THE CERTAINTY 
 OF A FUTURE LIFE 
 
 IN MARS 
 
DUKE UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 The Glenn Negley Collection 
 of Utopian Literature 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 http ://www. arch i ve . o rg/detai Is/ce rtai ntyof f utu rOOg rat 
 
r 
 
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 
 
 Washington NSW YORK 
 
Copyright, 1903, by 
 I,. P. GRATACAP 
 
 Publnhed in April, 1903 
 
PREFACE BY EDITOR. 
 
 The extraordinary character of the story 
 here published, which some peculiar circum- 
 stances have fortunately, I think, put into my 
 hands, will excite a curiosity as vivid as the 
 incidents of the narratives are themselves as- 
 tonishing 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 pa- 
 per came into my possession. 
 
 It was written by Bradford Torrey Dodd, 
 who died at Christ Church, New Zealand, Jan- 
 uary, 1895, after a lingering illness in which 
 consumption developed, which was attributed 
 to the exposure he had experienced in receiv- 
 ing some of the wireless messages his singu- 
 lar history details. I was not acquainted with 
 Mr. Dodd, but some information, acquired 
 since the reception of his manuscript, has com- 
 pletely satisfied me, that, however interpreted, 
 Mr. Dodd did not intend in it the perpetration 
 
 Rf- 
 
iv 
 
 of a hoax. His scientific ability was undoubt- 
 edly 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 real- 
 ity; 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 useful- 
 ness 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 distinc- 
 tion as the first to open this marvelous field 
 of investigation will have been honorably and 
 invincibly protected. 
 
 L. P. GRATACAP. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Posthumous Papers of Bradford Torrey 
 
 Dodd 9 
 
 Note by Mr. August Bixby Dodan 230 
 
 Note by the Editor 232 
 
 The Planet Mars — By Giovanni Schiapa- 
 
 relli 237 
 
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 experi- 
 ments, I have, in view of certain hitherto un- 
 published facts, decided to make public almost 
 
10 
 
 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 de- 
 scribe 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 anx- 
 ieties about any material cares, and left him 
 to pursue the bent of his inclination. He be- 
 came greatly interested in physical science, 
 and was also a patron of the liberal arts. His 
 home was stored with the most beautiful prod- 
 ucts of the manufacturer's skill in fictile arts, 
 and on its walls hung the most approved ex- 
 amples of the painter's skill. The looms of 
 Holland and France and England furnished 
 him with their delicate and sumptuous tapes- 
 tries, and the Orient covered his floors with 
 the richest and most prized carpets of Daghcs- 
 tan and Trebizond, and of Bokhara. 
 
 But even more marked than his love for art 
 v/as his passion for physical science. His op- 
 portunities 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 ex- 
 
11 
 
 periments were made in a large building which 
 was especially built for this object. It con- 
 tained every facility for his various new de- 
 signs, 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 teleg- 
 raphy, which has been the instrumentality by 
 which my own researches in the field of inter- 
 planetary 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 re- 
 tirement 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 com- 
 panion in science, and her own just and well 
 regulated taste constantly furnished him new 
 
12 
 
 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 doc- 
 tors 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 hall- 
 way 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 be- 
 ing kissed by her and then being led from the 
 room by the nurse. My father doubtless lin- 
 gered until all was over, and the dear asso- 
 ciate of his life, whose tenderness and charity 
 had made all who approached her grateful, 
 whose genial and appreciative mind had sup- 
 plied 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 tern- 
 
13 
 
 porarily driven into a sort of madness, wan- 
 dered 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 bit- 
 terness of his spirit, and he reluctantly con- 
 cluded to abandon his home. His own 
 thoughts had not as yet clearly formed any de- 
 cision in his mind as to where he would go 
 or what he would do. It was inevitable, how- 
 ever, that he should revert to his scientific in- 
 vestigations. 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 medita- 
 tion 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 
 
14 
 
 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, com- 
 municating 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 
 
15 
 
 zenith. I was then ahout 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 rea- 
 sonable 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.: 
 
16 
 
 "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 mag- 
 nificent, 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 ex- 
 change, 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 be- 
 longs. 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, 
 
17 
 
 improve little by little, from one animal to 
 another, and at last become incarnated in a 
 human body. See, a little later, the superhu- 
 man 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 un- 
 broken 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 evi- 
 dently 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 re- 
 course 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 
 
18 
 
 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 prema- 
 ture announcement of the solution of the in- 
 candescent system of lighting had then pre- 
 ceded 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 Elec- 
 tric Lighting Company over the Mayor's veto 
 in words that may be read to-day with con- 
 siderable interest. It said "the company will 
 proceed immediately to introduce its new elec- 
 tric 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 build- 
 ings." 
 
19 
 
 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 Irv- 
 ington were almost all lit by electric lamps 
 constructed somewhat on the principle of Edi- 
 son'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 pro- 
 jects 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 be- 
 fore the Society of Telegraph Engineers in 
 
80 
 
 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 ingenu- 
 ity was his improvements of the dynamo and 
 the invention of a new successful small trac- 
 tion engine. 
 
 In 1880 the complete distinction between al- 
 ternating and direct currents had not been 
 made, and the device of a successful converter, 
 for the change of the former comparatively in- 
 ert to the latter's dynamic condition, only 
 dreamed of. Yet in my father's notebook I 
 find this suggestive sentence : "It seems possi- 
 ble to devise an apparatus which would de- 
 liver from an alternating circuit a direct cur- 
 rent to a direct current circuit." 
 
 I have dwelt somewhat upon my father's 
 scientific acquirements and genius in order to 
 
21 
 
 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 Irving- 
 ton and locate his laboratory and observatory 
 elsewhere. And for the sake of his astronomi- 
 cal interests he determined to find some place 
 peculiarly well fitted, on account of its atmos- 
 pheric advantages, for astronomical observa- 
 tions. 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 communi- 
 cated 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 pros- 
 pects 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 ob- 
 
jective 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 loca- 
 tions 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 mag- 
 netism and that it was hoped that these might 
 ultimately prove efficacious as a means of di- 
 rect communication between distant points 
 without the introduction of wire conductors. 
 
 This thought of communicating with dis- 
 tant 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 es- 
 pecially 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 Prov- 
 inces by means of the River Seine. 
 
23 
 
 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 in- 
 terested 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 at- 
 tempts, 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 disturb- 
 ances on the Sun's surface effect magnetic 
 storms on ours, it is quite evident that a fluid 
 of translatory power or consistency exists be- 
 tween 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 ab- 
 solutely perfect scientific deduction we might 
 be brought into conversational alliance with 
 these singular and orderly creations, and actu- 
 
24 
 
 ally look upon their scenes and lives and his- 
 tory, 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 dis- 
 tinguished observer speaks of the sympathy be- 
 tween forces operating in the sun, and mag- 
 netic forces in the earth and remarks the phe- 
 nomenon seen by independent observers in 
 September, 1859. The passage, easily veri- 
 fied 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 ex- 
 traordinary 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 impetu- 
 ously across the room declaimed, as it were, 
 his views : 
 
25 
 
 "Here we are, a group of limited intelligent 
 beings circumscribed by a boundless space, 
 and placed \ pon a speck of matter which is 
 whirled around the sun in an endless captiv- 
 ity, bound by this inexorable law of gravita- 
 tion, 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 ani- 
 mated 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 
 
26 
 
 remarkable words were actually used by my 
 father, and in view of the marvellous realiza- 
 tion of Marconi's hopes in that direction, as 
 well as my own stupendous success in reach- 
 ing 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 per- 
 fected 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 as- 
 sistance 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 unsus- 
 
27 
 
 pected by cither 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 seclu- 
 sion 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 crea- 
 tive and anthropomorphic sensibility of youth, 
 I began to think that this reincarnation did not 
 occur on the earth, but had its stages of trans- 
 mutation 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 ma- 
 
28 
 
 ture 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 ar- 
 rangement, and the deplorable social chaos it 
 would have led to. 
 
 I think, however, that along this line of feel- 
 ing 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 be- 
 fore the most difficult tasks. The resolution 
 of matter into a phase of energy, the interpre- 
 tation of light as an electric phenomenon, the 
 mysteries of the electric force itself, the pecu- 
 liar hypotheses about the force of gravitation, 
 lead men, studying these subjects, and en- 
 dowed 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 
 
29 
 
 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 re-presentation 
 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 every where 
 in all its specific forms ; and that the abyss of 
 space would eventually thrill with the vibra- 
 tions of conscious communion between remote 
 worlds. 
 
 With feelings of this sort excited and rein- 
 forced 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 
 
30 
 
 am now able to reveal with, I think, positive 
 certainty. 
 
 The planet Mars as being the next orb re- 
 moved 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 mil- 
 lions 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 occupa- 
 tion 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 ex- 
 tended. He then showed that there was a vari- 
 able 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 devel- 
 opment day after day of the doubling of the 
 
31 
 
 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 announce- 
 ments 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 Her- 
 schell was indisputable. He quoted Her- 
 schell'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 Jupi- 
 ter, Saturn and the Georgian Sidus. If we 
 then find that the globe we inhabit has its 
 polar region frozen and covered with moun- 
 tains of ice and snow, that only partially melt 
 
82 
 
 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 in- 
 timate 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 progres- 
 sive secularization in cooling, that contraction 
 has acted upon its surface as it has on ours, 
 that water has accumulated in basins and de- 
 pressed 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 pre- 
 vailed in our planet, how can it be intelli- 
 gently questioned that from these very identi- 
 cal circumstances, an order of life has not in 
 seme way arisen." 
 
 My father had an interesting habit of snap- 
 ping 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 imagina- 
 tion to account for the destinations of mil- 
 lions upon millions of human beings, the 
 countless host that has occupied the surfaces 
 of this earth through all the historic and pre- 
 historic ages, we can, upon this assumption, 
 reduce the number of individuals immensely, 
 allowing that spirits are constantly arriving, 
 
34 
 
 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 oxy- 
 gen 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 con- 
 stants 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 at- 
 tributes than the same ages on our earth re- 
 quired or possessed, perhaps reaching a perma- 
 nent 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 
 
85 
 
 they might return to us, 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 Provenge 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 scien- 
 tific life which probably represents its nor- 
 mal 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 develop- 
 ment 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 inter- 
 changes 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 brazen epoch have fled to Mer- 
 
36 
 
 cury, 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 under- 
 lying 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 with- 
 out 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 ac- 
 companied by an accomplishment in its physi- 
 cal features, also, of those ideals of living 
 which the great and good unceasingly labor to 
 secure for us here and unceasingly fail to se- 
 cure. 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." 
 
37 
 
 We reached Christ Church in June, in 1883, 
 and for one year were most busy in completing 
 the station we had selected, in receiving ap- 
 paratus, 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 sea- 
 ward margin of our vision, while the broken 
 intermediate landscape, with interrupted agri- 
 cultural 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 re- 
 moved 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 compari- 
 son that stimulated and controlled the spec- 
 
38 
 
 tator 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 pic- 
 tures. 
 
 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 fugi- 
 tive way, I had not gone to school nor passed 
 three years of muscular and buoyant activity 
 in the usual pastimes and pleasures of child- 
 hood. I had a precocious nature and it had 
 been unfolded in an atmosphere of strictly in- 
 tellectual ideas. My mother had been a con- 
 stant joy to me during the short years of her 
 life on earth, but somehow by reason of sick- 
 ness 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 cher- 
 ished me with a great consuming love. He 
 saw in me the representation in face and par- 
 
39 
 
 tially in temperament of his wife. He lavished 
 on me every care. Yet because of his eager 
 affection, and his complete suspense from so- 
 cial connections I was made too largely de- 
 pendent on him alone. I lived in his compan- 
 ionship only. My conversation became prema- 
 turely advanced in terms and principles, and 
 my childish confidence was nurtured by nothing 
 less wonderful than books and theories, experi- 
 ments and dissertations. 
 
 The wonderful beauty of our new surround- 
 ings, the strangeness of our sudden removal 
 from America, the long distances travelled, 
 awoke in me new thoughts and I readily sur- 
 rendered myself at times to the incoherent 
 struggles of my nature, to find someone, some- 
 thing, 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 ar- 
 rive 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 
 
40 
 
 was to achieve telegraphic communication be- 
 tween these points without wires. At night my 
 father bent his telescopic gaze upon the 
 heavens, and as the earth approached opposi- 
 tion 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 transform- 
 ing possibility. 
 
 I cannot refrain from noticing another im- 
 portant scientific activity of my father's. It 
 was the use of photography in stellar measure- 
 ment. 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 pho- 
 tographs of the stars. 
 
 It was, however, the incomparable advan- 
 
41 
 
 tages, 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 penetra- 
 tion of the Sidereal firmament. He had made 
 a great number of photographs at Irvington, 
 and the photographic laboratory was a charm- 
 ing illustration of my father's ingenuity and 
 precision. At Mt. Cook we enjoyed a marvel- 
 lously 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 photo- 
 graphic 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 
 
42 
 
 position of stars than in the elucidation of the 
 surfaces of planets, that my father's astro- 
 nomical 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 free- 
 dom of the objective from any traces of 
 spherical or chromatic aberration gave us an 
 image of surprising clearness. The photo- 
 graphic results were admirable. I imagine 
 few more satisfactory photographs of the face 
 of Moon have been made than those we se- 
 cured, 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 sta- 
 tion 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 
 
43 
 
 devices in this direction were largely antici- 
 pated by us. The tuning of wireless messages 
 by which the interception of messages is pre- 
 vented was certainly forestalled by us, though 
 in the communications with Mars herein de- 
 tailed the ordinary [non-syntonic. — Editor] re- 
 ceiver 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 induc- 
 tion 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 im- 
 plied in these words an arrangement known as 
 the Slaby-Arco system, which American read- 
 ers have had described for them by M. A. 
 Frederick, Collins, Sci. Amer., March 9 and 
 Dec. 28, 1901. — Editor.] The receiver con- 
 sisted 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 mi- 
 crophone-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 indis- 
 putably show, from that planet, were taken 
 upon a Marconi receiver, or what was prac- 
 tically that. 
 
44 
 
 My father became more and more inter- 
 ested in the direction of inter-planetary re- 
 search by means of the magnetic wave. He 
 argued vehemently, buoyed up by his increas- 
 ingly augmented hopes as our own experi- 
 ments improved, that the electric wave through 
 space moving in an ethereal fluid of the ex- 
 tremest 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 em- 
 ployed consisting of a Rulnukorff coil with 
 a centrifugal mercury interrupter, by which 
 a steeper wave front of the disruptive dis- 
 charge is secured. — Editor) — that their recep- 
 tion over the almost impassable distances of 
 space would be made possible. 
 
 This idea of piling up the waves was sug- 
 gested 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 
 
45 
 
 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 erect- 
 ing a receiver in the observatory were pushed 
 
46 
 
 to a completion. We had discovered the 
 necessity of elevation for the senders (trans- 
 mitters) and receivers for long distance 
 work, and a tall mast, fifty feet in height, 
 was put up at the observatory, which — need- 
 lessly I think — was to serve as the terrestrial 
 station for the reception of those viewless 
 waves which my father thought might be con- 
 stantly breaking unrecorded upon the insen- 
 sitive surfaces of our earth. 
 
 The eventful night came. It was August, 
 1890. Mars was then in opposition. The 
 evening had been extremely beautiful. Na- 
 ture united in her mood the most transport- 
 ing 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 lati- 
 tude of Christ Church is S. 44 degrees) 
 August was, with us, mid- winter. A thun- 
 derstorm 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 em- 
 brace 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, promon- 
 tories, and islands, was readily seen; the 
 
47 
 
 northern Alps shone in their ermine robes, 
 greatly lengthened and deepened by the sea- 
 son'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 up- 
 on our vision, and immediately about us the 
 mingling rivulets poured their musical streams 
 through and over the icy banks of half con- 
 solidated snow. 
 
 As night came up, the stars seemed almost 
 to pop out in their appropriate places, like 
 those 6tellar illusions that appear so appro- 
 priately 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 as- 
 tronomers, 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 ap- 
 proach 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 tele- 
 scope through whose glass for days we had 
 watched the approach of our sister planet. 
 
48 
 
 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 note-books, is very 
 distinctly remembered by me. I recall my 
 father reading from a letter to Nature, May 
 IS, 1884, by Mr. W. F. Denning, discussing 
 "The Rotation Period of Mars." From my 
 note-book I find the passage literally tran- 
 scribed : 
 
 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 fa- 
 vorably circumstanced in this respect, for the 
 chief markings on Mars have been percepti- 
 ble with the same definiteness of outline and 
 characteristics of form through many succeed- 
 ing generations, whereas the features, such as 
 we discern on the other planets, are either tem- 
 porary, atmospheric phenonema, or rendered 
 so indistinct by unfavorable conditions as to 
 defy measurement and observation. More- 
 over, it may be taken for granted that the 
 features of Mars are permanent objects on the 
 
49 
 
 actual surface of the planet, whereas the mark- 
 ings 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 can- 
 not 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 sur- 
 face upon which they are seen to be pro- 
 jected. With respect to Mars' case, it is en- 
 tirely different. No substantial changes in the 
 most conspicuous features have been detected 
 since they were first confronted with tele- 
 scopic 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 sat- 
 
50 
 
 isfactorily 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 oc- 
 casion 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 re- 
 sults." 
 
 It was just as he finished reading this ex- 
 tract 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, 
 
51 
 
 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 mes- 
 sage, 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 communica- 
 tion with some external regulated and inten- 
 tional 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 con- 
 scious 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 
 
52 
 
 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: 
 
 
58 
 
 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 in- 
 deed, 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 prob- 
 lem 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 com- 
 municate 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 
 
54 
 
 the singular evanescence of memory amongst 
 these humans which absolutely displaces de- 
 tails of strictly mnemonic acquirements, except 
 in certain directions of art and invention, has 
 apparently precluded this. 
 
 We remained at the register almost the en- 
 tire 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 en- 
 velopes of atmosphere attached to our or any 
 neighboring planet, the path of transmission of 
 messages through space would be inconceiva- 
 bly swift, we saw nothing really impossible 
 in the impression that we had that night re- 
 ceived communications from extra-terrestrial 
 sources. 
 
 The thought was none the less stupendous, 
 and it seemed almost impossible for us to al- 
 lude 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 
 
55 
 
 impossibility of bridging our very great dis- 
 tances with the resources then at human com- 
 mand, 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 neighbor- 
 ing hills, complained of great weariness and a 
 sort of mild vertigo. I had become exceed- 
 ingly 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 ten- 
 derness. 
 
 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 con- 
 genial 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 some- 
 what a subject of perennial curiosity, and 
 were more or less visited by curiosity hunters 
 and others, actuated by more intelligent mo- 
 tives, 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 
 
56 
 
 through a sky not at all dark, but gray and 
 pensive and sometimes almost irksome. Miss 
 Katharine Dodan was gentle, pretty, and un- 
 affectedly enthusiastic. Her interest in all 
 the equipment of our laboratories was bound- 
 less. When I found myself alone with her at 
 the big telescope adjusting everything with — 
 oh ! such exquisite precision — and then some- 
 times 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 new- 
 ness 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 circum- 
 stance that led to the fatal train of occur- 
 rences 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 ac- 
 centuated by his self-imposed exile from the 
 home and scenes of his former happiness. 
 
 He at last consented, and in October, 1891, 
 
57 
 
 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 cov- 
 ered 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 look- 
 ing 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 intima- 
 tion 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 
 
58 
 
 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 ex- 
 perience 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 Do- 
 dan'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, de- 
 licious drive. I fear my heart was almost 
 equally divided between apprehension for my 
 father's health and the joy of simple near- 
 ness to the woman I loved. At last we reached 
 Christ Church. The Dodans lived in the sub- 
 urbs in a pretty villa on a high hill, from whose 
 top the city lay spread before them in its mod- 
 est extent with its neighboring places and Port 
 Lyttelon eight miles away. 
 
59 
 
 I found my father better, but it required 
 my own zeal and affection to thoroughly re- 
 store him, and bring him back to his character- 
 istic 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 we're 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 sum- 
 mons that must put me also in the spirit 
 world, while she, in whose heart my own trust- 
 ingly lived, has been taken away, I think 
 wisely and prudently, to live with her father's 
 people in a charming, rustic village of Devon- 
 shire. 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 treas- 
 ured 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 op- 
 posite end of an upper hall. We met and 
 
60 
 
 I said : "Miss Dodan, it is a treacherous con- 
 fession, 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 over- 
 come 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 lowor hall 
 in a group of people — her parents, my father, 
 visitors and servants — and I saw her disappear 
 
61 
 
 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 beauti- 
 ful 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 — 
 
63 
 
 almost ideally lovely that morning, and I com- 
 pared him in my thoughts with the father of 
 Romola. only as wearing a more youthful ex- 
 pression. 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 hur- 
 ried to him and embraced him. The tender- 
 ness 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 mel- 
 ody 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 mem- 
 
63 
 
 ory rises and falls with the bodily condition ; 
 being vigorous in our fresh moments and fee- 
 ble 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 ex- 
 pressed in physical or material units or ele- 
 ments, 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 dissi- 
 pated 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 memo- 
 
64 
 
 ries 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 continu- 
 ing in the mind, impressions that are no longer 
 stimulated by the original agent, and of recall- 
 ing them at after-times by purely mental forces, 
 I shall remark first on the cerebral seat of 
 those renewed impressions. It must be con- 
 sidered 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 mes- 
 sage, 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 al- 
 phabet. Beating, beating, beating upon my 
 brain substance this ceaselessly reiterated me- 
 chanical language, it will become so incorpora- 
 ted, 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 
 
65 
 
 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 wait- 
 ing 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 in- 
 teresting and sublimely welcome. And yet, 
 my son, you, you who have been so patient, 
 so kind, giving up your life for my con- 
 venience and pleasure, I dread to leave you. 
 But I will speak to you ! Watch ! wait ! and at 
 that instrument upstairs, which I know re- 
 sponded to some waves of magnetism cross- 
 ing the oceans of space, I shall be heard by 
 you in English words, opening up the myste- 
 ries of other worlds !" 
 
 He stopped in sheer exhaustion with his 
 whole face charged with almost frantic ec- 
 stacy. 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 excite- 
 ment lasted a long time and it did seem psy- 
 chologically certain that in any disembodied 
 condition my father would be likely to recall 
 
66 
 
 some important parts or all of this well learned 
 lesson. 
 
 For years my father, as I mentioned before, 
 in his astronomical studies, had limited him- 
 self 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 fea- 
 tures of Mars had been considerable. With 
 these results my father and I were very fa- 
 miliar, had been in correspondence with cer- 
 tain 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 dis- 
 tinctiveness of outline." Schiaparelli con- 
 firmed his previous observations upon the du- 
 plications of the canals and Mr. Knobel pub- 
 lished some sketches. 
 
 In 1886, M. Terby presented to the Roval 
 
67 
 
 Academy of Belgium notes on drawings made 
 by Herschel 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 re- 
 ality 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 Mar- 
 tial seasons." 
 
 These observations of M. Perrotin were de- 
 tailed at length in the Bulletin Astronomique, 
 and the distinguished observer called atten- 
 tion to the fact that these markings varied but 
 slightly from Schiaparelli's chart, and indi- 
 cated a state of things of considerable stability 
 in the equatorial region of Mars. M. Perrotin 
 recorded changes in the Kaiser Sea (Schiapa- 
 relli'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 south- 
 east 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 
 
68 
 
 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 Schia- 
 parelli canals as distinct in outline as given 
 by that ingenious observer. He noted many 
 brilliant spots on Mars and indicated the dis- 
 turbing influences of vibrations produced by 
 winds on the surface of our earth in connec- 
 tion with changes in the earth's atmospheric 
 envelope. 
 
 In 1888 M. Perrotin continued his observa- 
 tions 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 con- 
 tinuation" with channels previously observed, 
 amongst these an apparent channel through the 
 
69 
 
 polar ice cap. Some of these seemed double, 
 running from near the equator to the neighbor- 
 hood 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 con- 
 tinents 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 Schia- 
 parelli 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. 
 
70 
 
 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, in- 
 geniously constructed upon scientific princi- 
 ples. It described a hypothetical machine, a 
 flying machine, which was made up of a sub- 
 stance more than half of whose mass had been 
 converted into repelling particles. Such a fab- 
 ric 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 manu- 
 factured from the elements, oxygen, hydrogen, 
 carbon and nitrogen, with electric lights, pho- 
 netic speech, but without gunpowder or tele- 
 scopes. 
 
 Its inhabitants had been derived from the 
 earth by a most delightful scientific fabrica- 
 tion. 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 
 
71 
 
 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 
 trough 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 whi^h 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 invit- 
 ing the stars to take him, and his murmur- 
 ing 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 stren- 
 uous and repeated efforts to assure me that he 
 remembered all the parts of the telegraphic 
 apparatus, and his smile of saddened self-de- 
 
72 
 
 preciation when he hesitated over soras, de- 
 tail. 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 observa- 
 tory. 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 mat- 
 ter. Miss Dodan frankly said she was. But 
 I know, to Miss Dodan's fresh, healthy, hu- 
 man life there was something weirdly repellent 
 in this thought of communication with the 
 dead. She thought of it with a nervous dread 
 
73 
 
 and excitement. It just kept me in her 
 thoughts a little shrouded in mystery and su- 
 periority and closed a little the avenues of ab- 
 solute 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 por- 
 tion 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 attach- 
 ment 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 sus- 
 pended. 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- 
 
74 
 
 lands, seemed to dissolve into a mocking 
 phantom of derisive dreams. 
 
 I stood tip 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 lan- 
 guorous desire, and touch the senses with in- 
 dolence; 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 tell-tale clicks of the register, and 
 unnoticed left me. Still I wrote on, unheeding 
 the time. My assistants, pale with wonder, 
 
75 
 
 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. qn the same day. 
 It came quite evenly, though slowly, and was 
 unmistakably intended to be inerrantly re- 
 corded, as indeed it was. 
 
76 
 
 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 ra- 
 diance, listening to a chorus of most delicately 
 attuned voices, indescribably sweet, penetra- 
 ting 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, 
 
77 
 
 of half shining creatures, unlike myself, sing- 
 ing 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 Phos- 
 phori. Here, for nearly one of our months, 
 the incoming souls, which arc 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 mar- 
 vellously phosphorescent beam procured by ab- 
 sorption from the sun. These souls are in- 
 termingled 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 cham- 
 bers extending over five miles around the 
 bald summit of this eminence. 
 
 "In these colossal chambers the phosphor- 
 escent 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 sep- 
 
78 
 
 arated from the great tide, by flashing, under 
 the bombardment of the phosphorescent blaze 
 into shining forms. They assume a shape out- 
 lined 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 un- 
 clothed, emerge from the Hill of the Phos- 
 phori, 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 mes- 
 sage. They remain for hours, even days and 
 weeks in these halls listening in a sort of stu- 
 por 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 mu- 
 sical 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 
 
79 
 
 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 ac- 
 tivity as easily, as quickly, as justly as the 
 growing flower turns toward the Sun where- 
 ever 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 con- 
 fluent 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. 
 
80 
 
 "In some way I imagine the organs are op- 
 tical 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 con- 
 crete 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 vigor- 
 ous 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 sculp- 
 ture, 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 phosphor- 
 escent 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 
 
81 
 
 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 crea- 
 tures were consolidated spirits. They are con- 
 stantly 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 sym- 
 pathy 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 mu- 
 
82 
 
 sic is quite audible for long distances, es- 
 pecially 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 with- 
 out 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 im- 
 bedded instincts and tastes. Only, as under the 
 influence of music and light and afterwards 
 occupation, they are transmuted by consoli- 
 dation into the fair material race, which out- 
 side of the City of Light controls the planet, 
 does consciousness and curiosity and lan- 
 guage arise. I sat a long, long time in the 
 chorus hall, to which I was drawn, which pro- 
 
duced 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 out- 
 side, from the multitude beneath the almond 
 blossom laden trees. Movement is without vo- 
 lition in the spirit stage; attraction that fol- 
 lows a hidden impulse, that seems indescribable 
 at first, directs them. It is only as the process 
 of consolidation in the City of Light indi- 
 vidualizes, 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 
 
84 
 
 the city. I was now more observant, some- 
 thing 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 Phos- 
 phori 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 sugges- 
 tions. 
 
 "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 monot- 
 onous in architecture, but its composition and 
 its radiance quite surpass any earthly concep- 
 tion. The buildings are all domed and stand in 
 squares which are filled with fruit trees, low 
 bush-like spreading plants, bearing white pen- 
 dant 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 
 
85 
 
 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 inter- 
 mittently 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 phosphores- 
 cent 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 vari- 
 ety of architecture in places was accentuated 
 by diverse and varying lines or surface light. 
 "The whole finally blended and a sea of radi- 
 ance 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, impas- 
 sioned, with an admiration which we had as yet 
 no adequate organs to express we gazed upon 
 the throbbing metropolis, ourselves luminous 
 
87 
 
 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 as- 
 sumption of material parts, as I have said, is 
 propagated and accomplished by music, and 
 the parts thus made are the most perfect ex- 
 pression 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 
 
88 
 
 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 in- 
 tuition, they seem impelled whither their needs 
 are best satisfied. 
 
 "I now know that the City of Light is gen- 
 erally 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, 
 
89 
 
 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 re- 
 moved 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 me- 
 dium, banks and business enterprises, but it is 
 more veiled, more' hidden, less, far less, in- 
 sistent than with you. A great socialistic re- 
 public 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 light- 
 ing. Also there are no railroads, but innu- 
 merable canals, which form a labyrinth of 
 
90 
 
 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 con- 
 tinues. 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 tilings 
 on the earth has but one analogy in Mars, 
 the publication of music scores, the recitation 
 of poetry and symposia, and the great illus- 
 trated 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 
 
91 
 
 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 punc- 
 tuated 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 mon- 
 osyllabic. It sometimes suggests a Mongo- 
 lian 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 impres- 
 sionable Martians would follow the refrain 
 of the song and the whole street for blocks 
 and blocks would resound in waves of de- 
 lightful melody. There are no mechanical 
 modes of propulsion in the streets of the City 
 pf Light, The Martians all walk, 
 
92 
 
 "I approached the top of the broad hill 
 on which the City is built, and came sud- 
 denly out into a square filled again in its 
 park-like center with trees. From amid these 
 trees rose a massive building, which I in- 
 stantly recognized as an observatory; the 
 many round domes, as on earth, were unmis- 
 takable. 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 beau- 
 tiful. But their wonderfulness consisted in 
 the insertion upon the walls of illuminated 
 plans and maps of the heavens. These min- 
 iature firmaments were all afire, so that 
 each opening, carefully graded in size to rep- 
 resent stars of the first or second or third 
 magnitude, was filled with a beaming point 
 of light, and I walked in these noble corri- 
 dors between reduced patterns of the uni- 
 verse of stars. I can hardly tell you how as- 
 tonished 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 voli- 
 tion the work begun upon the Hill of the 
 Phosphori and the Chorus Hall in reducing 
 the intangible spirit fluid to corporeal expres- 
 sion was now hastening to an end. I do not 
 stop here to consider the reflections this sug- 
 gests as to the nature of matter, those ab- 
 struse 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, mechani- 
 cal method of conversation with you, igno- 
 rant, indeed, whether the magnetic waves load- 
 ed 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, under- 
 
94 
 
 going 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, over- 
 whelmed in a stupor of confusion, like some 
 awakening patient from the vertigo of a 
 terrifying dream! 
 
 "I looked upon my friend, and in the rapid- 
 ly 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 stair- 
 way 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 apart- 
 ment. 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 omni- 
 present phosphori, which gave out a liquid 
 light and imparted indescribable chasteness and 
 beauty to the carved ornaments upon them. 
 
95 
 
 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 chan- 
 delier of this blue metal was pendant from the 
 ceiling, and in its cup-like extremities, ar- 
 ranged 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 surround- 
 ing plain country met the City's edges. But 
 throughout the distance I could trace lines of 
 light marking highways or roads leading in- 
 terminably 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 globe's, de- 
 signed 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 win- 
 
96 
 
 dows and placed me in a chair. Drawing an- 
 other beside me, placing his hand on mine, 
 and leaning outward toward the burning splen- 
 dor 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 chang- 
 ing, into one of the Martian white peo- 
 ple. I found my work, as you will, in this Pa- 
 tenta, for by that name in Mars is called this 
 home of astronomy and physical philosophy. 
 Here, amid telescopes and apparatus of experi- 
 ment 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 mag- 
 netic 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 side- 
 real society.' 
 
 "He stopped and leaned away from me, 
 perusing my face with interest. Words came 
 to my lips, memory again asserted its trium- 
 phant declaration that I was the same being 
 
97 
 
 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 marvel- 
 lousness 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 won- 
 der 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 
 
98 
 
 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 retro- 
 spection ; 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 in- 
 creasing torrent of sound, soft and low, ris- 
 ing 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 rein- 
 carnated. 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 be- 
 ings from other worlds and a great majority 
 come up from the earth. How reincarnation 
 
99 
 
 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 civil- 
 ization, discovered the phosphori, and estab- 
 lished 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 phos- 
 phorescent 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 cen- 
 tralization 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 de- 
 fecation. Love enters the Martian world, but 
 it has lost much of the earthly passion. The 
 
100 
 
 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 composi- 
 tion ; it only sings. Literature", as we knew it 
 on earth, does not exist here. The natural 
 Martians have tales and stories and plays and 
 seme 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 
 
101 
 
 and flowers, the former in varieties and rich- 
 ness 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, ex- 
 cept as it assists astronomy. Astronomy is the 
 great profession. Cars, railroads and convey- 
 ances, as you say on earth, do not exist. We 
 walk or sail and float upon our canals. Our 
 industry is agriculture and building. Archi- 
 tecture is studied and advanced beyond all 
 you have ever known on the earth. Mars is 
 filled with beautiful cities. Its whole govern- 
 ment consists in a council at the City of Scan- 
 dor, from which representatives issue to its va- 
 rious 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 tempta- 
 tions, 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 
 
102 
 
 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 high- 
 lands, 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 popula- 
 tion 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 work- 
 shops, the laboratories, everything in obedi- 
 ence to their instinctive choice. The people 
 of the City of Light are therefore largely en- 
 gaged 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, 
 
103 
 
 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 labora- 
 tories. 
 
 " '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 an- 
 nouncements 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 at- 
 traction of gravitation by our Toto powder. 
 
104 
 
 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 pov- 
 erty. There can be no armies nor navies. The 
 government carries on extensive works of im- 
 provement 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 boister- 
 ous 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 fleet- 
 ing on Mars, but the loved ones of the earth 
 were yet remembered, and the abysses of the 
 
105 
 
 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 cov- 
 ered 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 as- 
 tronomical 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 ac- 
 quainted. The electrical displays on Mars sur- 
 pass description and the waves of magnetism 
 I am now utilizing to send to you these mes- 
 sages are ten miles in amplitude. 
 
106 
 
 "I fell asleep, quickly lulled into an almost 
 death-like slumber by the cadence of innumer- 
 able fountains. Near the Patcnta is the Gar- 
 den of Fountains, which I shall tell you about 
 in another message. It was the plash and rivu- 
 lous current of these water courts that 
 brought on sleep. 
 
 "I awoke when the Martian dawn was com- 
 ing on. Slumber had given me the last re- 
 assurance 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 Oc- 
 cupation. The picture was of surprising 
 strangeness and beauty. Far off, until melt- 
 ing into the encroaching edges of an outer 
 blackness, the City extended its folds and sur- 
 faces 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 mu- 
 sic seemed again revived, and from the door- 
 ways of the houses I could see forms issuing, 
 
107 
 
 while far off the Hill of the Phosphori raised 
 its glass domes in the air, where the homo- 
 geneous tide of spirit was undergoing differ- 
 entiation, as we might, say, into separate cog- 
 nizable, discreet beings. An unspeakable de- 
 light 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 wonder- 
 ful trans-abysmal dispatch. 
 
 Well, here, at last, was the long expected, 
 impossible, amazing reality. When I had de- 
 ciphered 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 mes- 
 sage was simple : "Have received all. Await 
 more. Transmission perfect." 
 
108 
 
 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 to- 
 ward 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 con- 
 fidence everything so unwittingly passed my 
 lips, I took her arm in mine and walked out 
 upon the broad plateau toward the opposite 
 
109 
 
 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 fool- 
 ish, impossible dreamer. This would give 
 me a deep sorrow. My father's name would be 
 dragged into the mire of this common ridi- 
 cule. 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. 
 
110 
 
 "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 en- 
 gaged in this now imperative work. I cannot, 
 you know, now leave it. It is the most mar- 
 vellous 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 com- 
 munications 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 
 
Ill 
 
 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 
 
112 
 
 through my bones. But I was again uncon- 
 scious 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 to- 
 gether to the great 'Commons' of the Patenta, 
 a superb hall where all the professors, inves- 
 tigators, 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 
 
113 
 
 from the four sections of the Patenta, and as 
 wc entered, from the different sides there were 
 many men and some women taking the ivory- 
 chairs at the sides of the long tables of mar- 
 ble, 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 greet- 
 ings. It was a very beautiful scene. The 
 faces of all were wonderfully clear and strong, 
 and in the commingling of forms, the bold, in- 
 tellectual 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 
 
114 
 
 spreading plates of fruit, the many carelessly 
 arranged and profuse bunches of radiant flow- 
 ers 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 satis- 
 fied. 
 
 "Amongst, the glorious throng my com- 
 panion 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, Lever- 
 rier, Adams, La Place, Gauss and Helmholz ; 
 at another Dalton, Schonbeim, Davy, Tyn- 
 dall, Berthollet, Berzelius, Priestly, Lavoisier, 
 and Liebig; here were groups of physicists — 
 Faraday, Volta, Galvani, Ampere, Fahren- 
 heit, Henry, Draper, Biot, Chladini, Black, 
 Melloni, Senarmont, Regnault, Daniells, Fres- 
 nel, Fizeau, Mariotte, Deville, Troost, Gay- 
 Lussac, Foucault, Wheatstone, and many, 
 many more. At a small table immediately be- 
 neath a dome of glass, through whose softly 
 opaline texture an aureole of light seemed to 
 embrace them, sat Franklin, Galileo and New- 
 ton. 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 
 
115 
 
 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 effec- 
 tive, almost pictorial groupings, this wondrous 
 gathering filled me with new rapture. My 
 comrade led me to other branching halls 
 similarly occupied. Chemists were here con- 
 spicuous — Chevreuil, Talbot, Wedgewood, Da- 
 guerre, 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, physi- 
 cists, 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 observa- 
 tories these men have flocked because of a 
 sympathy in their tastes and talents. Al- 
 though astronomy is the great profession, and, 
 as I will show you, the marvels of the Uni- 
 verse are being more and more fully known, 
 yet the study of the elements and the laws 
 of matter is popular and also followed unre- 
 mittingly. It is true that we know these 
 people are from your earth ; they have re- 
 ported all that to the Registeries, to whom 
 I will soon conduct you ; they yet retain 
 
116 
 
 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 no- 
 tions 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, geogra- 
 phers, and geologists rarely are booked at the 
 Registeries as coming from the Earth. Their 
 lives may be prolonged elsewhere, they sel- 
 dom 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 
 
117 
 
 me. If the Martians are without books or 
 papers, they possess all the resources of con- 
 versation. Animation, pleasure, salutation, 
 cheerfulness and joy was everywhere, the per- 
 fume of flowers filled the air, the shafts of sun- 
 light 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 con- 
 cealed 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 — 
 
118 
 
 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, hold- 
 ing 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 
 
119 
 
 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 com- 
 munal 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, enter- 
 tainments, are given, and the people of the 
 City flock in droves not infrequently accom- 
 panied by numbers of the new Spirits who 
 here are often enabled to gain their final 
 solidification ; 'GelV as the Martians say. 
 
 "My companion led me out of the Hall. 
 Men and women were moving slowly in vari- 
 ous directions and as we made our way over 
 the campus and between the many noble build- 
 ings 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 
 
120 
 
 the astronomers actually discern the life of 
 our earth. The reports they make from week 
 to week of their inspection of the Solar sys- 
 tem, 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 re- 
 port in moving pictures the disturbances of 
 the cosmic universe. No wonder that the 
 whole Mind, as it were, of Mars is concen- 
 trated 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 win- 
 dows 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 en- 
 circling the phosphoric cage, so that the white 
 house was dissected by its twigs and tendrils, 
 while the red honeysuckle flowers depended in 
 
121 
 
 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 sur- 
 rounded the place, and it seemed refreshing 
 to note the stir and bustle of affairs. Streams 
 of people were' entering the Court as we ar- 
 rived. They were inhabitants and watchers 
 bringing the new incarnations to the Regis- 
 teries to have their origin recorded if they 
 could recall it. Indeed many spirits fail utterly 
 to remember their former condition, and hap- 
 pen, as we might say, upon Mars, unex- 
 plained and inexplicable. They even are with- 
 out 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 murmur- 
 ous 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 
 
122 
 
 ether, undergoing the strange process of ma- 
 terialization. 
 
 "How incredible it all was, how incompre- 
 hensible. 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 seven- 
 ties, a man whom I knew well, from whom I 
 had learned much, and whose skill helped so 
 largely in the production of Rutherford's nega- 
 tives of the Moon. My repulsion was over 
 in an instant. I clasped him heartily. It 
 seemed so good, so human, to embrace some- 
 thing in this strange world. An equal re- 
 sistance met my own. We were indeed sub- 
 stance. 
 
 " 'Mr. Dodd,' exclaimed my old acquaint- 
 ance, '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 Per- 
 seus. 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 
 
123 
 
 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 surround- 
 ings ! I gazed on him with unspeakable curi- 
 osity. 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 phan- 
 tasmagoria, 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 con- 
 vulsive sobs. 
 
124 
 
 "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 teception and storage of supplies for 
 the City. The Hall of Registeries is pro- 
 longed into a series of huge buildings ex- 
 tending 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, deter- 
 mined, and appropriately recorded. The de- 
 tails of their lives were inquired into, the con- 
 dition and history of the sphere they had left 
 examined, and thus by the revision and com- 
 parison 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 
 
125 
 
 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 por- 
 traits, in small size, of the incarnated persons. 
 The Registerie's 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 avoca- 
 tions. 
 
 "The keeping, indexing, compiling, illus- 
 tration, 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 en- 
 tered the room, and after saluting my guide 
 and also Chapman with the Martian cry, Tin- 
 totita, led me to a chair, and giving me one of 
 the black wafers, whose acidity had a short 
 time before so vigorously renewed my con- 
 sciousness, 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 per- 
 manent than with the perishable dry plates. 
 It is a curious thing to learn that for ioo 
 
126 
 
 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 vari- 
 ous. There seems here an undiscovered law, 
 and a group of observers in Mars are to-day 
 trying to penetrate this mystery. It is as- 
 serted that there is evidence that Egyptians of 
 the ante-Christian epoch are to-day living in 
 Mars, but their identification is now almost im- 
 possible. On the other hand, it is a fact as- 
 certained 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 physi- 
 cally, perhaps mentally, modified. Their own 
 memory of their past on Earth, however vivid, 
 and then in exceptional beings, has slowly dis- 
 appeared or left only vague cloud-like waver- 
 ings and congeries of reminiscences. 
 
 "So that great human souls that have en- 
 tered Mars in the early centuries of our earth's 
 historic periods may be living here almost un- 
 
127 
 
 recognized. They have drifted into occupa- 
 tions 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 in- 
 vestigators, 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 au- 
 thentic registration. 
 
 "This is more to be regretted as the law of 
 life on the planet might then be better formu- 
 lated. Essentially it seems necessary for ex- 
 istence here to be in unison with the condi- 
 tions; 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 knowl- 
 edge had been as inquisitively and scrupulous- 
 ly 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, nationali- 
 ties, destinies, civilizations, and instincts, from 
 whose amalgamated and fused vortices of 
 tendency this marvellous life has been formed. 
 
 "However completely the mere memory of 
 
128 
 
 detail vanishes, the traits of nature remain, 
 and these mingling beings present a kaleido- 
 scope 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, scien- 
 tific 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 so- 
 ciety 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 expres- 
 sion. 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 move- 
 ments of my eyes, the beating of my heart, 
 all, all, these bodily phenomena seem un- 
 changed — their physiology is changed, their 
 
129 
 
 corporate reality seems the same, their cor- 
 poreal consequences are different. But I can- 
 not 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 spir- 
 its 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 ex- 
 traordinary wonderfulness. I must not pause 
 to recount this. I know it very imperfectly. 
 
 "My examiners had little to do. My mem- 
 ory 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 ec- 
 
130 
 
 stacy. 'At last ! At last !' cried out all of 
 them, while hastily calling officers of the build- 
 ing to them they rapidly explained my sin- 
 gular 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 confu- 
 sion. 'For years and years,' he said, 'it has 
 been hoped by the Martians to send some mes- 
 sage to the Earth. We understand wireless 
 telegraphy, we can bridge almost infinite dis- 
 tances 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 repeat- 
 ing 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 
 
131 
 
 transports us to know that you have perfected 
 means, before leaving the Earth, to have such 
 messages as you may deliver from Mars prop- 
 erly 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 enor- 
 mous distance waves of sufficient magnitude 
 to reach us.' 
 
 "There was a loud murmur of disappoint- 
 ment, 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 mes- 
 sage which we received about a year before my 
 death on Earth. 
 
 "I arose, and amid a hush of expectation ex- 
 cited 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 an- 
 other world, were suddenly surprised to see 
 and hear the register of our instrument move 
 
132 
 
 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 ac- 
 cessions 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 prog- 
 ress, I found myself moving in the midst of 
 
133 
 
 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 fagades of the won- 
 derful 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 spir- 
 its swept on in this friendly anarchy of de- 
 light and anticipation. 
 
 ''My son, as I send these words out into the 
 ether-filled realms of space across the mil- 
 lions 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 surg- 
 ing 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 
 
134 
 
 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 stead- 
 fast ; the power of huge, colossal frames of 
 muscle, the sinuous activity of spare and slen- 
 der forms all attired in that consummate garb 
 of blue and white, their caps of metal reflect- 
 ing the light in cerulean lustres. 
 
 "On, upward, we moved, impelled by an im- 
 pulse quite indefinable but sufficient to con- 
 dense about us by its contagion the Martian 
 populace, quick, responsive, inquisitive, intel- 
 ligent and excitable as children. We were ap- 
 proaching 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 mar- 
 ble 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 
 
135 
 
 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 Pa- 
 tenta our outcry and the sonorous pulsations 
 of the singing brought to its windows and 
 doorways the many workers in the labora- 
 tories, lecture halls, and offices. We were re- 
 garded 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 fur- 
 thermore 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 
 
136 
 
 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 re- 
 mote 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 some- 
 what 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 colon- 
 nades 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. 
 
137 
 
 The balconies swept upward to a wall of pol- 
 ished 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 yel- 
 low rugs or shawls; the broad ceiling was di- 
 vided into deep, rectangular recesses pla- 
 fondcd with opalescent glass, and these re- 
 cesses 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 atti- 
 tudes of attention, their faces upturned, their 
 
138 
 
 blue caps shining resplendently, like a sur- 
 face of tempered steel. 
 
 "I stood alone with my former guide, and 
 Chapman. I felt moved by some singular en- 
 thusiasm ; the exaltation of the moment pos- 
 sessed me, and unannounced, as yet unques- 
 tioned, I rose to my full height upon a nar- 
 row rostrum in the platform, and turning from 
 side to side spoke with an elation that seemed 
 to propel my ringing words over the great as- 
 sembly 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 gener- 
 ation after generation, and only the incessant 
 processes of birth as quickly renew the falling 
 ranks of life. To us on earth, the disap- 
 pearance of those we love and cherish, the 
 sundering of ties which a lifetime of love and 
 companionship has established, the sharp van- 
 ishing 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 hope- 
 less mystery. 
 
 " 'We stand on earth speechless before the 
 unseen power which snatches from our ca- 
 resses all that we most cherish, all that makes 
 
139 
 
 our life there worth living. There is no solu- 
 tion of the mystery, no voice, no return, no 
 message, only a blankness of doubt, misgiving 
 and desoerate yearning in those who must con- 
 tinue. 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 ut- 
 terance 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 un- 
 numbered 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, a^d beauty human life can claim. The 
 passionate desire to regain her, the defiant mu- 
 tiny of my heart against any thought of her 
 
140 
 
 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, follow- 
 ing certain suggestions, a system of wireless 
 telegraphy. We have both, my son and my- 
 self, 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 in- 
 habitants 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 ex- 
 istence. 
 
 " 'Men of Mars, that Death which tore from 
 me my wife set his seal at last on me, but be- 
 fore the summons was executed, I had made 
 arrangements in every possible detail to com- 
 municate with my son. We agreed upon a 
 cypher, and I have so imprinted each meas- 
 ure 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 
 
141 
 
 great instruments, let me bridge the millions 
 of miles to our earth, and in an instant stir the 
 populations of the Earth into fierce atten- 
 tion, 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 im- 
 mense 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 re- 
 fluent 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 sug- 
 gestion, and inflammable of nature, had be- 
 come 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, ring- 
 ing voice spoke from the gallery immediately 
 in front of me. It said — I could not quite sep- 
 arate the speaker in the moving throng: 'Come 
 to the Manana.' 
 
142 
 
 "Chapman and my friend whispered to- 
 gether 'Volta,' and then turning to me told 
 me to follow them. I followed. Already the 
 hail had become partially emptied, and we 
 pushed onward amongst radiant men and wom- 
 en, who received me with smiles and gestures 
 of approval. Once outside the Hall of At- 
 tention, we hurried through some narrow cor- 
 ridors, 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 be- 
 tween 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. 
 
143 
 
 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 pre- 
 occupied, and after I was shown the trans- 
 mitter, 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 hopeless- 
 
144 
 
 ness of words to express, we both descended 
 from the high station and through the great 
 halls. I found my way to the charming, peace- 
 ful 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 wonder- 
 fully refreshed, and the exultant mood of the 
 Martians possessed me. I sang with an in- 
 terior tumult of excitement. I drew before 
 my mind the beauty of your mother reincor- 
 porated 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 Grune 
 Lauterband,' of Schubert. A few passers by, 
 below my window, caught the refrain, my 
 voice rose higher and higher, and their dis- 
 appearing figures seemed to carry the merry, 
 hopping notes far away. How fair and glo- 
 rious 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 laugh- 
 
145 
 
 ter 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 — flash- 
 ing stars seem to emerge from nothing, me- 
 teoric showers, like a rain of sparks rush across 
 the fields of the telescope's, gaseous disengage- 
 ments from what seem like shining nuclei, 
 shoot upward for thousands of miles from 
 their surfaces; all is chaos, and these disturb- 
 ances have been noticed in other regions of 
 the heavens. Again spirits have ceased arriv- 
 ing 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 clus- 
 ters covering hundreds of square miles are 
 arising from Scandor. The cause is un- 
 
146 
 
 known, 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 an- 
 swer 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 Sin- 
 si, 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 Chap- 
 man drew me to one side, and I stepped quick- 
 ly 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 
 
147 
 
 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 Pa- 
 tenta was a beautiful room. It was one of the 
 few great chambers in the City of Light, 
 dressed in color and tapestries. A deep car- 
 pet of scarlet Talta wool covered the floor, 
 and there hung at irregular intervals from a 
 silver cornice deep green curtains. The fur- 
 niture 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, leg- 
 ible at some distance. 
 
 "But the most extraordinary feature of the 
 rccm 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 
 
148 
 
 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 as- 
 tronomers 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 expres- 
 sion 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 in- 
 vited to enlarge my story as given in the Hall 
 of Attention, and I was told to tell it in Eng- 
 
149 
 
 lish. 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 Mar- 
 tian, translated to me by the scribe, said : 
 
 " 'My friend, you have delighted us. The 
 time is approaching when we can, I trust, re- 
 ceive such visitors from all the worlds, and 
 gradually bring it to pass that the visible uni- 
 verse may be bound together through the pow- 
 er and sympathy of language. The Council 
 desires that at present you refrain from send- 
 ing 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 Scan- 
 dor should be' apprized of certain strange ce- 
 lestial conditions, and we are in receipt of news 
 that at Scandor also unusual things are hap- 
 pening. 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 tran- 
 
150 
 
 spired 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 reincar- 
 nated 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 splen- 
 dor of the Garden of the Fountains. 
 
 "The Garden of the Fountains lies over to- 
 ward 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 con- 
 crete 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 de- 
 
151 
 
 signed by the great Martian artist, Hinudi, 
 whom some aver is the reincarnated Leonardo 
 da Vinci of our Earth. 
 
 "The Garden is approached through a laby- 
 rinthine 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 im- 
 prisonment 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 re- 
 treat. And then suddenly as if a curtain had 
 arisen or dropped to the earth you emerge 
 upon a great marble terrace of steps, and be- 
 fore you is spread a forest of geysers dis- 
 tributed 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 
 
152 
 
 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 moist- 
 ure that float off or drop in miniature rains 
 over the lake. This wildness of fountains ex- 
 tends over many a mile. All the jets are not 
 in tubes. Many uncovered fountains are inter- 
 jected 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 excite- 
 ment 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 blow- 
 ing 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 
 
i53 
 
 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 envel- 
 ope, in which were placed the communica- 
 tions 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 dark- 
 ness of the night, began to kindle into light, 
 and send upward into the velvet zenith its 
 phosphorescent glows." 
 
154 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 "These boats are not in common use on the 
 canals. The larger boats, which are more fre- 
 quent, are made of the blue metal. All the 
 boats are propelled by explosive engines, the 
 detonating force being the Toto powder. 
 Sails are used infrequently, and I have seen 
 them on a few lakes. The porcelain boats are 
 curious. Their sides, prows, poop and stern 
 are sometimes ornamented by colored designs, 
 which are burnt in when the boat is made. 
 For these extraordinary boats are made in 
 huge furnaces in one piece like a pitcher, vase 
 or bowl. And electricity in some way is uti- 
 lized for this purpose. Their use is limited 
 to government officers. The boat is propelled 
 by a screw of blue metal, sometimes of porce- 
 lain ; they have deep keels holding state rooms 
 and assembly rooms, and their decks are ar- 
 ranged in two stories or tiers, the upper one 
 usually covered by an awning of the pale Chal- 
 chal silk in blue. 
 
 "It was afternoon when Chapman and I, 
 
155 
 
 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 re- 
 sume 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 sight- 
 seers ; and back of us rose on its hills the 
 City of Light, that, as we passed still fur- 
 ther away, and watched it in the fading sun- 
 set, 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 To- 
 to powder. This trunk canal is doubled ; upon 
 one member, the boats pass outward to Scan- 
 dor, 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 undu- 
 lating plain country, with its villages and farm 
 
156 
 
 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 de- 
 licious 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 per- 
 forate 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 liveli- 
 hood, when I think of those freezing nights on 
 
157 
 
 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 snap- 
 ping 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 Foun- 
 tains, 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 con- 
 scious 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 ex- 
 haustive, the sense of taste rapid and de- 
 lightful. I am happy, supremely happy, and 
 affection, even the hidden fires of love, burn in 
 my veins as on the earth.' 
 
158 
 
 "Chapman looked at me with that bright 
 smile he wore on earth, and his gestures of ex- 
 postulation 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 ex- 
 actly all you want to know, and there are a 
 gcod 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 de- 
 grees 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 se- 
 rene, sweet place, but I am not yet so intimi- 
 dated 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 Mar- 
 tian is gamy, good company, full of happi- 
 ness, with a considerable fancy for jokes, ab- 
 surdly 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 
 
159 
 
 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 unno- 
 ticed 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 occu- 
 pants 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 awaken- 
 ing. It was all so beautiful ! 
 
 "I sat again with Chapman under the can- 
 opy, 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, sor- 
 
160 
 
 did variances and trials, vexations and minor 
 sufferings that had marred his own life on 
 earth. We turned to these things, not be- 
 cause they were grateful or pleasing to remem- 
 ber, 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 ex- 
 periments, the Dodans, and then turning to 
 him, as we saw the Martian moon rise in rud- 
 dy 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, 
 
T61 
 
 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 ex- 
 pel them. Wait, my friend ; it may yet be 
 meant for you to meet her. And now I do re- 
 call some accounts told me of occasional vis- 
 itants 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 drop- 
 ping out of the air becoming flesh and blood 
 might startle a rational being into a rigid 
 course of religious practices, not to say super- 
 stition. But look, how fair the night has be- 
 come.' 
 
 "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 spec- 
 tacle 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 
 
162 
 
 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 cultiva- 
 tion, 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 shin- 
 ing, and its pale, sick light imparted a peculiar 
 blueness impossible to describe upon all sur- 
 faces 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 sud- 
 denly dipped in silver. A beautiful white light, 
 most unreal, as you mortals might say, fell on 
 tree and water, cliff, hill, and villages. The ef- 
 
163 
 
 feet 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 inde- 
 scribable. 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 under- 
 stand 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 re- 
 duced one-half, the same weight on Mars 
 would seem only half as heavy as on the earth, 
 
164 
 
 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 ex- 
 ertion, 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 some- 
 how 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 fur- 
 ther, 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 com- 
 ing events are registered by a prophetic feeling 
 I can scarcely describe. For that reason, 
 
165 
 
 Chapman, I grow happier every minute, for 
 now I see approaching that great joy, my re- 
 union 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 ex- 
 tremes of temperature with almost no no- 
 ticeable 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 cloth- 
 ing I am now wearing, I have sailed through 
 the ice packs of the North, and slept thinly 
 covered in its snows, but without undue dis- 
 comfort. 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 intelligi- 
 ble. A close, dense body conducts heat or cold ; 
 a loose, open texture or cellular mass does not. 
 In our curious embodiment from spirit the 
 
166 
 
 substance of our bodies is an etherealized mat- 
 ter, 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 Mar- 
 tians?' 
 
 " '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 to- 
 gether, and these resemble our former terres- 
 trial 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 can- 
 not survive and get the Kinkotantitomi or ir- 
 reverently, 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 affec- 
 tion. 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 
 
167 
 
 have a human or earthly taint, and they fright- 
 en me. I seem so lonely sometimes. My 
 stray fun which I once enjoyed on earth must 
 somehow be forgotten here. I feel so irrev- 
 erent 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 suf- 
 focating with a glee out of place to this ex- 
 alted 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 
 
168 
 
 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 in- 
 equality, with its picturesqueness, its inces- 
 sant interest, all this was now utterly removed 
 by all the measureless leagues of icy space be- 
 tween me and the floating planet — the old sin- 
 stricken Earth — that was shining in the Mar- 
 tian skies, so inconspicuous and tiny — so in- 
 accessible. 
 
 "But my heart was pulsating audibly. If I 
 could recover Martha, if, in this serene at- 
 mosphere of good will and fairness and kind- 
 ness, 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, in- 
 deed, this new world would be all my earth- 
 ly 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 
 
169 
 
 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 mid- 
 night moons in Mars, a waif from the far 
 earth, incomprehensibly born after death in- 
 to this human presentiment and renewal in 
 youth, and again instinct with revivified pas- 
 sion and desire ; and breathing the atmos- 
 phere of a planet that for years I had watched 
 through the tube of a telescope, as a float- 
 ing flake of celestial fire. A delicious drowsi- 
 ness 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 ap- 
 proach to the mountains of Tiniti, where Mit 
 and Sinsi, the villages of the quarries, are lo- 
 cated. 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 for- 
 ests of the loftiest trees covered it. The canal 
 passed through solitudes, where the silence 
 was only broken by the cackling laugh of a 
 
170 
 
 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 bask- 
 ing 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 pe- 
 culiar, 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. Am 
 
. 171 
 
 phitheatres 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 as- 
 sembling, 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 di- 
 rected to a source of infallible wisdom, power 
 and justice. 
 
 "Thus considering the country and its cus- 
 toms 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 
 
172 
 
 life and yield to it a spiritual, a mental ac- 
 quiescence. 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 re- 
 spond 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 igno- 
 minious 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 suffer- 
 ing, of goodness and sin. It had literary mate- 
 rial. Its consecutive growth in the ages of so- 
 cial and national and economic history were so 
 wonderful, so thrilling in interest, in the de- 
 tails of character and adventure, in the in- 
 cessant 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 ani- 
 
173 
 
 mating picture it furnished, with its sceptics 
 and its believers, its haters and its lovers, its 
 tyrants and its heroes. Its wide, verbal im- 
 mensity ! I miss all that, or almost all. This 
 life is evenly celestial, and glowing, and care- 
 lessly 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 blos- 
 soming, 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 sub- 
 stance of a world's growth, of the unintermit- 
 tent and heraldic progress of the soul was 
 union with her. And deeper in my convictions 
 than science or faith or desire, lay the con- 
 sciousness 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 Hud- 
 
174 
 
 son, 1,000 and 1,200 feet above our heads, and 
 it seemed that the darkening tide was carry- 
 ing 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, shout- 
 ing 'Golki, tan to,' with outstretched hand point- 
 ed to a flaming missile passing over our heads, 
 and apparently in the direction we were head- 
 ing. 
 
 "It was a meteor. It was just such a phe- 
 nomenon 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 ap- 
 peared. 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 
 
175 
 
 shaken, and opening my eyes I beheld the 
 firmament of heaven falling in coruscating 
 cascades about us. Starting up, I found my- 
 self clutching Chapman, who had called to the 
 pilot to stop the boat. A few of the at- 
 tendants were grouped near us, and the loud- 
 ly 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 accom- 
 panied 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 in- 
 termingled 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 
 
176 
 
 dotted over with gray bushes, and covered with 
 an ashen colored lichen. 
 
 "The scene was here forbidding and deso- 
 late. 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-lumi- 
 nous stone that made the City of Light. Chap- 
 man told me how in pockets or huge amygda- 
 loidal cavities, this white phosphorescent sub- 
 stance was quarried, brought up bodily per- 
 haps in the slow upheaval of the region from 
 the deep-seated sources of this mineral flood. 
 
 "The canal passed along for miles in the de- 
 pression 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 
 
177 
 
 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 in- 
 to 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 cov- 
 ered with an almost flat roof of the blue metal. 
 In this house we were received by the Super- 
 intendent 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 
 
178 
 
 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 Chap- 
 man. He told me that to the north of the 
 mountains lay the great northern sea, in win- 
 ter a sea of ice, and that from continental 
 elevations within it glacial masses pushed out- 
 ward, 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 Superintend- 
 ent said we should visit the great quarry in 
 the morning before we started again for Scan- 
 dor. And he showed us, as the darkness de- 
 scended 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. 
 
179 
 
 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 bed- 
 chamber and waited for the morning. 
 
 "It came, fresh and splendid. The air of 
 this latitude of Mars is so pure, vivid and dust- 
 less ! My strength and power and vitality 
 seemed boundless. And as in the broad mirror 
 of my bed-chamber 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 re- 
 straint of differing years between has van- 
 ished with it. 
 
 "Alca, Chapman and myself, as is the Mar- 
 tian 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, 
 
180 
 
 was full of scenic interest, but more deeply elo- 
 quent 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 mo- 
 tion in Mars. Volition is so easy and pene- 
 trating, 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 trans- 
 ferred 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 dis- 
 abling of the body in Mars by weakness or 
 disease, or accident or age, sprang from 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 
 
181 
 
 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 re- 
 member the meteor we saw. Well, there it is.' 
 
 "Extended like a gigantic and deformed mis- 
 sile lay an iron meteorite before us, the same 
 thing as the Siderites that appear in your Mu- 
 seums on Earth. It was yet warm, a crevice 
 spread down into its interior, and it had ap- 
 parently rolled from the spot of its first im- 
 pact, 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, ad- 
 
182 
 
 vanced to it, and bending against it with out- 
 stretched 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 ter- 
 restrial 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 rail- 
 roads 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 nu- 
 merous, especially about Scandor, and the great 
 trunk canals are broad avenues of traffic. 
 
 "The intense swift motion of the Martians 
 
183 
 
 meets their needs in most cases. Where hard 
 labor on a mammoth scale is necessary, the 
 little race of prehistorics serves all their pur- 
 poses. The canals are their great engineering 
 feats, and the wonderful telescopes, their tri- 
 umphs 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 reced- 
 ing 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 Phos- 
 phori 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 tele- 
 scope, 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 peace- 
 ful and attractive. Beyond this again we just 
 discerned the shimmering surface of the Great 
 Glacier, the superb train of ice, that comes 
 
184 
 
 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 per- 
 fume is extracted, of which the Martians are 
 extremely fond. 
 
 "We lingered on this pinnacle of rock and 
 surveyed a prospect on either side of con- 
 trasted 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 Sil- 
 verton 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 
 
185 
 
 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 ra- 
 diant haze, through which came the sound of 
 voices, and in it black figures moved inces- 
 santly. 
 
 "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 cleav- 
 age, 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 con- 
 stantly 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 
 
186 
 
 actually tested in what on the Earth we would 
 call candle powers, but is known on Mars as 
 Ki-kans, or a un^ of light derived from a pla- 
 tinum wire one millimetre thick, carrying ioo 
 volts current. We could see the varying radia- 
 tions, and came upon rayless sections, which 
 from admixture of impurities or imperfect 
 chemical perfection, were deprived of all lu- 
 minousness. 
 
 "Returning, it seemed as if in the sharp con- 
 vulsions 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-reach- 
 ing 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 
 
187 
 
 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 soldier- 
 like 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 sim- 
 ple, and the view backward just a little ex- 
 citing. 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 Chap- 
 man increasing, and somehow, by that in- 
 tuition 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 dis- 
 appeared from his face, the jesting gayety had 
 fled, and he seemed enfeebled. I hastened 
 to him, and he raised his face with a reassur- 
 ing smile. 
 
 " 'Dodd,' he said, T am dizzy. I feel strange- 
 ly here,' and he felt his forehead. 'I wonder 
 
188 
 
 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 be- 
 low the shining walls, faintly blue and pink. 
 
 " 'Chapman,' I said, 'let us go back. The 
 hoists will take us out.' 'Folly,' was the an- 
 swer. '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 fol- 
 lowed with lightness born of thought, with 
 which the true Martians move. 
 
 "On, on, we sped. The narrowing path car- 
 ried 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 
 
189 
 
 also was more steepily inclined about the jut- 
 ting 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. Chap- 
 man, 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 for- 
 ward. 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 im- 
 pact, and I saw his staggering form turning 
 backward. Another instant and his descend- 
 ing 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 scarce- 
 ly parted from him an instant before I was 
 standing and leaning over him in a group of as- 
 tonished 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 
 
190 
 
 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 Superin- 
 tendent, Alca, had hurried to the spot where 
 the crowding men stood around us ejaculat- 
 ing their amazement. Alca tore open the gar- 
 ment about Chapman, and placing his fore- 
 head on the body, poured out as it were, the 
 full tide of his mental sympathy and power. 
 
 "I could see the struggle between the mor- 
 tality of Chapman, born of doubt, and his un- 
 fittedness and apathy, and the spiritual power 
 of the brave Superintendent. The flame of 
 
191 
 
 life in Chapman would be stimulated or ex- 
 cited, 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 supematurals 
 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, im- 
 perfectly. 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 Sin- 
 si, 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 in- 
 to the huge forest lands of the Ribi wood. 
 
 "This is a beautiful land. Mountain ranges 
 rising from four to six thousand feet cross it, 
 
192 
 
 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 con- 
 venient feeders, and rivers were also tapped 
 to keep the water levels constant in the canals. 
 The weather was that of a semi-tropical para- 
 dise, 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 beau- 
 tiful. 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. 
 
193 
 
 "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 Scan- 
 dor, 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 observa- 
 tory Station or Settlement of Scandor. I 
 was standing on the deck of the boat, watch- 
 ing impatiently the slowly rising tide upon 
 which we were borne upward. I could at first 
 see as we ascended the towers of the observa- 
 tory station. Above me, looking at us with in- 
 terest, on the walls of the lock, was a com- 
 pany 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 inter- 
 ference 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 am- 
 phitheatrical circuit the great vale of Scan- 
 dor. 
 
194 
 
 "But only an instant's glance could be spared 
 for this detail. The divine City glowing below 
 me seemed to magnetize attention, and con- 
 trol, through its wonderfulness each wavering 
 attitude of interest. My son, the eye of man 
 never beheld so astonishing a picture. Imag- 
 ine a city reaching twenty miles in all direc- 
 tions built of glass variously designed, inter- 
 rupted by tall towers, pyramids, minarets, 
 steeples, light, fantastic and beautiful struc- 
 tures, all aflame, or rather softly radiating a 
 variously colored glory of light. 
 
 "Imagine this great area of building, pene- 
 trated by broad avenues, radiating like the 
 spokes of a wheel from a center where rose up- 
 ward to the sky a colossal amphitheatre. Im- 
 agine 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 de- 
 fined. I could see canals or rivers of water 
 winding through the City spanned by arches of 
 
195 
 
 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 val- 
 ley 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 cho- 
 ruses ; billows of sound, softened by distance, 
 beat in melodious surges on the high encom- 
 passing 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 be- 
 came conscious of the great numbers of peo- 
 ple about me, and that they were being aug- 
 mented 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 
 
196 
 
 disembarked, carrying almost mechanically in 
 my hand, the chest in which the communica- 
 tions 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 ap- 
 proaching danger in the heavens. These citi- 
 zens of Scandor are crowding from the City 
 to hear the latest reports. There is a mes- 
 senger 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 to- 
 ward the dark walls of the observatory that 
 covered the hill. At long intervals rockets 
 rose from the opposite rim of the great cir- 
 cular ridge around the City, scarring the deep, 
 inky vault about us with lines of fire. They 
 ascended to an enormous distance. Almost 
 
197 
 
 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), T 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 boule- 
 vard between the widely separated lustres that 
 became more crowded as they massed like 
 a progressive deepening of color into the eddy- 
 ing splendors of the City itself. 
 
198 
 
 "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 de- 
 sire. The broad way was filled with lines 
 and groups of peoples clustering to the hill- 
 top — 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 di- 
 ameter from which proceeded a wisp-like ex- 
 halation, just a phantasmal fan of phosphor- 
 escence, behind it. 
 
 "The glory of the City fell around us now ; 
 we were in its broad streets beneath the tow- 
 ering 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 colon- 
 nades 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 de- 
 scribed, 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 
 
199 
 
 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 co- 
 lossal 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 mo- 
 tive 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 be- 
 fore me the sparkling walls of the amphithea- 
 tre I had descried from the hill of Observa- 
 tion 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 ex- 
 tent, where the light, purposely subdued, al- 
 lowed its dazzling beauty subdued isolation. 
 How wonderful ! I stopped. For one instant, 
 
200 
 
 before hurrying on, I gazed upon a miracle 
 of constructive and decorative art. One hun- 
 dred 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 brack- 
 ets, carrying gorgeous chandeliers of a red 
 bronze ; the largest chandeliers were at the 
 very upper edge of the building, and the cas- 
 cade 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 shad- 
 owy 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, rec- 
 tangular 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. Op- 
 posite 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. 
 
201 
 
 "The faces of the twelve men turned to us as 
 we entered. The herald announced my er- 
 rand 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, celes- 
 tial 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 deli- 
 cate 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 Mar- 
 tian spirit is that of salutation and friendship. 
 We have heard of the discoveries in the new 
 commotions in planetary space. Our own as- 
 tronomers have announced them. This great 
 City of Scandor, the product of many cen- 
 turies' toil and invention, is apparently 
 
202 
 
 doomed. It lies in the path, certainly defined 
 and determined by observers, of a small com- 
 etary 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 inter- 
 positional mercy will carry off this disturbing 
 incidence. But if we are to be destroyed, 
 if there is no escape from the singular for- 
 tune of annihilation by an inrushing stream of 
 meteoric bodies, then warning, through proc- 
 lamation, 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 cov- 
 ered 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 inclina- 
 tion of the body, raised his hand, and address- 
 ing 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 in- 
 vasion, if this place, so long a marvel of 
 
beauty, shall be succeeded by a heap of burn- 
 ing 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. Fright- 
 ened by the sudden premonition of destruction, 
 bewildered by the torrent of new sensations, 
 and even yet only half confident that my ex- 
 istence in the new world was altogether real, 
 I was impelled to spring forward. Reaching 
 
204 
 
 the doors, hands shot out around me, and I 
 was swept in the tide of running forms. 
 
 "It was a living stream of manifold com- 
 plexity. Only for one moment did I lose con- 
 sciousness. The next I was struggling to es- 
 cape from the spreading tentacles of this in- 
 volved current. I leaped to the projection of 
 a low pedestal, upon which an unfinished con- 
 struction 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 distinc- 
 tion, but now strangely bewildered and un- 
 controlled. It was a reversed emotional pic- 
 ture 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 ap- 
 proaching nebula had grown sensibly since an 
 hour ago. It glittered, the size of a shield, and 
 
205 
 
 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 isola- 
 tion in this new world, the unknown awful- 
 ness of this planetary disturbance, the sud- 
 den 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 deter- 
 mination to escape from the city, find my way 
 back to the Hill of Observation, and if possi- 
 ble, send you, my son, my last experience be- 
 fore 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 
 
206 
 
 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 destruc- 
 tion 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 col- 
 lapse, and the unfinished sentence of my 
 father's message can be readily understood as 
 implying that the foreign body, or Swarm, 
 
207 
 
 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 re- 
 ceived. I had become weaker, pale and life- 
 less. The terrible malady made its inroads 
 upon a frame unable to meet its savage or in- 
 sidious attacks. This weakness was aggrava- 
 ted by the excitment 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. 
 
208 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Miss Dodan came more and more frequent- 
 ly to see me. The thought of my physical de- 
 pression, 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 de- 
 veloping affections became daily more ten- 
 der and delicate, and her solicitude evinced 
 itself in many charming, thoughtful ways that 
 added only a more poignant sadness to my suf- 
 ferings. 
 
 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 reno- 
 vate 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 
 
209 
 
 arguments whether I could have any permis- 
 sion to violate my promise to my father, as it 
 was to estimate the exact measure of my ob- 
 ligations to myself and Miss Dodan. An in- 
 cident 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 devel- 
 oped that now has laid its searching and re- 
 morseless veto upon any further life or happi- 
 ness for me in this world. 
 
 Miss Dodan and myself were seated to- 
 gether upon a bench drawn up in the sun- 
 shine at the foot of the Observatory, watch- 
 ing with delight the distinct changing sea, 
 the plumes of smoke from diminished steam- 
 ers, 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 
 
210 
 
 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 every- 
 thing about or near it, from the humiliation of 
 commonness. The stamp of distinction rests 
 on its printless waves. It was the first sur- 
 face 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 unsus- 
 pected fact that Mr. Dodan had observed my 
 physical danger, and now was planning to in- 
 terrupt his daughter's intimacy and hallucina- 
 tion 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 
 
211 
 
 brow, she looked the very embodiment of rev- 
 erent 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 mag- 
 netic 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 de- 
 sire 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 na- 
 
212 
 
 ture, 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-con- 
 trol. 
 
 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 enthu- 
 siastic commendation of his plan was some- 
 thing 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, 
 
213 
 
 young, appreciative, and curious, was elated 
 at the prospect of the voyage, and, momenta- 
 rily, at least, forgot her first reluctance to de- 
 sert 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 pre- 
 pare the story of my experience and discov- 
 eries, and leave it to the world. 
 
 I went back to the Observatory. I was 
 again alone. A reaction of despondency over- 
 
214 
 
 whelmed 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 en- 
 dured peculiar and excruciating excitement, a 
 tense suspense of desire and prevision that de- 
 prived me of appetite and sleep, and accelera- 
 ted the ravages of the disease, that now, vic- 
 torious over my weakened, nervous force, be- 
 gan the last stages of its devastating advance. 
 
 It was a clear, cold night of exquisite sever- 
 ity and beauty — May 20, 1894, that the third 
 message came from my father. It was an- 
 nounced, 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 mag- 
 netic 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 
 
215 
 
 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 im- 
 parts 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 question- 
 ing 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 hav' 
 detected myself, and I hurried after you in 
 my own kil-chow (the name of the little por- 
 celain steamers), anxious to see this terrible 
 thing. Let us go out and watch the wonder. 
 
216 
 
 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, flee- 
 ing from the doomed city. The long lines of 
 moving figures were issuing from the city 
 through its numerous boulevards, and crowd- 
 ing the spaces on the hilltops. The astrono- 
 mers knew exactly now the nature of the 
 approaching mass, its orbit, spacial extent and 
 weight. Their proclamation had been pre- 
 pared and pasted all over the city, announc- 
 ing 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 be- 
 yond its limits there would be almost no falls. 
 
 "Beautiful, indeed, was Scandor in the morn- 
 
217 
 
 ing light. It lay before us shining with a hun- 
 dred huas. How can I tell you of its exquisite 
 perfection ! Its arrangement expressed a color 
 scheme simple and effective. The amphi- 
 theatre rose in the center, an opalescent yel- 
 low ; the boulevards spaced with trees, 
 stretched out in radiating lines from it, de- 
 fined 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 hold- 
 ing the curious electric globes, while at regu- 
 lar intervals blue domes like gigantic azure 
 bubbles interrupted the streets of square and 
 colonnaded houses, that began around the am- 
 phitheatre, 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 up- 
 on 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 con- 
 structions 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 fac- 
 
218 
 
 tories 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 Coun- 
 cil 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 cov- 
 ered 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 
 
219 
 
 in my mouth. The black suffocation passed, 
 and as I slowly returned to realization an J 
 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 unappeas- 
 able 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 atmos- 
 phere 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 
 
220 
 
 in bursts of color, we could see the alarm 
 rockets from the opposite hills penetrate the 
 entering flood of light with frivolous and ex- 
 tinguished protests. 
 
 "About half an hour after the glory reached 
 us, and as on all sides the country shone in 
 spectral illumination, a great mass, decrepita- 
 ting with minute explosions along its on- 
 coming 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 ac- 
 cident of deflection originated interior spots 
 of sudden blazing light. The irregular and 
 separated shocks of sound from the falling 
 
231 
 
 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 astrono- 
 mers had defined it, was confined to the long 
 elliptical basin in which Scandor lay. Be- 
 yond 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 dis- 
 continued, a few laggards fell in scattering 
 confusion over the prostrate city, and the sun 
 climbing the eastern sky sent its peaceful re- 
 assuring light upon a cairn-like heap of deso- 
 lation. The chilled surface of the fallen mete- 
 orites were broken up by areas of glowing cin- 
 der-like surfaces. The glittering and opaline 
 city of glass, the City of Scandor, capital of 
 the Martian world, was buried beneath the 
 
222 
 
 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 hill- 
 tops, 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 slop- 
 ing 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- 
 
223 
 
 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 im- 
 petuous. 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 my- 
 self 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 thankful- 
 ness. The cry was not loud, but audible to 
 
224 
 
 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 be- 
 fore 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 recog- 
 nize 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 Mar- 
 tians, pushed me toward her gently and moved 
 iway from us toward the brink of the river. 
 
 "I stood for a moment hesitating, over- 
 whelmed 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, 
 
325 
 
 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-surren- 
 der 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. Ran- 
 dolph, 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 
 
226 
 
 divine love be fulfilled by tbis 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 isola- 
 tion, 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 re- 
 place the only life — the Life of Love? 
 
 " 'And then my boy ! Can it be possible that 
 
227 
 
 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 feel- 
 ing 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 melo- 
 dy, 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 mar- 
 vellous, too hard to comprehend. The old 
 doubts of my reality, of the realness of every- 
 thing 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 can- 
 vases of the mind, to be reviewed, as in a sleep, 
 
228 
 
 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 con- 
 cussion, 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 antic- 
 ipation 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 Mar- 
 tians 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. 
 
229 
 
 "I contrived to learn from him the name of 
 the little village, and the nature of its inhabi- 
 tants. 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 con- 
 tinuous renewal of Life. 
 
 (End of Mr. Dodd's MS.) 
 
230 
 
 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 mes- 
 sage 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 intellect- 
 ual 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 re- 
 ceived it, and gave him my earnest assurance 
 
231 
 
 that it should be printed, and that the world 
 would be made acquainted with his experi- 
 ments 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 ex- 
 ceptions ; small amounts in favor of his as- 
 sistants — 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, re- 
 sulted 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 com- 
 plied 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 con- 
 siderable 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 ex- 
 amination, repeatedly rejected by the promi- 
 nent 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 encour- 
 aged to publish it, influenced by the favorable 
 comments of friends upon its intrinsic inter- 
 est. He also has added to the work as an 
 appendix, which cannot fail to attract the at- 
 tention of many, the views of the great as- 
 tronomer Schiaparelli upon the present physi- 
 cal 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 pub- 
 lished in the Annual Report of the Board of 
 
233 
 
 Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for 
 1894, published here by permission of "As- 
 tronomy 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 repro- 
 duced in this connection. 
 
 The introduction to-day of the wireless 
 telegraphy, assuming a daily increasing import- 
 ance, 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 inter- 
 planetary communication. 
 
235 
 
 THE PLANET MARS. 
 
 BY GIOVANNI SCHIAPARELLI. 
 
237 
 
 THE PLANET MARS. 
 
 BY GIOVANNI SCHIAPARELLI. 
 
 Many of the first astronomers who studied 
 Mars with the telescope had noted on the out- 
 line of its disk two brilliant white spots of 
 rounded form and of variable size. In process 
 of time it was observed that while the ordi- 
 nary 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 con- 
 cluded rightly from this that they must oc- 
 cupy 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 
 
238 
 
 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 im- 
 portant 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 evi- 
 dent 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 diame- 
 ter, 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 sur- 
 rounding the northern pole should have in- 
 creased; but this fact was not observable, 
 
239 
 
 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 in- 
 structive 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 prin- 
 cipal mass and, dissolving, disappear a little 
 later. In short, the same divisions and move- 
 ments of these icy fields present themselves 
 to us at a glance that occur during the summer 
 of our own arctic regions, according to the de- 
 scriptions 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 
 
240 
 
 snow is reduced to its smallest extent the south 
 pole of Mars is uncovered, and therefore, per- 
 haps, 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 ant- 
 arctic 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 exact- 
 ly 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 phenome- 
 non 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 opera- 
 tion 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 
 
241 
 
 in 1884) the white spot of the snow sur- 
 rounded 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 nat- 
 ural position. This produces in these regions 
 very extensive lakes, such as that designated 
 upon the map by the name of Lacus Hyper- 
 boreus; 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 cen- 
 ter of Asia or of Africa. As things stand at 
 present, we may find a miniature image of 
 these conditions in the flooding that is ob- 
 served 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 un- 
 
242 
 
 favorable 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 Septem- 
 ber our Alps are usually more practicable 
 than at any other season. And the reason 
 for it is clear — the melting of the snow re- 
 quires time ; a high temperature is not suffi- 
 cient; 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 
 
243 
 
 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 de- 
 stroyed ; 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 hemi- 
 sphere whitish regions appear at times sur- 
 rounding 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 ex- 
 istence of such a mountain has also been sug- 
 gested 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, 
 
244 
 
 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 move- 
 ment? 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 import- 
 ance 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 as- 
 sured beyond all doubt another one may be 
 derived from it of not less importance — that 
 the temperature of the Arean climate notwith- 
 standing the greater distance of that planet 
 from the sun, is of the same order as the tem- 
 perature of the terrestrial one. Because, if 
 it were true, as has been supposed by some in- 
 vestigators, that the temperature of Mars was 
 on the average very low (from 50 degrees to 
 60 degrees below zero), it would not be pos- 
 sible for water vapor to be an important ele- 
 ment in the atmosphere of that planet nor 
 could water be an important factor in its physi- 
 cal changes, but would give place to carbonic 
 
245 
 
 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 possi- 
 ble in many words. We have already empha- 
 sized the fact of the extraordinary periodical 
 flood, which at every revolution of Mars in- 
 undates the northern polar region at the melt- 
 ing of the snow. Let us now add that this in- 
 undation is spread out to a great distance by 
 means of a network of canals, perhaps con- 
 stituting 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 
 
246 
 
 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 atmos- 
 phere is nearly perpetually clear and sufficient- 
 ly 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 in- 
 stead of a true nimbus cloud, carrying storms 
 and rain. Indeed, it may be merely a tempo- 
 rary 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 
 
348 
 
 climate of extremes, and great changes of 
 temperature from day to night, and from one 
 season to another. And as on the earth at alti- 
 tudes of 5,000 and 6,000 meters (17,000 to 20,- 
 000 feet) the vapor of the atmosphere is con- 
 densed only into the solid form, producing 
 those whitish masses of suspended crystals 
 which we call cirrus clouds, so in the atmos- 
 phere 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 temper- 
 ature 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 to- 
 pography Mars does not present any analogy 
 with the earth. A third of its surface is occu- 
 pied by the great Mare Australe, which is 
 strewn with many islands, and the continents 
 arc cut up by gulfs, and ramifications of vari- 
 ous 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 
 
249 
 
 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 pre- 
 dominates, 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 
 
250 
 
 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.* Some have thought to attri- 
 bute 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 atmos- 
 phere 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 conti- 
 nents, 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 as- 
 sume the appearance of seas, whilst in other 
 cases their color is intermediate in tint, and 
 
 * Pyrois I take to be some terrestrial region, although 
 I have not been able to find any translation of the name. — 
 Translator. 
 
251 
 
 leaves us in doubt to which class of regions 
 they may belong. Thus all the' islands scat- 
 tered through the Mare Australe and the Mare 
 Erythraeura 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 natu- 
 ral 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, ap- 
 pears more dark the greater the depth of the 
 liquid stratum, and that the land in comparison 
 with it appears bright under the solar illumi- 
 nation, 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 
 
252 
 
 them even the blackest rocks illumined by 
 the sunlight appeared brilliant.* 
 
 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 ex- 
 ception being the great lake called the Mare 
 Acidalium, of which the extent may vary ac- 
 cording 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 sys- 
 tem of the Mare Acidalium undoubtedly be- 
 long the temporary lake called Lacus Hyper- 
 boreus 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 
 
 * 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, oivoTta. n'r)7'roj'." In the version of Monti 
 the adjective indicating the color is lost. 
 
253 
 
 in the continental area which we may desig- 
 nate as lakes, hut they are certainly not per- 
 manent lakes like ours, but are variable in ap- 
 pearance 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 Juventse, which at their maximum 
 size do not exceed ioo 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 fur- 
 rowed upon every side by a network of numer- 
 ous 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 cir- 
 cumference 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 re- 
 semble the finest thread of spider's web drawn 
 
254 
 
 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 configura- 
 tions 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 vari- 
 ations 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 invis- 
 ible, 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 
 
255 
 
 at all correspond to the appearance of Mars at 
 any given period, because generally only a 
 few are visible at once.* 
 
 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 
 
 * In a footnote the author refers to a drawing of Mars 
 made by himself, September 15, X892, 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 mix- 
 ture of their yellow with the brownish gray of the neigh- 
 boring seas." The interesting feature of this note is the 
 remark that it was an unusual appearance, the region re- 
 ferred to being that in which the central branch of the fork 
 of the Y appeared. Since no such branch was conspicu- 
 ously 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. 
 
256 
 
 lakes. For example, seven are seen to con- 
 verge in Lacus Phcenicis, 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 Au- 
 rora? Sinus, and the two horns of the Sabaeus 
 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 longi- 
 tudinal 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 contin- 
 ued without apparent interruption into that 
 canal. Inasmuch as the surfaces called seas 
 are truly a liquid expanse, we cannot doubt 
 
257 
 
 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 demon- 
 strated 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 disap- 
 pears, and the yellow region again returns 
 to its former area. The different phases of 
 these vast phenomena are renewed at each re- 
 turn 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 natu- 
 
258 
 
 ral 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 con- 
 clude, 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 demon- 
 strated that this system is not constant. When 
 they become displaced or their outlines be- 
 come doubtful and ill defined, it is fair to sup- 
 pose 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 
 
259 
 
 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 ioo, 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 pertain- 
 ing to the canals of Mars is their gemination, 
 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 de- 
 termine 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 
 
260 
 
 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 direc- 
 tion of the original canal and end in the place 
 where it ended. One of these is often super- 
 posed as exactly as possible upon the former 
 line, the other being drawn anew ; but in this 
 case the original line loses all the small ir- 
 regularities 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 geminations and varies 
 from 600 kilometers (360 miles) and more 
 down to the smallest limit at which two lines 
 may appear separated in large visual tele- 
 scopes — less than at intervals of 50 kilometers 
 (30 miles). The breadth of the stripes them- 
 selves 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 
 
261 
 
 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 tra- 
 versed by a yellow line. In these cases the 
 gemination is naturally short and does not ex- 
 ceed 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 gemi- 
 nation 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 cer- 
 tain other seasons (especially near the south- 
 ern solstice of the planet) few are seen, or 
 even none at all. In different oppositions the 
 gemination of the same canal may present dif- 
 ferent appearances as to width, intensity, and 
 arrangement of the two stripes ; also in some 
 cases the direction of the lines may vary, al- 
 though 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 
 

 262 
 
 a fixed formation upon the surface of Mars 
 and of a geographical character like the canals. 
 The second of our maps will give an approxi- 
 mate idea of the appearance which these singu- 
 lar 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 topo- 
 graphical register of the observations made of 
 this phenomenon at different times.* 
 
 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 observa- 
 tories. 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 
 
 * This map may be found also in La Planete Mars, by 
 Flammarion, page 44. — Translator. 
 
263 
 
 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 guard- 
 ero bene dal combattere questa supposizione, 
 la quale nulla include d' impossibile.) But it 
 will be noticed that in any case the gemina- 
 tion 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 won- 
 
264 
 
 derful 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 ex- 
 quisite 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 sim- 
 plest 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 opti- 
 cal illusions produced by vapors in various 
 manners, or to glacial phenomena of a per- 
 petual 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 
 
265 
 
 blown laterally by the wind. The examina- 
 tion of these ingenious suppositions leads us 
 to conclude that none of them seem to cor- 
 respond 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 sug- 
 gest anything better?" I must reply candidly, 
 "No." 
 
 It would be far more easy if we were will- 
 ing to introduce the forces pertaining to or- 
 ganic nature. Here the field of plausible sup- 
 position 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 veg- 
 etation over a vast area, and the production of 
 animals, also very small, but in enormous mul- 
 titudes, 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 
 
266 
 
 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 ter- 
 restrial 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 possi- 
 ble supposition renders arbitrary all explana- 
 tions 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 can- 
 not 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 investi- 
 gation at first believed inaccessible to our 
 speculations, and of which we have a beautiful 
 example in celestial chemistry. Let us there- 
 fore hope and study.