stumbled and fell from
a window to the ground, but he stood up without a bruise or hurt of any
kind. His exultation, his emotional excitement made him buoyant, I
think, and he fell to the earth like a thistledown. There was no
concussion.'

"'Well,' I responded, 'I cannot tell. I know very little as yet. I feel
wonderfully active and vitalized. My senses are acute. I see further,
hear further, smell further than I ever did on earth, and it even seems
to me I can anticipate things. The nerve currents are so rapid, the mind
seems so persuasive, that coming events are registered by a prophetic
feeling I can scarcely describe. For that reason, Chapman, I grow
happier every minute, for now I see approaching that great joy, my
reunion with Martha, the one great divine event I hunger and hope for.

"'Well,' said Chapman, as a cloud covered the scudding moons, 'I do hope
you may see her, and somehow I think, too, you will. But, Dodd,' the
moons emerged, and the lower one was in transit across the face of the
upper, 'I must call your attention to this strange peculiarity of our
bodies, that we undergo extremes of temperature with almost no
noticeable sense of the great heat or cold. This region we are
traversing is about the latitude of Christ Church, as I told you, and it
is the period of harvests, and the heat is moderate, but in the height
of summer the heat seems scarcely more felt than now, and in the
clothing I am now wearing, I have sailed through the ice packs of the
North, and slept thinly covered in its snows, but without undue
discomfort. I tell you, matter in us, and flesh and blood in us are all
differently conditioned.'

"'Why not ask these questions of the wise men of the Patenta, the
doctors and chemists?' I replied. 'I can think of an analogy that might
make this Martian constitution intelligible. A close, dense body
conducts heat or cold; a loose, open texture or cellular mass does not.
In our curious embodiment from spirit the substance of our bodies is an
etherealized matter, loosely, I might say, flocculently, disposed, and
while it conveys sensations of a certain tone or key of vibratory
intensity, it will not respond to any violent or coarse shocks. They
simply cannot be carried. They escape us. Are the people all alike
amongst the Martians?'

"'Oh, no,' returned Chapman, who pointed to the widening spaces in the
beams between the slow Deimos and the fleeter flying Phobos, 'there are
great differences. I have seen that. In materialization some seem badly
put together, and these resemble our former terrestrial bodies. They
grow old, they succumb to disease, they feel changes of weather and they
have less vitality. Yes,' and he drew nearer, 'it is these unhappy
misbirths in this spirit land who retain the sin of earth and cannot
survive and get the _Kinkotantitomi_ or irreverently, as the earthling
would say, the grand bounce. They are fired off the planet.'

"He paused and laughed. How strange this almost human laugh sounded, and
yet how pleasant! I looked at him with a deep affection. He noticed the
impression, and quickly drawing me to him, said half timidly:

"'Dodd, that sort of laugh and those words of mine just used, are not
Martian, they don't belong to these rarefied beings here. They have a
human or earthly taint, and they frighten me. I seem so lonely
sometimes. My stray fun which I once enjoyed on earth must somehow be
forgotten here. I feel so irreverent at times, so full of horse play,
but I must keep up the high key and act like the rest. Indeed for the
most of the time I feel as they do, I suppose, but sometimes that sort
of ribaldry and feelings of the ludicrous that made us joke, and prank,
and cut up in genial companionships come over me, and I am suffocating
with a glee out of place to this exalted society. Ah! it's good to feel
you, my friend, so fresh and new from earth. It's promised here in the
learned talk I have heard, that those who disappear from Mars become
reincorporated upon earth again, if they belong there. Well, I wouldn't
mind if I got returned, wonderful and sweet and happy as all this seems.
The dear, dear old Earth!'

"He flung his arms around me, and our faces met, as if we had been lost
brothers. A sort of terrifying melancholy invaded me. I was so distant
from all I had known and loved, so distant from the surges we had
watched from our observatory at Christ Church, so distant from the life
of heat and clothing and genial domesticities; the life even, it might
be called, of the daily paper, the novel, the new book, the life of
politics and human history, and conventionality, the life of ups and
downs, of sickness and health, of individual enterprise, of routine and
mechanical fatigue, the life of exertion, contrast and social
inequality, with its picturesqueness, its incessant interest, all this
was now utterly removed by all the measureless leagues of icy space
between me and the floating planet--the old sin-stricken Earth--that was
shining in the Martian skies, so inconspicuous and tiny--so
inaccessible.

"But my heart was pulsating audibly. If I could recover Martha, if, in
this serene atmosphere of good will and fairness and kindness, in the
midst of unknown possibilities of knowledge, in the company of
enthusiastic and high-minded men and women, in this arena of scientific
wonders, and in the joy and beauty of universal happiness and thrift and
peace and well doing and intuition, I could find a human companionship
in the woman whose face and nature have summed up for me the whole of
life, if I could find her! then, indeed, this new world would be all my
earthly home could be, and the endless future with her for guide and
friend would lose its terror and lonely isolation, and--I dared to think
it--even the presence of God himself become bearable.

"Chapman had stolen away from me. He had stolen to the little, dainty
rooms that were sunk in the cockpit or cabin of our boat, and I was
standing alone in the light of the midnight moons in Mars, a waif from
the far earth, incomprehensibly born after death into this human
presentiment and renewal in youth, and again instinct with revivified
passion and desire; and breathing the atmosphere of a planet that for
years I had watched through the tube of a telescope, as a floating flake
of celestial fire. A delicious drowsiness overcame me, and while I
noticed the pilot was changed, his place being taken by another, and
that we were approaching a ridgy or disturbed country, I found my way to
the white couch prepared for me, and sank into a deep and dreamless
sleep.

"The morning of the next day was clear and beautiful. Shall I ever
forget that first approach to the mountains of Tiniti, where Mit and
Sinsi, the villages of the quarries, are located. All day long the boat
propelled through a diversified country, covered with morainal
heaps--great hills of drift matter, heaps of worn pebbles and rolling
plains of estuarine sediment. Much of this land seemed untouched with
cultivation, and sublime forests of the loftiest trees covered it. The
canal passed through solitudes, where the silence was only broken by the
cackling laugh of a crane-like bird, marching in lines along the banks,
or perched like sleepy sentinels amid the outstretched branches of the
trees.

"These wild and fascinating regions were often alternated by miles of
bright plantations radiant with the yellow leaves of the Rint, bearing
its deep red pods, while avenues of palms, not unlike the royal palm of
the Earth, led in long vistas to clustering groups of houses, and we,
too, caught glimpses of basking lakes on which, even as in the Earth,
the patient fisherman in basket-like circular boats, waited for his
flashing captives.

"Then, again, there were prairie-like stretches of a sort of pampas
waving in cloudy lines, the glistening pappus of the wild Nitoti, a
peculiar, low composite, that grows in abundance and furnishes food to
the strange gazelle of this latitude in Mars.

"This animal, the Rimondi, could be seen in scampering herds over these
plains, its horns making an hour glass form above its head, as they bent
to each other, touched, and then curved outward again to reunite a
second time.

"We were rapidly moving northward, and just as it would be on the earth,
the changing vegetation gave visible notice of our advance.

"But more interesting than nature were the scenes of life along our way,
and the custom of public worship filled me with wonder. Amphitheatres
of stone built high above the ground, and approached by encircling
terraces of steps dotted the country at long intervals. These, Chapman
explained, were the churches of the people. Here they gathered from long
distances around, and, even as he described their meaning, the
congregations were seen assembling, while later we heard the music flung
in waves of sound from these houses of song and worship.

"Chapman did not understand the Martian faith. There seemed little to
understand about it. It was one national expression of the love of
goodness and of beauty, but it was all directed to a source of
infallible wisdom, power and justice.

"Thus considering the country and its customs we fell again into a long
colloquy:

"'Dodd,' said Chapman, musingly, 'we should all become as these people
about us, and do the same things, and believe and act as they do. You
will, but I think I remain a little strange. I seem a spectator that a
caprice has cast upon this globe, and though I live here, I must succumb
to a certain alienation, a lack of mediation between their life and my
former existence, and because of this subtle estrangement, I shall
contract disease, or meet with accident, or waste in age, while you
shall stay young, and living, sink into the Martian life and yield to
it a spiritual, a mental acquiescence. You will become absorbed, and,
with your love realized, the whole rhapsodic life of this world will
mingle you forever in its tide of song and science and labor.'

"'Yes,' I answered, 'I am sure I shall. For whatever period of time I
stay here, I am one with this beautiful and strange life. I respond
naturally to all this serenity and joy, this precision of power over
inanimate things; this flooded being and the dawning sense that through
the stepping stone of Mars, I approach yet higher beatitudes of living.
At least in Mars the sordid taint of suffering, of ignominious physical
torture and privation, which spoiled the Earth, is almost unknown.'

"Chapman laughed, and an echo gave back from some hillside its musical
response. 'Ah, it may be, I know it is true, and yet--and yet--the Earth
possessed a pictorial, a dramatic power in its contrasts of happiness
and suffering, of goodness and sin. It had literary material. Its
consecutive growth in the ages of social and national and economic
history were so wonderful, so thrilling in interest, in the details of
character and adventure, in the incessant panoramic display it gave of
light and shade. And on it rested the shadow of a strange, pathetic
doubt, the mystery of creation. Its romance, its fiction, its fable, and
the animating picture it furnished, with its sceptics and its
believers, its haters and its lovers, its tyrants and its heroes. Its
wide, verbal immensity! I miss all that, or almost all. This life is
evenly celestial, and glowing, and carelessly happy. And here knowledge
is extreme and pervasive and omnipotent. The dear commonplaces of the
Earth life are unknown too, the ludicrous is absent, and the sublimity
of sacrifice impossible.'

"He laughed again, and I felt for one brief, incredible instant a pang,
too, that the blossoming, full, sensual Earth has passed from beneath my
feet forever.

"But it was past. For me nothing was left behind when Martha had gone
before. The future for me was the pilgrimage through worlds for her lost
face. The sum and substance of a world's growth, of the unintermittent
and heraldic progress of the soul was union with her. And deeper in my
convictions than science or faith or desire, lay the consciousness of my
sure approach.

"Again the evening fell. We arrived at the entrance of a gloomy and
stupendous gorge. It was the wonderful passage driven through the first
area of igneous rocks before we reached the quarry country of the
Tiniti. It pierced the dark and stubborn dike that rose in sheer walls
like the Palisades on the Hudson, 1,000 and 1,200 feet above our heads,
and it seemed that the darkening tide was carrying us into the bowels of
the sphere. As the precipitous walls rose on either side, a loud report,
followed by another more muffled, startled us. Looking upward, Chapman,
shouting '_Golki, tanto_,' with outstretched hand pointed to a flaming
missile passing over our heads, and apparently in the direction we were
heading.

"It was a meteor. It was just such a phenomenon as we know of on the
Earth. I felt certain that it was a bolide from space, one of those
fiery visitors of stone and iron that collide occasionally with our
Earth, and that somewhere before us, in the country we were approaching,
it would be found.

"Later a few straggling shooting stars appeared. The languor of fatigue
overcame me, and I slept prostrate on the cushions of the deck as the
murmurous reverberations from the walls of the rock-bound canal rose and
fell, with the cadence of the waves, splashing softly against their
feet.

"I dreamt of the Earth, the pictures naturally recalled, by these
surroundings, of my life on the Hudson River in New York, and it seemed
so real, that I should find myself with you working away in the old
laboratory at Yonkers near the Albany Road. Suddenly I was shaken, and
opening my eyes I beheld the firmament of heaven falling in coruscating
cascades about us. Starting up, I found myself clutching Chapman, who
had called to the pilot to stop the boat. A few of the attendants were
grouped near us, and the loudly suppressed exclamations made me realize
that these visitations were perhaps infrequent upon Mars.

"It was a meteoric shower, like our leonids in November. It rained
pellets or balls of fire, these phosphorescent trains gleaming
spectrally, while a kind of half audible crackling accompanied the fall.
Shooting in irregular shoals or volleys, they would increase and
diminish, and recurrent explosions announced the arrival at the ground
of some meteoric mass.

"It was a marvellous and splendid scene. It lasted till the dawn. We
remained almost unchanged in position, while the tiny comets crowded the
sky with their uninterrupted march, and the air was shot through with
intermingled lanes of light.

"As the morning broke, we had passed the great gorge in the canal, and
had entered a wild, savage, almost treeless country. Great weathered
columns of rock stood alone in the debris of their own dismemberment,
the bare gray or rusty and jagged expanses sloping up steeply from the
edge of the canal, sparingly dotted over with gray bushes, and covered
with an ashen colored lichen.

"The scene was here forbidding and desolate. We moved for miles through
the waste of a ruined world. The whole region had been the stage of
great volcanic activity, and the monticules of scoriaceous rock, the
broad plains excavated with deep pools that reflected their dismal,
untenanted borders in the black depths of unruffled water, spoke of
meteorological conditions long prolonged and intense. It was a weird,
strange place, silent and dead. But amongst these vast ejections, these
truncated fossil craters were embedded masses of the rare self-luminous
stone that made the City of Light. Chapman told me how in pockets or
huge amygdaloidal cavities, this white phosphorescent substance was
quarried, brought up bodily perhaps in the slow upheaval of the region
from the deep-seated sources of this mineral flood.

"The canal passed along for miles in the depression between two folds of
the surface. Finally, gazing ahead, there slowly came into view a huge
_rictus_, a gaping rent in the side of the black and gray and red walls
to our right, and a minute movement of living forms, scarcely
discernible, revealed the first quarry near the little town of Sinsi.

"As we drew nearer I descried a slant incline from the open excavation
down which the blocks of stone were slid. They were brought to the
surface by hoisting cranes, and just as our little porcelain
cockle-shell glided to the dock, an enormous fragment rudely shaped into
a cubical form, was moving down the metal road bed to the edge of the
canal.

"Here we landed, and a crowd of people hailed us, and amongst them were
many of the prehistoric people, the short, sturdy brown or copper
colored northerners who work in the quarries and mines. It was
nightfall. Their day's work was over, and they crowded around us with
interest. They were good-natured, but quiet, and dressed in a kind of
overalls that was made in one garment from head to feet.

"Chapman pushed amongst them, followed by me. We made our way to a
pleasant house, built of the quarried volcanic rock, alternating with
the white stone of the quarry, and covered with an almost flat roof of
the blue metal. In this house we were received by the Superintendent of
Quarries, a supernatural, who still retained a mechanical aptitude,
brought with him from the earth. The greetings were pleasant, and as the
Superintendent spoke his former earth language, which had been French,
we got along intelligibly.

"The rooms of this house were large, square apartments, simply furnished
with the white chairs, tables and couches I had seen in the City of
Light, but on its walls were drawings and photographs of the quarry, the
country, and groups of the workmen. Amongst the pictures were some
wonderful large scenes of an ice country, and the lustrous high wall of
a gigantic glacier. I pointed these out to Chapman. He told me that to
the north of the mountains lay the great northern sea, in winter a sea
of ice, and that from continental elevations within it glacial masses
pushed outward, invading the southern country. A road led over the
mountain from Sinsi to regions beyond, where there were fertile
intervals and plains inhabited by populations of the small, early people
we had met.

"Here were their settlements, from which the workmen of the quarries had
been brought. Beyond this again lay the margins of the polar sea. The
Superintendent--his name was Alca--had visited this region, and probably
made the pictures I wondered at. The Superintendent said we should visit
the great quarry in the morning before we started again for Scandor. And
he showed us, as the darkness descended about us, a marvellous
phenomenon. Standing on the roof of his house, we looked up the mountain
side to the immense opening forced in its flank, and it had become a
great surface of palpitating, rising and falling light. The waves of
glorious soft radiance bathed the village about us, the waters of the
canal, and the arid crusts of rock beyond, the circle of encompassing
darkness straining like a great black wall, on its spent edges.

"Song and music closed the day, and after eating the wine-soaked cakes
of Pintu, we made our way to the white and simple bedchamber and waited
for the morning.

"It came, fresh and splendid. The air of this latitude of Mars is so
pure, vivid and dustless! My strength and power and vitality seemed
boundless. And as in the broad mirror of my bedchamber I viewed my
reflection, I leaped with wonder to see the youth I had been, formed
anew in lineaments, fairer than Earth's. My son, I have become younger
than yourself, age has vanished, and all the restraint of differing
years between has vanished with it.

"Alca, Chapman and myself, as is the Martian habit, walked to the quarry
mouth, up a winding and hard stone road. This dreary and desolate region
seemed to have a charm. Its expanse of rigid waves of stone, pimpled
with sharp excrescences, and as deeply pitted with cavernous grottoes,
where no life seemed able to survive, save a stunted herbage, sparsely
assembled in vagrant groups, or gathered in thirsty lines around the lip
of the still pools, was full of scenic interest, but more deeply
eloquent of great geological convulsions.

"Chapman and Alca were in front of me, speaking the Martian tongue,
while I stood looking backward every few steps, delighted to trace the
broad river of the canal winding through the desolation for miles
beyond. Then I noticed how rapid and effortless is motion in Mars.
Volition is so easy and penetrating, the body becomes a mere plaything
for the mind. Every function, every part is swayed into vitality by the
mind. There is the apparent motion of the limbs, but really the whole
frame sweeps on as by an intangible process of translation, and the body
is transferred to the point the mind desires it to reach almost without
fatigue. This gives strength exactly proportioned to Will, and the shorn
powers of disease and Time proceed from the creative faculty of thought.
The disabling of the body in Mars by weakness or disease, or accident or
age, sprang front a mental discord, an emotional dissonance. Here was
the explanation of those disorders that still cling to the Martian life.
In this lay also the secret of crime.

"I looked upward to Chapman, who was then peering with hand raised to
his eyes at some object before him which the Superintendent had pointed
out, and I felt sorrowful that he should be in disagreement with this
life. It boded ill. I had begun to love Chapman, and the first sense of
suffering I had felt seemed now awakened at the thought of harm coming
to him.

"But there was no time for meditation. Chapman and Alca were looking
backward and shouting. They beckoned with their arms, and as I gazed I
saw between them, and ahead of them a great black object, about which a
number of the little workmen were running excitedly like a swarm of
ants. I leaped to their position. Chapman exclaimed: 'You remember the
meteor we saw. Well, there it is.'

"Extended like a gigantic and deformed missile lay an iron meteorite
before us, the same thing as the Siderites that appear in your Museums
on Earth. It was yet warm, a crevice spread down into its interior, and
it had apparently rolled from the spot of its first impact, since a
hammered side, abraded and worn on the hard rock, lay uppermost. It bore
the significant pits, thumb-marks and depressions of the terrestrial
objects, while streaming striations spread from its front breast where
the iron in melting had run like tears over its surface. It measured
some four feet in length, and must have weighed many tons.

"Then a curious thing happened, or seemed to happen. Alca, the
Superintendent, advanced to it, and bending against it with
outstretched arm, muttered a few words, frowned as if in concentrated
thought, and--was it credible--the iron object moved. I looked aghast at
Chapman, who turned away with what I dismally interpreted was an
expression of disgust. I pressed up close to him, and he murmured, 'Was
that a miracle? If it was I should like to get back to common sense and
jack-screws.'

"We continued upward, and now the terrific gulf piercing the ground for
over two terrestrial miles yawned at our feet. The steep precipice, lost
in a twilight dusk below, was disconcerting. The blocks of stone were
hoisted from the gigantic pit by hoists worked by hand. Here is one of
the anomalies of this existence in Mars. Electrical science and its
application is understood, great stores of mechanical experience and
wisdom can be drawn on, and yet in most of the mechanical work, hand
work, the toilsome method of the Pharaohs of Egypt prevails. There are
no railroads or trolleys or steam vehicles. The boats are driven by
explosive engines, and there are electric carriages of velocity and
power. But the latter are infrequent. The canals are numerous,
especially about Scandor, and the great trunk canals are broad avenues
of traffic.

"The intense swift motion of the Martians meets their needs in most
cases. Where hard labor on a mammoth scale is necessary, the little race
of _prehistorics_ serves all their purposes. The canals are their great
engineering feats, and the wonderful telescopes, their triumphs in
applied science, their knowledge of the transmutation of the
elements,--their greatest intellectual victory,--and Scandor, the City
of Glass, their architectural gem and miracle.

"We stood in a line gazing upon the receding roof of the great cavern,
the heavy walls left like buttresses to hold up the overlying mountain
ridge, and the tiny figures dimly swarming on the distant floor.

"The quarry extends far in under the ridge. Much barren rock is taken
out, for the Phosphori rock occurs variously in masses, layers,
lenticles, and almond shaped inclusions in the igneous matrix.

"We were to descend, but before we did so the Superintendent led us to
the summit of the ridge. From here, with a superb hand telescope, we
gazed up a distant land beyond the volcanic area we had surmounted,
occupied by farms and villages. It was the North country where the
prehistorics dwelt. It seemed peaceful and attractive. Beyond this again
we just discerned the shimmering surface of the Great Glacier, the
superb train of ice, that comes southward in the winter, and encroaches
even upon some of the exposed margins of the land of the prehistorics.
Its retreat is rapid in the warm season, and its broad tract is broken
by emergent backs of rocks and land, that are seamed with wild flowers.
The Martians travel to these oases in the Ocean of Ice, and it is from
these flowers that an entrancing perfume is extracted, of which the
Martians are extremely fond.

"We lingered on this pinnacle of rock and surveyed a prospect on either
side of contrasted and great interest. The land of the Zinipi north of
us resembled the fertile hill and valley country of the Genesee River in
western New York, the great region south of us a combination of the
Snake River country in Idaho, and the fissured ranges of the Silverton
Quadrangle in Colorado.

"Between these rose this high partition of castellated rock.

"We descended again to the mouth of the quarry, and, led by the
Superintendent, were swung far out from its dizzy sides into the lake of
air between them upon a platform, used for an aerial elevator. Chapman
clung nervously to me, and complained of a light nausea and dread. I
felt only a tonic exhilaration, and as we slowly sank through the shaft
of air, crossed by sunlight for some distance, and then passed into the
cooler shadows of its deeper parts, where the yet level sun failed to
penetrate, I cried aloud with delight, and the abyss around us shouted
its salutation back.

"Still we descended, and soon saw back in the deep prolongations of the
tunnel the shining walls of this phosphorescent cave. The light glowed
so effulgently that it seemed a soft radiant haze, through which came
the sound of voices, and in it black figures moved incessantly.

"The method of quarrying is not unlike that of the marble quarries on
the earth. Drilling long holes in and under the stone, which from
pressure has assumed a rudely cubical cleavage, separates the rock into
heavy pieces. These holes are wedged, and the rocks forced off into
useful blocks. All is done by hand, and the picture of activity, with
workers constantly engaged at their various duties made a singular
scene. We walked far into the ever deepening womb of the mountain, while
on either hand lateral tunnels, or rather avenues had been pushed,
penetrating rich segregations wherever they had been traced, and where
also glowed the welcome glow of this lithic lamp.

"The Superintendent explained that the stone was quite unequal in
quality, and he told us how the illuminating power of the stone was
actually tested in what on the Earth we would call candle powers, but
is known on Mars as Ki-kans, or a unit of light derived from a platinum
wire one millimetre thick, carrying 100 volts current. We could see the
varying radiations, and came upon rayless sections, which from admixture
of impurities or imperfect chemical perfection, were deprived of all
luminousness.

"Returning, it seemed as if in the sharp convulsions of the crust a
flood of light had been somehow absorbed by the rock, and then this
light-saturated rock had been overwhelmed and buried out of sight, only
to be painfully restored to its first home, in the open skies, by the
labor of men.

"But time was pressing. Chapman must reach Scandor, his envoy's errand
was important, and bidding the kind Alca good-bye, which the Martians
execute by a kiss and an embrace, we came out again into the deep well,
and gazed upward past the glistening precipices, irregular with little
ledges, and over-reaching cavities, to the distant sky.

"And now a terrible calamity befell us. The Superintendent pointed out a
narrow path that led circuitously around the great crags of rock to the
top. It was a narrow winding ledge, rising by a mild incline, and
circling the pit before it finally reached its brim. In parts it was
quite unprotected, but the extraordinary nerves of the men made the
achievement of passing out or in the quarry by this means a very simple
test of endurance. Even as the Superintendent alluded to its use, a file
of dark figures was just above us, with soldierlike precision marching
down to the level we occupied. Chapman banteringly asked me to try it,
and I accepted the challenge, urging him to follow.

"We started up. At first the ascent was simple, and the view backward
just a little exciting. We continued, and I noticed that the path
contracted, and nervously looking on ahead, was startled to find it
broken with short gaps, which must be crossed by jumping. I had felt the
vague premonitions about Chapman increasing, and somehow, by that
intuition which becomes prophetic, in this semi-etherealized
constitution of our bodies and minds, in Mars, I knew an impending blow
hung over us.

"I looked back and saw Chapman gravely following me. The cheer and
laughter had disappeared from his face, the jesting gayety had fled, and
he seemed enfeebled. I hastened to him, and he raised his face with a
reassuring smile.

"'Dodd,' he said, 'I am dizzy. I feel strangely here,' and he felt his
forehead. 'I wonder that it is so. But come! Don't be frightened. It
will pass over.' He pushed me from him. For an instant we stood and
gazed around us. Far up we saw the outer sunlight beating on the barren
exposures of the mountain, around us was black excavated rock, and below
the shining walls, faintly blue and pink.

"'Chapman,' I said, 'let us go back. The hoists will take us out.'
'Folly,' was the answer. 'I shall be all right. Why, a Martian has no
physical weakness or dread. Come, Dodd, you have not yet acquired the
Martian defiance of accident, disease, or death. You are sneaking back
under the cover of fear for me.'

"His voice seemed peevish. I looked at him with wonder. He leaped past
me, with a forced agility, and sprang on upward. I followed with
lightness born of thought, with which the true Martians move.

"On, on, we sped. The narrowing path carried us up until one of those
gaps I had noticed came in view. Chapman stopped, and then hearing my
approaching steps, ran forward and jumped. His calculation and strength
were yet secure and adequate. He safely passed the first break in the
pathway, and, as I crossed it with a wide leap, we both still sped on
upon an even narrower shelf, which also was more steeply inclined
about the jutting prominences of the rocky cliff.

"The next gap was reached, and now the edge of the succeeding length of
pathway was not only farther away, but higher up. Chapman, I could see
imperfectly, because of a slim projection in my way, had reached the
lower side, and, hesitatingly, drew backward. It was his preparation for
the leap. He launched forward. I rushed precipitately upward, feeling
the air about me vibrating, it seemed, with an impending disaster.
Chapman had landed on the further side of the break, but the cruel,
treacherous rock crumbled beneath his impact, and I saw his staggering
form turning backward. Another instant and his descending body was below
me, plunging to the floor of the abyss. I turned, and then, my son, I
felt the marvel of the mind's creative power over matter. I wished
myself at the bottom of the quarry where Chapman had fallen, and
although the movement of the translation down the pathway seemed
apparent, yet I was scarcely parted from him an instant before I was
standing and leaning over him in a group of astonished workmen, at the
very spot where he lay. He was conscious, but gravely injured. I knelt
beside him, and as I raised his head upon my knee, he looked up, and his
lips moved; at first he was inarticulate, but soon his words became
audible and intelligent.

"'Dodd,' he said, 'this ends me for Mars. Take the papers to the Council
at Scandor. They are in the cabin in my desk. They are sealed. I know
there is a celestial runaway that is going to strike this planet. I
overheard that much at the Patenta. And its direct path, the point of
impingement, will be at Scandor. The fires ascending from Scandor are
signals that they, too, have divined the disaster. I think so at least!
Hurry on! You may see the strangest phenomenon eyes have ever seen. But,
Dodd, enough of that. I am turned down for this world. I was not in
agreement, as the philosophers call it, and the true mental Martian
immunity from accident was not in me. I am injured mortally.'

"He groaned and tried to rise, but his crushed body was incapable. The
Superintendent, Alca, had hurried to the spot where the crowding men
stood around us ejaculating their amazement. Alca tore open the garment
about Chapman, and placing his forehead on the body, poured out as it
were, the full tide of his mental sympathy and power.

"I could see the struggle between the mortality of Chapman, born of
doubt, and his unfittedness and apathy, and the spiritual power of the
brave Superintendent. The flame of life in Chapman would be stimulated
or excited, and then flicker and die down. These alterations lasted but
a short time. Soon Chapman passed into stupor, and then death
supervened, and the strange and seldom known circumstance of death among
the supernaturals in Mars was realized.

"Alca kept the body of Chapman, which would be sent back to the City of
Light, and cremated in the Temple of Glorification--which I have not
seen. He intended to accompany it. He sent me on to Scandor. I had now
learned enough of the Martian language to speak, imperfectly. That
mental facility, which is the amazing and most wonderful thing in Mars,
was perhaps more slowly roused in me. But daily I became known, and more
alert and inflamed with thought and the eager intuition of the Martians.

"We started from the great Quarry of Sinsi, and I was alone with the
Martians on the porcelain boat, now made by this tragic fate the
ambassador from the City of Light to the Council in Scandor.

"The sterile, sinister and yet marvellous region of lava beds, dikes and
conic craters suddenly was passed, and the canal moved into the huge
forest lands of the Ribi wood.

"This is a beautiful land. Mountain ranges rising from four to six
thousand feet cross it, holding broad valleys and plains, or elevated
plateaus between them; lakes and rivers pass through it, and villages
and towns with a mixed population of the supernaturals and the
prehistorics are frequent. The canals cross the great region in many
directions. The trunk line I followed was carried up and down by systems
of locks of astounding magnitude and perfection. Great lakes were made
convenient feeders, and rivers were also tapped to keep the water levels
constant in the canals. The weather was that of a semi-tropical
paradise, and the late flowers of the Ribi filled the air with
fragrance.

"Quickly we approached Scandor. It was a clear, calm day when we emerged
from the Ribi country, and the pilot pointed out to me the distant
hills, almost purple in a twilight haze, which encircled the Valley of
the City of Scandor. The country we had entered was a fertile farm
country, where great plantations of the Rint, and vineyards of the Oma
grapes were established, and where great flocks of the Imilta dove,
almost the only meat eaten by the Martians, are raised. The enormous
flocks of this snow-white bird were strangely beautiful. They made
clouds in the air, and their purring notes when they settled in white
blankets over the fields, were heard pulsating over long distances.

"Finally we came to the last tier of locks at the summit of which my
curiosity was to be satisfied by a view of the great City of Scandor,
the City of Glass.

"It was night when our china boat floated upon the waters of the last
lock that completed the ascent, and immediately below the observatory
Station or Settlement of Scandor. I was standing on the deck of the
boat, watching impatiently the slowly rising tide upon which we were
borne upward. I could at first see as we ascended the towers of the
observatory station. Above me, looking at us with interest, on the walls
of the lock, was a company of Martians. The night was cloudy, and the
lights of the hastening satellites were but intermittently evident.
Gradually my head passed upward beyond the obstructing interference of
wall and gate and fence, and the glorious and unimaginable splendor of
the City of Scandor, like some monstrous continental opal, lay before me
in the immediate valley.

"The glistening panes of water below me marked the places of the
descending line of locks. Around me were the buildings of the Scandor
Observatory, and to the right and left swept the forested slopes of a
circular range which, as I later saw, ranged about in one
amphitheatrical circuit the, great vale of Scandor. But only an
instant's glance could be spared for this detail. The divine City
glowing below me seemed to magnetize attention, and control, through its
wonderfulness each wavering attitude of interest. My son, the eye of man
never beheld so astonishing a picture. Imagine a city reaching twenty
miles in all directions built of glass variously designed, interrupted
by tall towers, pyramids, minarets, steeples, light, fantastic and
beautiful structures, all aflame, or rather softly radiating a variously
colored glory of light.

"Imagine this great area of building, penetrated by broad avenues,
radiating like the spokes of a wheel from a center where rose upward to
the sky a colossal amphitheatre. Imagine these roads, delineated to the
eye by tall chimneys or tubes of glass through which played an electric
current, converting each one into a lambent pillar. Imagine between
these paths of greenish opalescence the squares of buildings of domed,
arched and castellated roofs, pierced and starred, and spread in lines
and patterns of white electric lamps. The noble proportions of the
larger buildings, the graceful outlines of turreted or campanulate
erections, and the smaller houses were all defined. I could see canals
or rivers of water winding through the City spanned by arches of flame,
and even the symmetrical disposition of the dark-leaved trees was
visible.

"But the night was still further turned to day, for above the City, high
in the velvet black empyrean were suspended thousands of glass balloons,
each emitting the Geissler-like illumination that marked the lines of
streets. So full and opulent was the flood of light, that the summit I
had reached, the encircling hills, and the farther side of the
saucer-shaped valley where Scandor lay, were bathed in an equally
diffused radiation.

"But, as if the heavenly marvel might still further startle and amaze
and charm me, from the City rose the swelling chords of choruses;
billows of sound, softened by distance, beat in melodious surges on the
high encompassing lands.

"I stood mute and transfixed. It seemed a beatific vision. If the very
air had been filled with ascending choruses of angels, if the dark
zenith had opened and revealed the throne of the Almighty, it would have
seemed but a congruous and expected climax.

"Long I gazed, and slowly, very slowly became conscious of the great
numbers of people about me, and that they were being augmented by new
arrivals. The porcelain barge I had come in from the City of Light, was
moored now to the side of the lock. I had disembarked, carrying almost
mechanically in my hand, the chest in which the communications from the
Patenta to the Council were locked.

"It was perhaps only a short interval before the pilot woke me from my
trance, saying in Martian: 'This is the Observation Hill of Scandor.
These are Scandor's Observatories. I hear there is seen by the observers
some approaching danger in the heavens. These citizens of Scandor are
crowding from the City to hear the latest reports. There is a messenger
from the Council here waiting on the observers. I will bring him to you,
and you and the messenger can at once be conveyed to the Council.'

"I looked at him speechless, yet unable to again realize I lived and
breathed in another world. It seemed as if a sudden motion, a cry, a
whisper even, would break the chrysalis of sleep about me, and plunge me
into void and nothingness.

"The pilot left me, and I saw him thread his way amongst the lines of
people, moving toward the dark walls of the observatory that covered the
hill. At long intervals rockets rose from the opposite rim of the great
circular ridge around the City, scarring the deep, inky vault about us
with lines of fire. They ascended to an enormous distance. Almost
instantly these were apparently answered by similar rockets in other
colors from the hill I stood on.

"There was a sudden movement about me. The pilot had returned. With him
came the messenger. I flung my absorption from me. I was a Martian. The
light of recognition came back again to my eyes--my tongue was loosened,
my senses accommodated themselves to the stupendous circumstances about
me. I spoke first.

"'Mindo,' (the name of the pilot), 'I am ready to accompany my guide to
the City. Will you go with us?'

"'No! Heboribimo,' (your excellency), 'I must stay at the locks. I shall
descend to the City in the boat to-morrow. This man will bring you to
the canal. I advise haste. There is great excitement and dread in
Scandor. Mars is in the path of a comet.'

"I turned to my guide, a beautiful youth, not dressed as the citizens of
the City of Light, but clothed in a tight fitting doublet of a creamy
blue, with short trunks of yellow, and on his feet were sandals. He
saluted me, and together we descended the broad boulevard between the
widely separated lustres that became more crowded as they massed like a
progressive deepening of color into the eddying splendors of the City
itself.

"Again I realized how swift is motion in Mars. We wished to reach the
City, and we glided to it by the rapid propulsion of desire. The broad
way was filled with lines and groups of peoples clustering to the
hilltop--and over the far-reaching slopes I could see the awaiting
throngs. My guide pointed to the constellation of Perseus, and I could
discern a nebulous mass of considerable diameter from which proceeded a
wisp-like exhalation, just a phantasmal fan of phosphorescence, behind
it.

"The glory of the City fell around us now; we were in its broad streets
beneath the towering pillars of light that framed them in a fence of
splendor. On we pressed, but I glanced from side to side, noting the
great glass houses and buildings, here colonnades of translucent
opalescent beauty, made up of hollow tubes of glass holding an interior
illumination, and clambered over by vines whose expanding leaves formed
a tracery of silhouettes upon their sides.

"Still on, past porticos and under arches, through open forum-like
squares, from which were elevated the great glass globes I have
described, which hung lamp-like in the sky,--past palaces and arcades,
blocks of low stores in iridescent tints, and long, straight fronts of
white opaque buildings, through occasional tunnels into which we
plunged as into a sea of radiance, and on, out, past a few squares of
black umbrageous trees that seemed like dead coals laid on the heat
quivering hearth of a furnace, past minarets of curling, entwined
filagrees of glass threads, past dull or darker areas where the huge
glass factories were built, their forges glowing like Cyclops' eyes in
the night, and from which was produced the colossal sum of manufacture,
which this great City embodied.

"It was a strange bewilderment of marvels, and from it all, as if it
were its interior motive and cause, sprang light. It was electric in
origin, conveyed in some peculiar manner from a great source of power,
in the high falls of Zenapa, near the City. But this I learned later.

"I divined that we were approaching the center of the city. Soon,
indeed, I saw before me the sparkling walls of the amphitheatre I had
descried from the hill of Observation at the locks. Here it is, that the
great plays, the gigantic concerts, the operas, and services of the
Pan-Tan are held. It was a seraphic, astounding picture. It rose in the
midst of a great square of many acres in extent, where the light,
purposely subdued, allowed its dazzling beauty subdued isolation. How
wonderful! I stopped. For one instant, before hurrying on, I gazed upon
a miracle of constructive and decorative art. One hundred columns of red
glass rose upward, and between them was a wall, in tiers of green glass
arches, and on the keystone of each a pink globe of fire. From the
pillars sprang, in an inverted terrace formation, metallic brackets,
carrying gorgeous chandeliers of a red bronze; the largest chandeliers
were at the very upper edge of the building, and the cascade of light
thus shed upon the splendid fabric was indescribably magnificent.

"But there was small time for wonder or examination. We swept on through
the shadowy gardens about it, and my guide quickly brought me to the
Hall of the Council, a low, inconspicuous building of yellow brick, one
of the few discordant architectural notes in the whole city.

"The doors of the single chamber, which embraced all the interior space,
swung open, and I stood on the threshold of a shallow, rectangular
depression, surrounded on all sides with benches, and holding in its
central area a long table, at which, beneath tall lamps, sat, perhaps, a
dozen men and one woman. Opposite to my point of view, in a niche upon
the further wall, was the colossal figure of the Deity I had seen in the
Patenta at the City of Light.

"The faces of the twelve men turned to us as we entered. The herald
announced my errand with the customary salutation of 'Hebori bimo.' I
was invited to descend to the central table. I advanced, and laying
Chapman's chest, with its sealed communications upon the table, spoke:

"'I am a stranger. I have come to your world from the Earth. I bring
news, celestial news, from the astronomers of the City of Light. I had a
companion to whom all this was entrusted.' He was killed in the quarries
of Tiniti. I came on, bidden so to do by Alca, the Superintendent. The
papers of the Wise Men of the Patenta are here.'

"I laid the chest upon the table. My speech was yet unformed, and
perhaps upon the delicate and intellectual faces before me, there dwelt,
with the transient influence of a passing thought, a smile of sympathy
or amusement. Then a young being at the head of the table exclaimed in
Martian:

"'Welcome, stranger. All who come to us are soon made one with
ourselves. The Martian spirit is that of salutation and friendship. We
have heard of the discoveries in the new commotions in planetary space.
Our own astronomers have announced them. This great City of Scandor, the
product of many centuries' toil and invention, is apparently doomed. It
lies in the path, certainly defined and determined by observers, of a
small cometary mass, which will plunge upon it a rain of rock and iron.
Even now this approaching body grows more and more visible in the sky.
The astronomers are working at the problem, hoping some deflection, some
interpositional mercy will carry off this disturbing incidence. But if
we are to be destroyed, if there is no escape from the singular fortune
of annihilation by an inrushing stream of meteoric bodies, then warning,
through proclamation, shall be made, and our citizens will move out of
the city to Asco, and the islands of Pinit.'

"He ceased; upon him the expectant faces of the others, assembled about
the table, were fixed, and a visible tremor of dismay and grief seemed
to convulse them. A few covered their faces with their hands, others
stood up and gazed at the benignant colossus in bronze at the end of the
room, while others, motionless, still maintained their attitude of
attention.

"The presiding officer, with a slight inclination of the body, raised
his hand, and addressing me, said: 'You shall be the guest of our City,
and if it must be that this great capital of Mars must succumb to this
mysterious invasion, if this place, so long a marvel of beauty, shall
be succeeded by a heap of burning stones, then you shall be our
companion in pilgrimage. Remain with us until the end of this strange
circumstance is known.'

"As he finished, a noise of indescribable lamentation from a multitude
of voices broke upon our ears--the sound of running feet and sharp cries
of amazement, crashed in upon the half ominous silence about us.

"I turned instinctively to my guide. He stood statue-like beside me,
with a stealing pallor crossing his face, and then, the doors of the
apartment swung open, and loud voices were heard crying, 'The Peril
comes. Stand forward. To the Hills!'

"Panic, that nameless associated mental terror of the unknown and the
impending, which on Earth spreads fever-like through multitudes, had
arisen amongst the Martians, and hurrying crowds were hastening in a
wild retreat from the City to the hills.

"All thought of the Council, of my errand, or of the new relation I had
been graciously accorded, disappeared from my mind. Frightened by the
sudden premonition of destruction, bewildered by the torrent of new
sensations, and even yet only half confident that my existence in the
new world was altogether real, I was impelled to spring forward.
Reaching the doors, hands shot out around me, and I was swept in the
tide of running forms.

"It was a living stream of manifold complexity. Only for one moment did
I lose consciousness. The next I was struggling to escape from the
spreading tentacles of this involved current. I leaped to the projection
of a low pedestal, upon which an unfinished construction or group of
statues was in progress. Holding my exposed position for an instant, I
wrenched myself clear of the pulsating throngs, and succeeded in gaining
the low summit above me. Here I was free to look around me. My guide was
gone, the Council House was lost to view; I was alone. Below passed the
surging crowd, made up of youths and girls, with few older men or women,
many beautiful, all expressing the Martian distinction, but now
strangely bewildered and uncontrolled. It was a reversed emotional
picture from that buoyant, frenzied throng that a few weeks ago carried
me into the Hall of the Patenta.

"Faces were turned toward the sky, and hands, as if in ejaculation, were
waved up and down, or thrust in significant indices toward that fatal
blurred blot of splendor in the heavens. I followed their direction. The
approaching nebula had grown sensibly since an hour ago. It glittered,
the size of a shield, and a light coruscation seemed emanating from its
edges. The faces of the multitude were justified. The mass above us was
a train of celestial missiles, hurling toward Mars. Its contact seemed
more and more imminent. I felt a nameless terror. The thought of
isolation in this new world, the unknown awfulness of this planetary
disturbance, the sudden extinction of the hopes that were feeding my
heart with a new life, and the forecasting of the impossible agonies of
universal death in this great, strange place I had so wonderfully
entered, overcame me. I fell sobbing to the glassy floor on which I was
standing. It was again a new proof of my assumption of the ecstatic
nature of these children of light and music, impulse and inspiration.

"The convulsion passed. I felt stronger, and was quickened with a keenly
prudent determination to escape from the city, find my way back to the
Hill of Observation, and if possible, send you, my son, my last
experience before all had become silence.

"I could see the regular ascent of the rockets from the distant hill. I
found the streets about me almost emptied, the white, lustrous river of
life had passed. I descended to the pavement. The way past the splendid
Amphitheatre was easily found, and then I hastened, guided by a dumb
instinct of direction, toward the still ascending rockets. I came to
the broad Boulevard which led to the Hill of Observation, and went on,
now plainly controlled by the sweeping avenue of lamps about, and in
front of me.

"I shall not pause to recount the success of my application to the
astronomers to use the transmitters of the wireless telegraphy, which
are as fully perfected here as at the City of Scandor.

"As my message ends, the dawn ascends from the wide margins of the Ribi
country. I am stunned with drowsiness. The Sun's rays have extinguished
the scintillant peril in the skies. But the order has gone forth to
leave the City, to camp upon the hills, the City of Scandor is doomed,
and the area of destruction it embraces is the diametral measure of
the----"

I heard no more. Overcome with fatigue, exposure and increasing
pulmonary weakness, of which I had had painful premonitions, I fainted
at the table, and fell to the floor of the damp and inclement room.

My assistants aver that the transmission ceased almost the next moment
upon my collapse, and the unfinished sentence of my father's message can
be readily understood as implying that the foreign body, or Swarm,
which was destined to strike Mars, had been determined as having about
the amplitude of the City of Scandor.

Days lengthened into weeks, weeks to months, but though unflinchingly
watched by night and day, no further message was received. I had become
weaker, pale and lifeless. The terrible malady made its inroads upon a
frame unable to meet its savage or insidious attacks. This weakness was
aggravated by the excitement produced by the singular experience I had
passed through. My nerves had undergone a strain quite unusual, and the
interior sense of elation, reacting its fits of extreme mental
despondency dislocated my system, and accelerated the gliding virus of
disease inundating the capillaries of circulation and breaking down the
tissues with fever and consumption.



CHAPTER VI.


Miss Dodan came more and more frequently to see me. The thought of my
physical depression, the revulsion of hopelessness over my changing
lineaments made the love I bore her more painful and enervating. I tried
hard to conceal my fears over my condition. But Miss Dodan had been
observant. Her developing affections became daily more tender and
delicate, and her solicitude evinced itself in many charming, thoughtful
ways that added only a more poignant sadness to my sufferings.

I was, indeed, tortured by the conflicting aims life seemed to furnish
me. On the one hand was the necessity of continuing, if I could, my
communications with my father; on the other, the duty I owed myself to
abandon all for the woman I truly loved, and to renovate and establish
my health so that I might woo and win, and marry her.

It was, in a sense, an ethical question, but it was quite as hard to
determine by ordinary arguments whether I could have any permission to
violate my promise to my father, as it was to estimate the exact measure
of my obligations to myself and Miss Dodan. An incident occurred that
dissipated this dilemma, sent Miss Dodan to England, and left me at
Christ Church to receive the last message from my father before the
sickness had fully developed that now has laid its searching and
remorseless veto upon any further life or happiness for me in this
world.

Miss Dodan and myself were seated together upon a bench drawn up in the
sunshine at the foot of the Observatory, watching with delight the
distinct changing sea, the plumes of smoke from diminished steamers, and
the white glory of full-rigged ships. It was the autumn of the southern
country, and the dreamy spell of the declining days fell softly upon the
material tissues of nature, as well as on the acquiescent spirit of man.

"Father," said Miss Dodan, uncertainly, while she formed her hand into
an improvised tube, and looked through it on the peaceful scene at our
feet, "has been telling me of my birthplace in Devonshire. It must be
very beautiful, more beautiful than it is here. But there is no sea, and
it seems to me now that I should die without it; it is the very soul and
voice, too, of all this picture!" She spread out her arms, and half
willfully threw back the one nearest me, until it swept over my head,
and I caught and kissed the opened palm.

"Yes," I replied, "the sea relieves everything about or near it, from
the humiliation of commonness. The stamp of distinction rests on its
printless waves. It was the first surface of the earth, and its primal
regency has never been lost or forfeited;" a suspicion crossed my mind:
"How was it your father spoke of Devonshire. I never knew before that
you came from that pearl of the countries of England. Would you like to
see it?"

My voice half sank, and the hitherto unsuspected fact that Mr. Dodan had
observed my physical danger, and now was planning to interrupt his
daughter's intimacy and hallucination for a poor, failing man,
struggling with an impossible problem, and a mortal malady, seemed
suddenly understood by me. I turned to her a face of questioning
concern. Her eyes were still fixed upon the distant, pulsating sea.
"No," she answered, half nonchalantly. "I suppose not, and yet--why not!
I have only known this country; to cross the great ocean, to see the
capital of the world, to learn the great wonders of its palaces and
temples, to see its multitudes, to see the Queen. Ah! to see the Queen!"

Her hands folded tightly together across her brow, she looked the very
embodiment of reverent expectation, and the blushing roses on her
cheeks, the lovelight in her eyes seemed to deepen for an instant, and
then pale slightly, as she turned to me only to see me bury my head in
my hands, holding back the cry of stifled hope that often before had
leaped to my lips, but never had before so nearly passed them.

"Oh, Bradford," she cried, "would you mind so much! I would soon be back
again. And then, you know, this awful telegraphic work would be over,
and we could be happy together without a thought of that cold, far-away
Mars!"

We talked on together till the dusky night had begun to gather its
shadows about us, and Mars, that marvellous spot of light from whose
untouched continents the waves of magnetic oscillation might even then
be starting on their pathless transit across the abyss of space,
destined for my ear, began to shine above us.

It was clear to me now that Mr. Dodan had been carefully nursing in his
daughter a desire to see England and the Queen, and her own little
birthplace, and that he had formed a resolution to separate us, for his
daughter's best interests, as he thought.

I suffered from a very proud, sensitive nature, perhaps unwholesomely
intensified by the lonely life I had led, and a peculiar sense of my
difference from other people.

This revelation, so unwelcome, so fraught with painful anticipations,
roused my pride to a sharp climax of revolt, disdain and defiance. Miss
Dodan should go,--I should urge it. I would applaud and hasten it, there
would be no weakness, no supplication, no obstacles on my part. Let
death write his inerrant claim to me, let it be recognized; Mr. Dodan
need not be disturbed as to my absolute self-control.

The very acerbity of my coming misery, through Miss Dodan's absence,
fully realized by me, seemed now only to add a desperation of assumed
indifference and gayety to all my actions. I argued against delay, and
dwelt with excellent effect upon the charms of the visit. I assumed that
Miss Dodan needed the change, that the educational value of such an
experience would be incalculable.

Mr. Dodan was frankly surprised and pleased. This unexpected support and
enthusiastic commendation of his plan was something he gratefully
accepted, and he assumed a new manner toward me. He ascribed to me a
power of self-renunciation which won his ardent approval and admiration.

The day was at last fixed. Miss Dodan, young, appreciative, and
curious, was elated at the prospect of the voyage, and, momentarily, at
least, forgot her first reluctance to desert me. The preparations were
all completed. I need not dwell upon all the detail of that last week.
It was a cruel ordeal for me, but no one would have suspected my real
anguish. I seemed the most thoughtful of all, the most naturally buoyant
and hopeful for the success of the trip. I forgot nothing. The telegraph
station was not, however, neglected. I watched at night, and during the
hours of my absence my assistant was persistently present in the tower.

At last the steamer sailed away from the wharf at Port Littelton. The
last moments I passed alone with Miss Dodan were sacred, sweet memories;
all that I have now.

Mr. and Mrs. Dodan and Miss Dodan were waving their handkerchiefs from
the deck as I turned sorrowfully back to Christ Church. I realized that
I had seen Miss Dodan for the last time, and that when she returned to
New Zealand, she would only find me gone. There was but one duty now. To
resume, if possible, the communications with my father, and prepare the
story of my experience and discoveries, and leave it to the world.

I went back to the Observatory. I was again alone. A reaction of
despondency overwhelmed me, and it was coincident with a hemorrhage,
which left me weak and nervous. I resumed my watching at the station. I
seemed to anticipate a new message. I endured peculiar and excruciating
excitement, a tense suspense of desire and prevision that deprived me of
appetite and sleep, and accelerated the ravages of the disease, that
now, victorious over my weakened, nervous force, began the last stages
of its devastating advance.

It was a clear, cold night of exquisite severity and beauty--May 20,
1894, that the third message came from my father. It was announced, as
had been all the others, by the sudden response of the Morse receiver. A
few nights before, grasping at a vague hope that I might again reach him
with the magnetic waves at my command, I had launched into space the
single sentence: "Await me! Death is very near." The message that now
startled my ears began with an exact answer to that trans-abysmal
despatch:

"My son, the thought of your death fills me with happiness. Surely you
will come to this wonderful and unspeakable world, you will see me
again, and I you, but under such new circumstances! My heart yearns for
you immeasurably. Come! Come quickly! To press you to my heart, to speak
with you, to teach you the new things, and Oh! more than all, to bring
you to your mother. For, Tony, she is found; my search is ended. I have
discovered her whom the cruel mystery of Death on earth so sharply
removed from us, in youth and radiance. I have not yet revealed myself.
The joy of anticipation surpasses thought or words. I have hastened back
from seeing her, whom to leave in this paradise imparts the one pang I
have known in this new life, hastened again to the Hill of Observation
that now looks on the cruel ruin, the emptiness of desolation, where
once was the City of Scandor. Let me tell you all:

"When I sent you my last message I was at the Tower of Observation. As
the last wave was emitted from the transmitter, the hand of
Superintendent Alca, whom I met at the mines, was laid upon my shoulder.
I looked up in surprise. He answered my questioning glance: 'I did not
return with Chapman. There was no need of it. A barge going to the City
of Light took the body. I explained everything in a letter to the
Council. I was distressed over the news I had received of the approach
of the cometary mass, which I have detected myself, and I hurried after
you in my own kil-chow (the name of the little porcelain steamers),
anxious to see this terrible thing. Let us go out and watch the wonder.
Whatever happens we shall remain together. I am from Scandor myself,
and though I might have been safer at the mines, I could not stay there
in the crisis.'

"We descended to the ground and walked out over the hillside. The
encircling range of high country about Scandor is, perhaps, one thousand
feet high. Its crest is a low swell, that beyond the city falls away in
broken, irregular slopes to the country of the Ribi on one side, and to
far outstretched plains on almost every other side. This dome was
covered with the people of Scandor, fleeing from the doomed city. The
long lines of moving figures were issuing from the city through its
numerous boulevards, and crowding the spaces on the hilltops. The
astronomers knew exactly now the nature of the approaching mass, its
orbit, spacial extent and weight. Their proclamation had been prepared
and pasted all over the city, announcing its certain destruction, but
that the area of devastation would only embrace the city, that the
cometary visitor was a narrow train or procession of meteors of stone
and iron, that the force of impact would be considerable, enough to
crush to the ground the glassy splendor of the beautiful city, and that
beyond its limits there would be almost no falls.

"Beautiful, indeed, was Scandor in the morning light. It lay before us
shining with a hundred hues. How can I tell you of its exquisite
perfection! Its arrangement expressed a color scheme simple and
effective. The amphitheatre rose in the center, an opalescent yellow;
the boulevards spaced with trees, stretched out in radiating lines from
it, defined by the blue lines of ornamental metal pillars which held the
lamps; from point to point, piercing the air from the shady peaks or
squares shot up also the needles of metal holding the curious electric
globes, while at regular intervals blue domes like gigantic azure
bubbles interrupted the streets of square and colonnaded houses, that
began around the amphitheatre, with pale saffron tones, and grew in
intensity until the edges of the huge populous ellipse were laid like a
deep orange rim upon the green country side. The light falling upon this
reflected, refracted and dispersed, seemed to convert it into a liquid
and faintly throbbing lake of color, cut up into segments by the dark
lanes or streets of trees.

"And this was to be crushed and crumbled to the ground. The houses and
all the constructions are built of glass bricks laid in courses, as with
you on the earth, a soluble glass forming the cement that holds them in
contact and together. The huge glass factories making this formed a
black circle in one part of the City.

"It was now day, and the meteoric nebula was invisible. All day the
people came crowding to the hills. At last, as we gazed in bewildered
admiration at the strange multitudes about us, the sound of distant
music, the organ-like swell of a titanic chorus approaching was heard.
Far away down the boulevard, on whose apex we stood, we saw a marching
retinue of men and women surrounding a platform borne on the shoulders
of men. The platform held the upright figures of the Council amongst
whom, distinguished by a blue chalcal tunic bound about him by yellow
cords, was the noble being I had seen in the Council chamber on the
night of my arrival in Scandor.

"How marvellous it all seemed. The sense of unreality, of dreamland
again overpowered me, a wild horror like some mad possession seized me.
I shook convulsively, and covered my face in my hands, stricken through
and through with a nameless repining misery of doubt, of apprehension,
of dismay. It was the last struggle of readjustment between my memories
of earth, my identity as a man on the earth, and this new life I had
entered. Alca caught me affectionately and placed the acrid bean I had
tasted in the City of Light in my mouth. The black suffocation passed,
and as I slowly returned to realization and serenity I opened my eyes
upon the city, now dead and silent, but blazing with all its lights,
awaiting desolation, dressed in its sumptuous glory like some princely
captive on whom the doom of immolation, before an unappeasable deity,
had suddenly fallen. It was night fall.

"Suddenly a flash, a short piercing note, a loud report, and the sky
above us seemed crowded with glowing missiles. The impact from the first
arrivals of the cometary body upon the outer envelopes of the Martian
atmosphere had begun. A loud shout of attention, surprise and half
extemporized terror rose from the multitudes about us. It was a
breathless moment. The oncoming shoals shot forward in rapid jets of
fire now clouded together in igneous masses, now separated in disjointed
streaks and radiant clusters of snapping, shining bolts.

"As yet the material rushing in upon us failed, in most instances, to
reach the ground in solid forms. It was burned up in the air. The
spectacle was surpassingly strange. The air before us was weaved with
crossing shafts, threads, and traces of phosphorescent light. Behind
this veil still shone with responsive beauty the great city, while
rising occasionally in bursts of color, we could see the alarm rockets
from the opposite hills penetrate the entering flood of light with
frivolous and extinguished protests.

"About half an hour after the glory reached us, and as on all sides the
country shone in spectral illumination, a great mass, decrepitating with
minute explosions along its oncoming side, plunged down upon the noble
amphitheatre of glass. A dreadful sound of crashing stone followed, and
then, rapidly fired from the aerial batteries, came still more of the
dark, half ignited bodies, bathed in hurrying streams of evanescent
blades, and splinters of light.

"And now the destructive bombardment had really begun. The celestial
downpour increased, the valley below us sent upward the detonations of
exploding meteorites and the harsh reverberating crash and overthrow of
glass fabrics. The lights of the city were brokenly extinguished and the
pitiless hail of ruin continued with increasing fierceness.

"It was an awful, glorious scene. The vault of the sky emptying itself
in an avalanche of flame, while from within the wide stream of
projectiles, collisions caused by some accident of deflection originated
interior spots of sudden blazing light. The irregular and separated
shocks of sound from the falling city now ran together in a continuous
roar of dislocated and broken walls, towers, parapets and citadels.
Coruscations sprang out from the yet heated masses, accumulating on the
ground, as they became incessantly struck by new accessions. The ground
trembled with ceaseless fulminations and impingement, the atmosphere
seemed saturated with sulphurous odors, and the panoramic flow of
fluctuating splendor shed a day-like brightness upon the upturned faces
of the startled and stupefied multitude.

"All night long the invasion continued. The area of destruction, exactly
as the astronomers had defined it, was confined to the long elliptical
basin in which Scandor lay. Beyond it hardly a branch upon the trees was
broken, though occasional erratic bombs shot over us and fell miles away
along the borders of the canals.

"As the morning dawned, the shower discontinued, a few laggards fell in
scattering confusion over the prostrate city, and the sun climbing the
eastern sky sent its peaceful reassuring light upon a cairn-like heap of
desolation. The chilled surface of the fallen meteorites were broken up
by areas of glowing cinder-like surfaces. The glittering and opaline
city of glass, the City of Scandor, capital of the Martian world, was
buried beneath the scorching and stony fragments of a minor comet, or
some diminished and wandering meteor train which suddenly issuing from
the unknown depths of space had descended with mathematical precision
upon the treasure city of the planet.

"The Martian legions remained on the hilltops, sombered and silent. The
awful reality, impregnable and drear, before them had changed their
spirit, and they looked into each other's faces with bewilderment.

"I had stayed with Alca throughout the night, and I now turning to him
said:

"'Let us go! What can we do here? Let us walk away for awhile. I am
dizzy with terror.'

"'Yes,' he answered, and tears seemed filling his eyes, 'we will go. We
will walk out into the hill and river country beyond the canal. Many are
wandering over the country now. The farmers will harbor us and the
beauty of the lanes will bring us cheerfulness.'

"And so we went away, hastening with the Martian velocity of motion
until as the sun hung in the zenith, we had reached a hillside sloping
upon a meadow space through which passed the clear but sluggish waters
of a wide stream. A tulip-like grass was distributed in the heavy
luxuriant growth of the meadow, which bore upon pendant threads a blue
bell-like flower. A gentle wind, rising and falling, swept over them,
lifting and blowing out the cups as it passed off to the surface of the
water and printed it with plashes of ripples. A piece of wood pushed out
from the hillside, the trees that formed it struggling out into the
meadow in a broken succession of individuals like a line of men. Here,
leaning against the last tree trunk that stood quite alone in advance of
its companions, was a young woman, her arms folded above the cap--like
the Grecian cassos--that imperfectly held her hair, and dressed in a
yellow tunic and the half seen leggings of meshed chalcal thread--a
lovely picture of meditation.

"I caught Alca's arm in a sudden wave of desire and excitement. It was
the impulse of love, the first burning of its sacred fire I had known in
Mars, and it was the intense certainty of recognition that made it so
impetuous. My Son, your Mother was before me!

"The same glorious beauty I had known on earth covered her, and like a
mystic light shone from her face and person. I was myself again, young,
and she was the same. The impelling sense of a superhuman Destiny
bringing us together again in this new world, forced from me an
ejaculation of thankfulness. The cry was not loud, but audible to her
ears, and she turned toward us. Yes! it was Martha, as I knew her in
those raptured days of love on the banks of the Hudson before disease
and weakness and age had stolen the bloom from her cheeks, the light
from her eyes, and the fair presentiment of charm and perfection from
her body. She did not see me perhaps clearly. Certainly she did not
recognize me. An instant's scrutiny and her face turned again to the
open exposure of hill and field, stream and cloud-flecked sky.

"Alca had observed my gestures of delight, and, perhaps reading my
thoughts by that intuition of mind so wonderful in the Martians, pushed
me toward her gently and moved away from us toward the brink of the
river.

"I stood for a moment hesitating, overwhelmed with the marvel of this
new thing. I stole on, and finally pushing aside the high grown grass,
was at her side--at the side of the very form and feature of the woman
who had taught me on earth the worth of living and the meaning and the
glory of rectitude.

"She was breathing fast, her bosom rising and falling with quick
respirations, and her cheeks flushed with color, made a delicious foil
to the pearly tone of her face, concealed on her neck and forehead by
the escaping tresses of her dark hair.

"I drew back, trembling with anticipation, my heart beating, and my
clasped hands folded on my breast in an agony of restraint. She was
talking, talking to herself in the low musical voice of the Martians.
The wind had ceased, a dark shadow from a crossing cloud moved toward us
from the river over the blue sprinkled field, a haze stole upward from
the farther view, and, bending at the margin of the water the figure of
Alca bathed in light, seemed to watch us like some calm incarnate
response to my own hopes and prayers.

"'How beautiful, how wonderful it is!' her arms dropped from her head,
the body bent forward to the earth, she knelt; 'but must it always be as
it is! Shall not the companion of my days come to this dear place? The
light of sun and moon and stars seems as it always seemed on Earth, but
there does not come to me the divine touch of affection, that intimate
feeling of oneness and self-surrender that was mine with Randolph on the
Earth. A strength unknown to me before, a power of enjoyment, a motion
that is ecstacy, thought, feeling, language, all strong, radiant,
supreme, but yet loneliness! Memory of the things of Earth hardly
remains, except where love prints its firm expression. Randolph, my
husband, and Bradford, my boy, to me are deathless. Why can it not be
that they should be here also? Can the purposes of divine love be
fulfilled by this separation? Shall all the powers of this new life,
this beautiful and sinless Nature be wasted for the want of love which
holds both Nature and the soul in place, in harmony, in adoration of the
One enduring Thought?

"'How the long years have rolled by since I have left the Earth, and
how, amid all the pleasurable things of this serene and hopeful life,
the hidden loneliness has denied it the last completing touch of joy!
Only as I still dare to believe, that the flight of years must end his
aging days on Earth, and that the eternal destiny of married souls is an
eternal union, and that his reincarnation here shall bring us into a new
and better, richer, deeper harmony of mind and tastes and thoughts; only
as the belief grows stronger with passing time, can I, so surrounded
with peace and happiness, in this countryside of quiet work and gentle
cares, bear longer this awful isolation, the nights of prayerful hope,
the days of still enduring hope.

"'How beautiful it is to live, to watch the changing seasons in this
strange new world untouched by sickness or death or sin. And yet,' she
convulsively clasped her face, 'what beauty, what peace, what
sinlessness can replace the only life--the Life of Love?

"'And then my boy! Can it be possible that I may see him! Why, now he
will seem only a brother in this new youth in which I have been born,
and yet--and yet--the mother feeling is unchanged; the old yearning,
just as when I left him a boy upon the Earth seems as great as ever.

"'Oh! when shall this waiting all end in our reunion--father, mother,
son--and all strong and glad in youth and hope?'

"She rose and stretched out her arms toward some phantasy of thought or
fancy in the air above her, and then a song of recall from a distance
floated along the meadow and the river's banks, a sweet, joyous,
beckoning melody, that compelled the ear to listen, and the feet to
follow.

"Martha half turned--I was dazed with wonder--I did not wish to speak. I
could not then have revealed myself. It was all too marvellous, too hard
to comprehend. The old doubts of my reality, of the realness of
everything I had seen, surged up again, and swept over me in a tide of
disillusion.

"Was I dreaming; in the death from Earth had I passed into a wild
phantasmagoria of mental pictures, some endless dream where the lulled
soul encountered again, as visions, all it may have hoped for, all its
unconscious cerebration had limned on the interior canvases of the mind,
to be reviewed, as in a sleep, where every detail met the test of
curiosity--except that last test--waking? Should I awake?

"I sprang forward and beat myself, in a sort of fury of doubt against
the trees about me. The resistance was secure and certain. Pain--it
seemed a kind of bliss, as the guarantee of my flesh and blood
existence--came to me and in my paroxysms the torn skin of my body bled.
I looked at the red stains with exultation. I felt the aches of physical
concussion, with a real rapture.

"This life was real, was dual--body and mind--as on Earth, and the woman
hastening before me along the marge of the rippling stream--I listened
in a kind of feverish anticipation of its silence, for the low cadence
of water passing over pebbles--was Martha! It must be true! What agency
of superhuman cruelty could thus deceive me? No! my eyes were faithful,
and the air, thrilling with the distant song, brought nearer to my ears
the answering call of my wife!

"She was far distant. I ran from tree to tree in the wooded back ground
and traced her to a little hamlet where a group of Martians awaited her.
They turned up a narrow lane singing, and I lost them.

"I returned to Alca, pensively standing on the hill we had first
descended, and said nothing of the strange revelation. I contrived to
learn from him the name of the little village, and the nature of its
inhabitants. He called it Nitansi, and said it had been one of the old
spots where migrating souls from other worlds once entered Mars.

"'A few,' he added, 'come there now, though rarely, and the people
cultivate flowers in great farms, and formerly sent them to Scandor. I
think I saw them moving now along the fields at the riverside. We must
go back. I shall go down the canal to Sinsi. I know the Council of
Scandor will resolve to rebuild the city.'"

The message closed. I rose and staggered backward into the arms of
Jobson. A severe hemorrhage ensued, and slowly thereafter the darkening
doors of life began to close upon me. Disease had won its way against
all the force of life.

It has been my task during these last weeks of life to write this
account of these wonderful experiences, and to leave them to the world
as an assurance--to how many will it give a new delight in living, to
how many will it remove the bitterness of living, to how many may it
bring resignation and hope--that the blight of Death is only an incident
in a continuous renewal of Life.

   (End of Mr. Dodd's MS.)




Note by Mr. August Bixby Dodan.


Mr. Dodd died January 20, 1895. He never recovered from the severe shock
caused by hemorrhage, after receiving the second message from his father
and recorded above. He appreciated the imminence of death acutely, and
struggled to complete, as he has, the narrative of his life. My daughter
was not again seen by Mr. Dodd, though he received several letters from
her, which were found beneath his pillow after his demise.

I was with Mr. Dodd constantly during the latter days of his illness,
and then promised him that I should secure the publication of his
remarkable story.

I am not willing to hazard any conjecture as to the more extraordinary
features of this narrative. I can very positively, however, affirm my
complete confidence in Mr. Dodd's honesty. I knew both his father and
himself very well, and through a long intimacy found them both
consistently conforming to a very high type of character, courage, and
intellectual integrity.

The MS. of Mr. Dodd was handed to me by himself, and I recall with a
pathetic interest his smile of appreciative gratitude as I received it,
and gave him my earnest assurance that it should be printed, and that
the world would be made acquainted with his experiments and their
results.

Mr. Dodd was the residuary legatee of his father, and his own will made
during his last sickness, appointed me as his executor. My daughter was
made his sole heir, with two exceptions; small amounts in favor of his
assistants--Jeb Jobson and Andrew Clarke were mentioned in his will--and
these sums have been paid by myself to each.

A series of extraordinary misfortunes, for which I am myself measurably
to blame, resulted in the complete disappearance of the fortune
inherited by my daughter. Her own death and that of my wife, following
upon this disaster, though in no way connected with it, obliterated--and
here again I admit a very grievous culpability--the remembrance of the
MS. of Mr. Dodd and my own promises as to its publication.

I found the MS. of Mr. Dodd carefully wrapped up at the bottom of a
trunk of papers, and confess that I opened the package it formed with a
bitter sense of self-reproach. Mr. Dodd had expected to publish this
paper in New York, and had requested that it should be forwarded to that
city. I have at last complied with his wishes, and the MS. leaves my
hands, absolutely unchanged, consigned through the kind intervention of
a friend, to a publishing house in that western metropolis. I am unable
to add anything more to this statement, which, in itself, I fear conveys
considerable censure to the undersigned.

            August Bixby Dodan.

       *       *       *       *       *

Note by the Editor.

The MS. alluded to by Mr. Dodan in the preceding paragraphs was safely
brought to New York in 1900, and after a very careful examination,
repeatedly rejected by the prominent publishers to whom it was
submitted.

Through a peculiar accident connected with some negotiations pertaining
to a scientific work, contemplated by the writer, the MS. came into his
hands, and he has been encouraged to publish it, influenced by the
favorable comments of friends upon its intrinsic interest. He also has
added to the work as an appendix, which cannot fail to attract the
attention of many, the views of the great astronomer Schiaparelli upon
the present physical condition of Mars, being the reproduction of an
article by that distinguished observer translated from _Nature et Arte_
for February, 1893, by Prof. William H. Pickering and published in the
Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution
for 1894, published here by permission of "Astronomy and Astro-Physics,"
in which journal it first appeared in Vol. XIII., numbers 8 and 9, for
October and November, 1894. In this report also appeared Schiaparelli's
Map of Mars in 1888, which the Editor has not reproduced in this
connection.

The introduction to-day of the wireless telegraphy, assuming a daily
increasing importance, furnishes some reasonable hope that the
marvellous statements given in Mr. Dodd's narrative may be more widely
verified in the future, and point the way to a realization of the daring
and thrilling conception of interplanetary communication.



THE PLANET MARS.

BY GIOVANNI SCHIAPARELLI.



THE PLANET MARS.

BY GIOVANNI SCHIAPARELLI.


Many of the first astronomers who studied Mars with the telescope had
noted on the outline of its disk two brilliant white spots of rounded
form and of variable size. In process of time it was observed that while
the ordinary spots upon Mars were displaced rapidly in consequence of
its daily rotation, changing in a few hours both their position and
their perspective, the two white spots remained sensibly motionless at
their posts. It was concluded rightly from this that they must occupy
the poles of rotation of the planet, or at least must be found very near
to them. Consequently they were given the name of polar caps or spots.
And not without reason is it conjectured that these represent upon Mars
that immense mass of snow and ice which still to-day prevents navigators
from reaching the poles of the earth. We are led to this conclusion not
only by the analogy of aspect and of place, but also by another
important observation....

As things stand, it is manifest that if the above-mentioned white polar
spots of Mars represent snow and ice they should continue to decrease in
size with the approach of summer in those places and increase during the
winter. Now this very fact is observed in the most evident manner. In
the second half of the year 1892 the southern polar cap was in full
view; during that interval, and especially in the months of July and
August, its rapid diminution from week to week was very evident even to
those observing with common telescopes. This snow (for we may well call
it so), which in the beginning reached as far as latitude 70 degrees and
formed a cap of over 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) in diameter,
progressively diminished, so that two or three months later little more
of it remained than an area of perhaps 300 kilometers (180 miles) at the
most, and still less was seen in the last days of 1892. In these months
the southern hemisphere of Mars had its summer, the summer solstice
occurring upon October 13. Correspondingly the mass of snow surrounding
the northern pole should have increased; but this fact was not
observable, since that pole was situated in the hemisphere of Mars
which was opposite to that facing the earth. The melting of the northern
snow was seen in its turn in the years 1882, 1884 and 1886.

These observations of the alternate increase and decrease of the polar
snows are easily made even with telescopes of moderate power, but they
become much more interesting and instructive when we can follow
assiduously the changes in their more minute particulars, using larger
instruments. The snowy regions are then seen to be successively notched
at their edges; black holes and huge fissures are formed in their
interiors; great isolated pieces many miles in extent stand out from the
principal mass and, dissolving, disappear a little later. In short, the
same divisions and movements of these icy fields present themselves to
us at a glance that occur during the summer of our own arctic regions,
according to the descriptions of explorers.

The southern snow, however, presents this peculiarity: The center of its
irregularly rounded figure does not coincide exactly with the pole, but
is situated at another point, which is nearly always the same, and is
distant from the pole about 300 kilometers (180 miles) in the direction
of the Mare Erythraeum. From this we conclude that when the area of the
snow is reduced to its smallest extent the south pole of Mars is
uncovered, and therefore, perhaps, the problem of reaching it upon this
planet is easier than upon the earth. The southern snow is in the midst
of a huge dark spot, which with its branches occupies nearly one-third
of the whole surface of Mars, and is supposed to represent its principal
ocean. Hence the analogy with our arctic and antarctic snows may be said
to be complete, and especially so with the antarctic one.

The mass of the northern snow cap of Mars is, on the other hand,
centered almost exactly upon its pole. It is located in a region of
yellow color, which we are accustomed to consider as representing the
continent of the planet. From this arises a singular phenomenon which
has no analogy upon the earth. At the melting of the snows accumulated
at that pole during the long night of ten months and more the liquid
mass produced in that operation is diffused around the circumference of
the snowy region, converting a large zone of surrounding land into a
temporary sea and filling all the lower regions. This produces a
gigantic inundation, which has led some observers to suppose the
existence of another ocean in those parts, but which does not really
exist in that place, at least as a permanent sea. We see then (the last
opportunity was in 1884) the white spot of the snow surrounded by a
dark zone, which follows its perimeter in its progressive diminution,
upon a circumference ever more and more narrow. The outer part of this
zone branches out into dark lines, which occupy all the surrounding
region, and seem to be distributary canals by which the liquid mass may
return to its natural position. This produces in these regions very
extensive lakes, such as that designated upon the map by the name of
Lacus Hyperboreus; the neighboring interior sea called Mare Acidalium
becomes more black and more conspicuous. And it is to be remembered as a
very probable thing that the flowing of this melted snow is the cause
which determines principally the hydrographic state of the planet and
the variations that are periodically observed in its aspect. Something
similar would be seen upon the earth if one of our poles came to be
located suddenly in the center of Asia or of Africa. As things stand at
present, we may find a miniature image of these conditions in the
flooding that is observed in our streams at the melting of the Alpine
snows.

Travellers in the arctic regions have frequent occasion to observe how
the state of the polar ice at the beginning of the summer, and even at
the beginning of July, is always very unfavorable to their progress.
The best season for exploration is in the month of August, and September
is the month in which the trouble from ice is the least. Thus in
September our Alps are usually more practicable than at any other
season. And the reason for it is clear--the melting of the snow requires
time; a high temperature is not sufficient; it is necessary that it
should continue, and its effect will be so much the greater, as it is
the more prolonged. Thus, if we could slow down the course of our season
so that each month should last sixty days instead of thirty, in the
summer, in such a lengthened condition, the melting of the ice would
progress much further, and perhaps it would not be an exaggeration to
say that the polar cap at the end of the warm season would be entirely
destroyed. But one cannot doubt, in such a case, that the fixed portion
of such a cap would be reduced to a much smaller size, than we see it
to-day. Now, this is exactly what happens to Mars. The long year, nearly
double our own, permits the ice to accumulate during the polar night of
ten or twelve months, so as to descend in the form of a continuous layer
as far as parallel 70 degrees, or even farther. But in the day which
follows, of twelve or ten months, the sun has time to melt all, or
nearly all, of the snow of recent formation, reducing it to such a
small area that it seems to us no more than a very white point. And
perhaps this snow is entirely destroyed; but of this there is at present
no satisfactory observation.

Other white spots of a transitory character and of a less regular
arrangement are formed in the southern hemisphere upon the islands near
the pole, and also in the opposite hemisphere whitish regions appear at
times surrounding the north pole and reaching to 50 degrees and 55
degrees of latitude. They are, perhaps, transitory snows, similar to
those which are observed in our latitudes. But also in the torrid zone
of Mars are seen some very small white spots more or less persistent;
among others one was seen by me in three consecutive oppositions
(1877-1882) at the point indicated upon our chart by longitude 268
degrees and latitude 16 degrees north. Perhaps we may be permitted to
imagine in this place the existence of a mountain capable of supporting
extensive ice fields. The existence of such a mountain has also been
suggested by some recent observers upon other grounds.

As has been stated, the polar snows of Mars prove in an incontrovertible
manner that this planet, like the earth, is surrounded by an atmosphere
capable of transporting vapor, from one place to another. These snows
are, in fact, precipitations of vapor, condensed by the cold, and
carried with it successively. How carried with it if not by atmospheric
movement? The existence of an atmosphere charged with vapor has been
confirmed also by spectroscopic observations, principally those of
Vogel, according to which this atmosphere must be of a composition
differing little from our own, and above all, very rich in aqueous
vapor. This is a fact of the highest importance because from it we can
rightly affirm with much probability that to water and to no other
liquid is due the seas of Mars and its polar snows. When this conclusion
is assured beyond all doubt another one may be derived from it of not
less importance--that the temperature of the Arean climate
notwithstanding the greater distance of that planet from the sun, is of
the same order as the temperature of the terrestrial one. Because, if it
were true, as has been supposed by some investigators, that the
temperature of Mars was on the average very low (from 50 degrees to 60
degrees below zero), it would not be possible for water vapor to be an
important element in the atmosphere of that planet nor could Water be an
important factor in its physical changes, but would give place to
carbonic acid, or to some other liquid whose freezing point was much
lower.

The elements of the meteorology of Mars seem, then, to have a close
analogy to those of the earth. But there are not lacking, as might be
expected, causes of dissimilarity. From circumstances of the smallest
moment nature brings forth an infinite variety in its operations. Of the
greatest influence must be different arrangement of the seas and the
continents upon Mars and upon the earth, regarding which a glance at the
map will say more than would be possible in many words. We have already
emphasized the fact of the extraordinary periodical flood, which at
every revolution of Mars inundates the northern polar region at the
melting of the snow. Let us now add that this inundation is spread out
to a great distance by means of a network of canals, perhaps
constituting the principal mechanism (if not the only one) by which
water (and with it organic life) may be diffused over the arid surface
of the planet. Because on Mars it rains very rarely, or perhaps even it
does not rain at all. And this is the proof.

Let us carry ourselves in imagination into celestial space, to a point
so distant from the earth that we may embrace it all at a single glance.
He would be greatly in error who had expected to see reproduced there
upon a great scale the image of our continents with their gulfs and
islands and with the seas that surround them which are seen upon our
artificial globes. Then without doubt the known forms or parts of them
would be seen to appear under a vaporous veil, but a great part (perhaps
one-half) of the surface would be rendered invisible by the immense
fields of cloud, continually varying in density, in form, and in extent.
Such a hindrance, most frequent and continuous in the polar regions,
would still impede nearly half the time the view of the temperate zones,
distributing itself in capricious and ever varying configurations. The
seas of the torrid zone would be seen to be arranged in long parallel
layers, corresponding to the zone of the equatorial and tropical calms.
For an observer placed upon the moon the study of our geography would
not be so simple an undertaking as one might at first imagine.

There is nothing of this sort in Mars. In every climate and under every
zone its atmosphere is nearly perpetually clear and sufficiently
transparent to permit one to recognize at any moment whatever the
contours of the seas and continents, and, more than that, even the minor
configurations. Not indeed that vapors of a certain degree of opacity
are lacking, but they offer very little impediment to the study of the
topography of the planet. Here and there we see appear from time to time
a few whitish spots, changing their position and their form, rarely
extending over a very wide area. They frequent by preference a few
regions, such as the islands of the Mare Australe, and on the continents
the regions designated on the map with the names of Elysium and Tempe.
Their brilliancy generally diminishes and disappears at the meridian
hour of the place, and is re-enforced in the morning and evening with
very marked variations. It is possible that they may be layers of clouds
because the upper portions of terrestrial clouds where they are
illuminated by the sun appear white. But various observations lead us to
think that we are dealing rather with a thin veil of fog instead of a
true nimbus cloud, carrying storms and rain. Indeed, it may be merely a
temporary condensation of vapor under the form of dew or hoar frost.

Accordingly, as far as we may be permitted to argue from the observed
facts, the climate of Mars must resemble that of a clear day upon a high
mountain. By day a very strong solar radiation, hardly mitigated at all
by mist or vapor; by night a copious radiation from the soil toward
celestial space, and because of that a very marked refrigeration. Hence
a climate of extremes, and great changes of temperature from day to
night, and from one season to another. And as on the earth at altitudes
of 5,000 and 6,000 meters (17,000 to 20,000 feet) the vapor of the
atmosphere is condensed only into the solid form, producing those
whitish masses of suspended crystals which we call cirrus clouds, so in
the atmosphere of Mars it would be rarely possible (or would even be
impossible) to find collections of cloud capable of producing rain of
any consequence. The variation of the temperature from one season to
another would be notably increased by their long duration, and thus we
can understand the great freezing and melting of the snow which is
renewed in turn at the poles at each complete revolution of the planet
around the sun.

As our chart demonstrates, in its general topography Mars does not
present any analogy with the earth. A third of its surface is occupied
by the great Mare Australe, which is strewn with many islands, and the
continents are cut up by gulfs, and ramifications of various forms. To
the general water system belongs an entire series of small internal
seas, of which the Hadriacum and the Tyrrhenum communicate with it by
wide mouths, whilst the Cimmerium, the Sirenum, and the Solis Lacus are
connected with it only by means of narrow canals. We shall notice in
the first four a parallel arrangement, which certainly is not
accidental, as also not without reason is the corresponding position of
the peninsulas of Ausonia, Hesperia, and Atlantis. The color of the seas
of Mars is generally brown, mixed with gray, but not always of equal
intensity in all places, nor is it the same in the same place at all
times. From an absolute black it may descend to a light-gray or to an
ash color. Such a diversity of colors may have its origin in various
causes, and is not without analogy also upon the earth, where it is
noted that the seas of the warm zone are usually much darker than those
nearer the pole. The water of the Baltic, for example, has a light,
muddy color that is not observed in the Mediterranean. And thus in the
seas of Mars we see the color become darker when the sun approaches
their zenith, and summer begins to rule in that region.

All of the remainder of the planet, as far as the north pole is occupied
by the mass of the continents, in which, save in a few areas of
relatively small extent, an orange color predominates, which sometimes
reaches a dark red tint, and in others descends to yellow and white. The
variety in this coloring is in part of meteorological origin, in part it
may depend on the diverse nature of the soil, but upon its real cause
it is not as yet possible to frame any very well grounded hypothesis.
Nevertheless, the cause of this predominance of the red and yellow tints
upon the surface of ancient Pyrois is well known.[A] Some have thought
to attribute this coloring to the atmosphere of Mars, through which the
surface of the planet might be seen colored, as any terrestrial object
becomes red when seen through red glass. But many facts are opposed to
this idea, among others that the polar snows appear always of the purest
white, although the rays of light derived from them traverse twice the
atmosphere of Mars under great obliquity. We must then conclude that the
Arean continents appear red and yellow because they are so in fact.

Besides these dark and light regions, which we have described as seas
and continents, and of whose nature there is at present scarcely left
any room for doubt, some others exist, truly of small extent, of an
amphibious nature, which sometimes appear yellowish like the continents,
and are sometimes clothed in brown (even black in certain cases), and
assume the appearance of seas, whilst in other cases their color is
intermediate in tint, and leaves us in doubt to which class of regions
they may belong. Thus all the islands scattered through the Mare
Australe and the Mare ErythrŠum belong to this category; so, too, the
long peninsula called Deucalionis Regio and Pyrrhae Regio, and in the
vicinity of the Mare Acidalium the regions designated by the names of
Baltia and Nerigos. The most natural idea, and the one to which we
should be led by analogy, is to suppose these regions to represent huge
swamps, in which the variation in depth of the water produces the
diversity of colors. Yellow would predominate in those parts where the
depth of the liquid layer was reduced to little or nothing, and brown,
more or less dark, in those places where the water was sufficiently deep
to absorb more light and to render the bottom more or less invisible.
That the water of the sea, or any other deep and transparent water, seen
from above, appears more dark the greater the depth of the liquid
stratum, and that the land in comparison with it appears bright under
the solar illumination, is known and confirmed by certain physical
reasons. The traveler in the Alps often has occasion to convince himself
of it, seeing from the summits the deep lakes with which the region is
strewn extending under his feet as black as ink, whilst in contrast with
them even the blackest rocks illumined by the sunlight appeared
brilliant.[B]

Not without reason, then, have we hitherto attributed to the dark spots
of Mars the part of seas, and that of continents to the reddish areas
which occupy nearly two-thirds of all the planet, and we shall find
later other reasons which confirm this method of reasoning. The
continents form in the northern hemisphere a nearly continuous mass, the
only important exception being the great lake called the Mare Acidalium,
of which the extent may vary according to the time, and which is
connected in some way with the inundations which we have said were
produced by the melting of the snow surrounding the north pole. To the
system of the Mare Acidalium undoubtedly belong the temporary lake
called Lacus Hyperboreus and the Lacus Niliacus. This last is ordinarily
separated from the Mare Acidalium by means of an isthmus or regular dam,
of which the continuity was only seen to be broken once for a short time
in 1888. Other smaller dark spots are found here and there in the
continental area which we may designate as lakes, but they are certainly
not permanent lakes like ours, but are variable in appearance and size
according to the seasons, to the point of wholly disappearing under
certain circumstances. Ismenius Lacus, Lunae Lacus, Trivium Charontis,
and Propontis are the most conspicuous and durable ones. There are also
smaller ones, such as Lacus Moeris and Fons Juventae, which at their
maximum size do not exceed 100 to 150 kilometers (60 to 90 miles) in
diameter, and are among the most difficult objects upon the planet.

All the vast extent of the continents is furrowed upon every side by a
network of numerous lines or fine stripes of a more or less pronounced
dark color, whose aspect is very variable. These traverse the planet for
long distances in regular lines that do not at all resemble the winding
courses of our streams. Some of the shorter ones do not reach 500
kilometers (300 miles), others, on the other hand, extend for many
thousands, occupying a quarter or sometimes even a third of a
circumference of the planet. Some of these are very easy to see,
especially that one which is near the extreme left-hand limit of our map
and is designated by the name of Nilosyrtis. Others in turn are
extremely difficult, and resemble the finest thread of spider's web
drawn across the disk. They are subject also to great variations in
their breadth, which may reach 200 or even 300 kilometers (120 to 180
miles) for the Nilosyrtis, whilst some are scarcely 30 kilometers (18
miles) broad.

These lines or stripes are the famous canals of Mars, of which so much
has been said. As far as we have been able to observe them hitherto,
they are certainly fixed configurations upon the planet. The Nilosyrtis
has been seen in that place for nearly one hundred years, and some of
the others for at least thirty years. Their length and arrangement are
constant, or vary only between very narrow limits. Each of them always
begins and ends between the same regions. But their appearance and their
degree of visibility vary greatly, for all of them, from one opposition
to another, and even from one week to another, and these variations do
not take place simultaneously and according to the same laws for all,
but in most cases happen apparently capriciously, or at least according
to laws not sufficiently simple for us to be able to unravel. Often one
or more become indistinct, or even wholly invisible, whilst others in
their vicinity increase to the point of becoming conspicuous even in
telescopes of moderate power. The first of our maps shows all those that
have been seen in a long series of observations. This does not at all
correspond to the appearance of Mars at any given period, because
generally only a few are visible at once.[C]

Every canal (for now we shall so call them) opens at its ends either
into a sea, or into a lake, or into another canal, or else into the
intersection of several other canals. None of them have yet been seen
cut off in the middle of the continent, remaining without beginning or
without end. This fact is of the highest importance. The canals may
intersect among themselves at all possible angles, but by preference
they converge toward the small spots to which we have given the name of
lakes. For example, seven are seen to converge in Lacus Phoenicis,
eight in Trivium Charontis, six in Lunae Lacus, and six in Ismenius
Lacus.

The normal appearance of a canal is that of a nearly uniform stripe,
black, or at least of a dark color, similar to that of the seas, in
which the regularity of its general course does not exclude small
variations in its breadth and small sinuosities in its two sides. Often
it happens that such a dark line opening out upon the sea is enlarged
into the form of a trumpet, forming a huge bay, similar to the estuaries
of certain terrestrial streams. The Margaritifer Sinus, the Aonius
Sinus, the Aurorae Sinus, and the two horns of the SabŠus Sinus are thus
formed, at the mouths of one or more canals, opening into the Mare
Erythraeum or into the Mare Australe. The largest example of such a gulf
is the Syrtis Major, formed by the vast mouth of the Nilosyrtis, so
called. This gulf is not less than 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) in
breadth, and attains nearly the same depth in a longitudinal direction.
Its surface is little less than that of the Bay of Bengal. In this case
we see clearly the dark surface of the sea continued without apparent
interruption into that canal. Inasmuch as the surfaces called seas are
truly a liquid expanse, we cannot doubt that the canals are a simple
prolongation of them, crossing the yellow areas or continents.

Of the remainder, that the lines called canals are truly great furrows
or depressions in the surface of the planet, destined for the passage of
the liquid mass and constituting for it a true hydrographic system, is
demonstrated by the phenomena which are observed during the melting of
the northern snows. We have already remarked that at the time of melting
they appear surrounded by a dark zone, forming a species of temporary
sea. At that time the canals of the surrounding region become blacker
and wider, increasing to the point of converting at a certain time all
of the yellow region comprised between the edge of the snow and the
parallel of 60 degrees north latitude into numerous islands of small
extent. Such a state of things does not cease until the snow, reduced to
its minimum area, ceases to melt. Then the breadth of the canals
diminishes, the temporary sea disappears, and the yellow region again
returns to its former area. The different phases of these vast phenomena
are renewed at each return of the seasons, and we were able to observe
them in all their particulars very easily during the oppositions of
1882, 1884, and 1886, when the planet presented its northern pole to
terrestrial spectators. The most natural and the most simple
interpretation is that to which we have referred, of a great inundation
produced by the melting of the snows; it is entirely logical and is
sustained by evident analogy with terrestrial phenomena. We conclude,
therefore, that the canals are such in fact and not only in name. The
network formed by these was probably determined in its origin in the
geological state of the planet, and has come to be slowly elaborated in
the course of centuries. It is not necessary to suppose them the work of
intelligent beings, and, notwithstanding the almost geometrical
appearance of all of their system, we are now inclined to believe them
to be produced by the evolution of the planet, just as on the earth we
have the English Channel and the channel of Mozambique.

It would be a problem not less curious than complicated and difficult to
study the system of this immense stream of water, upon which perhaps
depends principally the organic life upon the planet, if organic life is
found there. The variations of their appearance demonstrated that this
system is not constant. When they become displaced or their outlines
become doubtful and ill defined, it is fair to suppose that the water is
getting low or is even entirely dried up. Then, in place of the canals
there remains either nothing or at most stripes of yellowish color
differing little from the surrounding background. Sometimes they take on
a nebulous appearance, for which at present it is not possible to assign
a reason. At other times true enlargements are produced, expanding to
100, 200 or more kilometers (60 to 120 miles) in breadth, and this
sometimes happens for canals very far from the north pole, according to
laws which are unknown. This occurred in Hydaspes in 1864, in Simois in
1879, in Ackeron in 1884, and in Triton in 1888. The diligent and minute
study of the transformations of each canal may lead later to a knowledge
of the causes of these effects.

But the most surprising phenomenon pertaining to the canals of Mars is
their germination, which seems to occur principally in the months which
precede and in those which follow the great northern inundation--at
about the times of the equinoxes. In consequence of a rapid process,
which certainly lasts at most a few days, or even perhaps, only a few
hours, and of which it has not yet been possible to determine the
particulars with certainty, a given canal changes its appearance and is
found transformed through all its length into two lines or uniform
stripes more or less parallel to one another, and which run straight and
equal with the exact geometrical precision of the two rails of a
railroad. But this exact course is the only point of resemblance with
the rails, because in dimensions there is no comparison possible, as it
is easy to imagine. These two lines follow very nearly the direction of
the original canal and end in the place where it ended. One of these is
often superposed as exactly as possible upon the former line, the other
being drawn anew; but in this case the original line loses all the small
irregularities and curvature that it may have originally possessed. But
it also happens that both the lines may occupy opposite sides of the'
former canal and be located upon entirely new ground. The distance
between the two lines differs in different germinations and varies from
600 kilometers (360 miles) and more down to the smallest limit at which
two lines may appear separated in large visual telescopes--less than at
intervals of 50 kilometers (30 miles). The breadth of the stripes
themselves may range from the limit of visibility, which we may suppose
to be 30 kilometers (18 miles), up to more than 100 kilometers (60
miles). The color of the two lines varies from black to a light red,
which can hardly be distinguished from the general yellow background of
the continental surface. The space between is for the most part yellow,
but in many cases appears whitish. The gemination is not necessarily
confined only to the canals, but tends to be produced also in the
lakes. Often one of these is seen transformed into two short, broad,
dark lines parallel to one another and traversed by a yellow line. In
these cases the gemination is naturally short and does not exceed the
limits of the original lake.

The gemination is not shown by all at the same time, but when the season
is at hand it begins to be produced here and there, in an isolated,
irregular manner, or at least without any easily recognizable order. In
many canals (such as the Nilosyrtis, for example), the gemination is
lacking entirely, or is scarcely visible. After having lasted for some
months, the markings fade out gradually and disappear until another
season equally favorable for their formation. Thus it happens that in
certain other seasons (especially near the southern solstice of the
planet) few are seen, or even none at all. In different oppositions the
gemination of the same canal may present different appearances as to
width, intensity, and arrangement of the two stripes; also in some cases
the direction of the lines may vary, although by the smallest quantity,
but still deviating by a small amount from the canal with which they are
directly associated. From this important fact it is immediately
understood that the gemination cannot be a fixed formation upon the
surface of Mars and of a geographical character like the canals. The
second of our maps will give an approximate idea of the appearance which
these singular formations present. It contains all the geminations
observed since 1882 up to the present time. In examining it it is
necessary to bear in mind that not all of these appearances were
simultaneous, and consequently that the map does not represent the
condition of Mars at any given period; it is only a sort of
topographical register of the observations made of this phenomenon at
different times.[D]

The observation of the gemination is one of the greatest difficulty, and
can only be made by an eye well practiced in such work, added to a
telescope of accurate construction and of great power. This explains why
it is that it was not seen before 1882. In the ten years that have
transpired since that time, it has been seen and described at eight or
ten observatories. Nevertheless, some still deny that these phenomena
are real, and tax with illusion (or even imposture) those who declare
that they have observed it.

Their singular aspect, and their being drawn with absolute geometrical
precision, as if they were the work of rule or compass, has led some to
see in them the work of intelligent beings, inhabitants of the planet. I
am very careful not to combat this supposition, which includes nothing
impossible. (Io mi guarder˛ bene dal combattere questa supposizione, la
quale nulla include d'impossibile.) But it will be noticed that in any
case the gemination cannot be a work of permanent character, it being
certain that in a given instance it may change its appearance and
dimensions from one season to another. If we should assume such a work,
a certain variability would not be excluded from it; for example,
extensive agricultural labor and irrigation upon a large scale. Let us
add, further, that the intervention of intelligent beings might explain
the geometrical appearance of the gemination, but it is not at all
necessary for such a purpose. The geometry of nature is manifested in
many other facts from which are excluded the idea of any artificial
labor whatever. The perfect spheroids of the heavenly bodies and the
ring of Saturn were not constructed in a turning lathe, and not with
compasses has Iris described within the clouds her beautiful and regular
arch. And what shall we say of the infinite variety of those exquisite
and regular polyhedrons in which the world of crystals is so rich? In
the organic world, also, is not that geometry most wonderful which
presides over the distribution of the foliage upon certain plants, which
orders the nearly symmetrical, star-like figures of the flowers of the
field, as well as of the sea, and which produces in the shell such an
exquisite conical spiral that excels the most beautiful masterpieces of
Gothic architecture? In all these objects the geometrical form is the
simple and necessary consequence of the principles and laws which govern
the physical and physiological world. That these principles and these
laws are but an indication of a higher intelligent Power we may admit,
but this has nothing to do with the present argument.

Having regard, then, for the principle that in the explanation of
natural phenomena it is universally agreed to begin with the simplest
suppositions, the first hypotheses of the nature and cause of the
geminations have for the most part put in operation only the laws of
inorganic nature. Thus, the gemination is supposed to be due either to
the effects of light in the atmosphere of Mars, or to optical illusions
produced by vapors in various manners, or to glacial phenomena of a
perpetual winter, to which it is known all the planets will be
condemned, or to double cracks in its surface, or to single cracks of
which the images are doubled by the effect of smoke issuing in long
lines and blown laterally by the wind. The examination of these
ingenious suppositions leads us to conclude that none of them seem to
correspond entirely with the observed facts, either in whole or in part.
Some of these hypotheses would not have been proposed had their authors
been able to examine the geminations with their own eyes. Since some of
these may ask me directly, "Can you suggest anything better?" I must
reply candidly, "No."

It would be far more easy if we were willing to introduce the forces
pertaining to organic nature. Here the field of plausible supposition is
immense, being capable of making an infinite number of combinations
capable of satisfying the appearances even with the smallest and
simplest means. Changes of vegetation over a vast area, and the
production of animals, also very small, but in enormous multitudes, may
well be rendered visible at such a distance. An observer placed in the
moon would be able to see such an appearance at the times in which
agricultural operations are carried out upon one vast plain--the
seed-time and the gathering of the harvest. In such a manner also would
the flowers of the plants of the great steppes of Europe and Asia be
rendered visible at the distance of Mars--by a variety of coloring. A
similar system of operations produced in that planet may thus certainly
be rendered visible to us. But how difficult for the Lunarians and the
Areans to be able to imagine the true causes of such changes of
appearance without having first at least some superficial knowledge of
terrestrial nature! So also for us, who know so little of the physical
state of Mars, and nothing of its organic world, the great liberty of
possible supposition renders arbitrary all explanations of this sort and
constitutes the gravest obstacle to the acquisition of well-founded
notions. All that we may hope is that with time the uncertainty of the
problem will gradually diminish, demonstrating if not what the
geminations are, at least what they cannot be. We may also confide a
little in what Galileo called "the courtesy of nature," thanks to which
a ray of light from an unexpected source will sometimes illuminate an
investigation at first believed inaccessible to our speculations, and of
which we have a beautiful example in celestial chemistry. Let us
therefore hope and study.


FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: Pyrois I take to be some terrestrial region, although I
have not been able to find any translation of the name.--Translator.]

[Footnote B: This observation of the dark color which deep water
exhibits when seen from above is found already noted by the first author
of antique memory, for in the Iliad (verses 770-771 of Book V) it is
described how "the sentinel from the high sentry box extends his glance
over the wine-colored sea, [Greek: _oinopa phonton_]." In the version of
Monti the adjective indicating the color is lost.]

[Footnote C: In a footnote the author refers to a drawing of Mars made
by himself, September 15, 1892, and says, ... "At the top of the disk
the Mare Erythraeum and the Mare Australe appear divided by a great
curved peninsula, shaped like a sickle, producing an unusual appearance
in the area called Deucalionis Regio, which was prolonged that year so
as to reach the islands of Noachis and Argyre. This region forms with
them a continuous whole, but with faint traces of separation occurring
here and there in a length of nearly 6,000 kilometers (4,000 miles). Its
color, much less brilliant than that of the continents, was a mixture of
their yellow with the brownish gray of the neighboring seas." The
interesting feature of this note is the remark that it was an unusual
appearance, the region referred to being that in which the central
branch of the fork of the Y appeared. Since no such branch was
conspicuously visible this year, it would therefore seem from the above
that it was the opposition of 1892 that was peculiar, and not the
present one.--Translator.]

[Footnote D: This map may be found also in La PlanŔte Mars, by
Flammarion, page 44.--Translator.]












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