“At that moment full attraction was turned on to these clasping strands of wire and their hug was made permanent by the attraction with which Deimos held them down to his surface. This was considered by the Lunarians the greatest feat in engineering that had ever been accomplished up to that time.”
“Or since that time either I should imagine,” said I, “it was wonderful! What else has ever been achieved to compare with it?”
“Well, the catching of Lucy-Phobos”—
“O, I forgot about Lucy-Phobos. What did they do with her or him?—Did they hitch Phobos to the other pole of Mars?”
“No, I’ll tell you; but let me finish with Deimos first. When the cable struck Deimos of course its speed was at once checked. The shock caused quite a wave to pass down the whole length of the cable, but no damage was done, and when thingsgot steadied down again it was found the truck that carried the cable was making a speed of 13½ miles an hour from east to west instead of 12.6 which it was doing before the cable struck Deimos. The reason of this was that Deimos was slower than the cable and Mars dragged the track out from under the car 13½ miles faster than Deimos dragged it forward. It was no trouble after this to go up to Deimos by way of the cable. A car was built around the cable consisting of four stories, one above another. Friction rollers pressed the cable on all sides to steady the car and there were brakes to hold it when necessary. Its chambers were air tight and it carried compressed air for the use of its passengers together with all the modern conveniences. Of course it ascended by repulsion and came back by attraction. It entirely obviated the trouble they first experienced in making a landing on the little moon, since the cable traveled as fast as it did. Frequent trips were made to Deimos and it was always quite the trip for the strong nerved traveler to take. But the main advantage of this work of course came from the enormous power that it afforded for industrial purposes. A long train of trucks were attached to the one carrying the cable, and these contained dynamos driven by gearing connections with their axles. The electricity generated in this way was carried to wires running parallel with the circular railroad, and from these, radiating wires running north, convey the power to all parts of the south temperate zone.”
“They made considerable and remarkable changesin Deimos itself. One thing they did was to import a large stock of air. As I mentioned before the air was very light and thin, and visitors at first had to depend on their flasks of compressed air to a great extent. But after they got to making such frequent trips, it became a rule to always take up large flasks of compressed oxygen which was prepared and kept on hand to be carried up whenever a trip should be made. This was set free on the little moon. In that way in the course of time the air has been made quite passable. In order that visitors might not consume it and replace it with carbonic acid gas, they built several lines of tiny railroads reaching around Deimos on which they built movable gardens. These moved around the whole circuit of the little globe every 30 hours and 18 minutes, that being its period of revolution around Mars. These little gardens thus kept themselves directly under the sun all the time, and were thus always in a tropical climate. Their growth consumed the carbonic gas that accumulated there, and so kept the air pure. The power that moved the gardens was electricity generated by sun light. A large number of machines were placed at intervals all around the little moon so that the sun should always be shining on several of them.”
“Deimos is exceedingly valuable also as a sort of stepping stone from which to get onto Phobos. Once on Deimos and it is as easy getting onto Phobos as to step from one car to another in a running train. Phobos is 5,807 miles from the center of Mars. When the three are in line it is 8,740 miles from Deimos. Deimos travels 3,016½ miles an hour, Phobos 4,777. A body thrown off from Deimos towards Mars will retain the velocity of Deimos and will acquire in falling that 8,740 miles an additional velocity enough to bring its speed up to that of Phobos. So our Lunarians by close calculation and timely departure from Deimos have had little or no trouble in lighting on Phobos without a perceptible jar and have conveyed by that route all the machinery and apparatus they needed in making their improvements there.”
“Was Phobos worth improving then?”
“No, its motive power was simply harnessed so as to be utilized on Mars. They did it in this way.
“A large number of powerful steel magnets were prepared on Mars together with the materials for a large basket or crate stout enough to hold them,also four cables made of wire, each two inches in diameter. These materials done up in proper shape were taken up the cable by repulsion to Deimos then again by repulsion cast off with a company of Lunarians in one of their cars to sail down to Phobos.”
“I should think that being encumbered with such a lot of stuff would have added greatly to the risk of the trip,” said I.
“Not at all, the more metal the better, since it can be made light or heavy at will and so kept under control while other materials could not be made light. It is always desirable to have more than half the weight of our outfit in iron or steel on that account. Well, they landed this material on Phobos and there put it together. The different parts were insulated from each other to provide for the use of repulsion or gravitation as the case might require.
“They staked off an exact square five and a half miles on each side, which was about as large a one as they could get on Phobos and at each corner they firmly anchored one end of one of the cables. At the center of the square Mars appeared directly overhead. At this point the crate was put together upside down and its load of magnets arranged inside of it also upside down. The cables 3,760 miles long were coiled in a pile each to itself and the end fastened to the corners of the crate. On Mars this outfit weighed many tons, but on Phobos it was so light that one man could lift it. Wires connected with a battery passed through the cables to regulate the weight of theconcern. A small amount of repulsion raised it and carried it to the limit of the attraction of Phobos. The momentum taking it a little further, and within the dominance of that of Mars when light attraction was turned on and the crate rose or rather fell slowly toward Mars. When the cables were stretched out and the crate hung by them, it was within a few feet of the ground in some places, at others as much as one or two hundred. Its motion was from west to east at the incredible speed of 1,160 miles an hour. Its actual rate of travel is 1,681 miles per hour, but the revolution of Mars on its axis is at the rate 521 miles in the same direction, so the difference constitutes the apparent motion of the crate of Magnets. In order to get electric power from these it was only necessary to set up insulated slabs of soft iron along the route of the magnets in such position that they would pass close to them as they swept by. This was done at different places along the route, and covered altogether, distances aggregating more than three thousand miles. Of the remaining distance around the planet a part was over the sea and some over low land, where the scaffolding would be too high to pay. The electricity generated in these stationary armatures was run off to storage batteries wherever required in the equatorial regions of the planet. So, with the cable to Deimos and the big dynamo of Phobos. Mars is supplied with unlimited power at nominal cost.”
“But doesn’t the plant require renewal? I should think it would rust out after awhile.”
“Yes the cable has been renewed twice. Thelast one put up is 12 inches in diameter. It is easy now to put one up, with the one already up to steady and steer it. It only has to fall up as you might say, under the influence of repulsion. The occasion of putting up the last cable, however, was not rust, but a singular accident. During the winter there are generally only two or three men left at the pole to keep the shaft oiled and see that everything is all right. One winter the men left in charge undertook to move some heavy timbers and steel beams that had been left on the top of the mountain, and managed to get them into such a position that they were caught by the cable which slowly carried them around until they partly fell into a crevice and became immovable. The cable bent itself around the obstruction, and in doing so was thrown so far down over the edge of the mountain which as I told you had been turned off to resemble a capstan, that it began to be wound around it as if it were a great spool. The men telegraphed to the general manager who came up with a crowd of engineers and workmen, but they could not do a thing except to keep the cable raised by repulsion as much as possible to keep it from catching some obstruction on the ground. The cable made the complete circuit of the railway track in a trifle over 5½ days. The mountain stem had been whittled down to about a mile in diameter so that each revolution wound up a little over three miles of cable, which was at the rate of a little over half a mile a day.
“The cable was so injured where it had beenwound up that they were afraid it would break if they loosened it, and so they concluded to make a new one. There did not seem to be any great hurry about it, and so it dragged along for four years without much being done. By that time almost 700 miles of cable had been wound up and Deimos had been drawn up that much nearer to Mars. Some thought this a good thing and proposed to let him wind himself down within a hundred miles or so of Mars, so that he would be of some account as a moon, for he gave very little light where he was. Others wanted him pulled down to the ground so they could cut him up and get the gold, silver, iron and other valuables he might contain; enough they said to make all the Martians rich. But the more prudent pointed out that if he was pulled down too far he would interfere with Lucy Phobos and spoil her work. It had been observed that the cable had been getting slower and slower and was now moving only a little more than half as fast as it did at first, and the industries depending on it were getting short of power. The mathematicians figured that Deimos would never wind himself up any closer than 12,700 miles or 1,847 miles from where he was in the first place, for the reason that drawing him in towards Mars increased his speed so that when he was wound up to 12,700 miles he would revolve around the planet in 24 hours and 40 minutes, the same time it takes Mars to roll over. Consequently Deimos would appear to stand over the same spot all the time, the cable would cease to move and the winding up process wouldstop, and of course all the machinery connected with it would stop too. After a full discussion of the matter, it was concluded to let Deimos get back to his original orbit, so that the manufacturing that had been started and was operated by the power furnished by the cable might not suffer any further loss.
“The new cable was run up alongside of the old and the upper end fastened to Deimos while the eye in the lower end was placed over the shaft. The cable was then deprived of weight and the 700 miles of slack floated about in space like a big cobweb. It was now supposed that if the old cable was cut Deimos would rapidly move out to his old position. But he did nothing of the kind. He seemed to be satisfied with his new route, and for several months he persistently kept on without getting any further away, his slack cable sagging out behind. They now undertook to compel him, and they succeeded in this way. They gave the cable full weight repulsion. This caused it to straighten out upward, and the slack went on up 350 miles above Deimos curving back to him. The whole thing looked like a fish pole and line with Deimos dangling at the end of it. It had the desired effect, however, for its strain upward exerted considerable power on Deimos disturbing the equilibrium that had been established between the centripetal and centrifugal forces that controlled his motion. It took about two years, however, to get him back to his old route. He wastipped over twice in the process, on account of the cable having been fastened on the underside; first while the loop of the cable was above it, and second when it got out to the end of the cable it was canted back again.”
“It was a funny experience, the little moon had,” I observed. “I suppose it got down to its former gait so as to allow of the old retrograde speed of cable at the Mars end?”
“Yes of course, the speed of Deimos decreased with its distance from Mars. It has occurred to them since, that they ought to have had a still longer cable, so as to have got him still further off with a still slower movement. They would have got more power by it.
“The last time I was on Mars a remarkable circumstance took place that I shall never forget. I was one of a party that accompanied the King on a visit to the pole to inspect the plant and view the landscape. From this lofty elevation the view is charming, and there is also a strange fascination in watching the solemn revolution of the great cable moving with the deliberation and precise regularity of the hour hand of some enormous time piece. There is a little cabin built over the shaft at the pole which revolves with the cable. The man whose business it is to oil the shaft constantly stays in that cabin, and even sleeps there. While we were admiring the view we suddenly heard a scream from the man in the cabin. The eye of the cable is oval and is not filled by the shaft at its inside end. Upon rushing into the cabin we found the unfortunate man had been asleep andallowed one of his feet to drop into this space and it had been slowly drawn in between the cable and the shaft until it was so fastened that he could not pull it out with the most frantic exertions, and every minute took it further crushing as it went. At last the man called for an ax, and it was handed to him, when without a moment’s hesitation, with two or three strokes he severed his leg just above the knee. I was terribly shocked, but the poor man made light of it, and declared he would have another leg in its place as good as that one in five months. Less than two weeks afterwards I saw him and his leg had already started to grow out and in five months he was walking on it the same as the others.”
“That was remarkable,” said I, “but it is said the star fishes on earth—what! are you going?”
The professor during his talk had been arranging his car, a process I had been endeavoring to keep the run of without losing his conversation. He had erected a cab or house over the lower part or body of it, had fastened it down with a sort of clamps, that appeared to make the joints air tight, leaving open a small door on one side. The material of this cab was a thick leathery substance, evidently very tough and stiff and very transparent. He had also an instrument that I directly perceived was an air pump, for he used it in pumping air into a number of flasks—those that he had emptied, I suppose, on his trip down from the moon. As he filled them he placed them inside of the cab and having walked around and carefullyinspected everything to his satisfaction, he paused and turned his great benignant eyes upon me in a hesitating manner that seemed to say that he had something more to tell me which nevertheless he hesitated to communicate. After a few moments he overcame his scruples if he had any, and reaching into one of his middle pockets he brought forth a thin piece of stuff resembling parchment covered on both sides by an adhesive substance like that used on postage stamps. In shape it was like the moon at its first quarter. He pressed this piece against his forehead and left it sticking there for only a moment then handed it to me with a gesture that appeared to indicate that I should press it against mine. I did this, but it did not stick and there came into my head a very strange and muddled sensation not unlike a headache. I pulled it off. The Professor was looking at me and evidently perceived my trouble, for he directed me by a gesture to turn it over. The effect of this was as wonderful as it was agreeable. The Professor seemed to me to be talking through a telephone and while I could not say that I understood him any better than by his usual method, it was, to me, a new method, and disclosed new faculties and possibilities showing in a new light the genius and versatility of this wonderful race.
The information that he chose this novel way of communicating to me, related to the rumor in circulation in Mars as stated sometime back, that a company of speculators made up of Lunarians and extensive promotors living on the Earth were actually planning to impose a new orbit on Mars andhad so far progressed with the scheme, that the stock was all subscribed. It was understood the Lunarians were to do the actual work; in fact it was conceded that they were the only people in the solar system that possessed a plant at all commensurate with the magnitude of the undertaking or were sufficiently skilled or experienced to handle it. The Lunarians were too shrewd or wary to undertake such a contract without assuring themselves of their ability to perform it. It was to inform themselves on this point, that the Professor had agreed to make the long trip to Mars directly after his return to the Moon. This was a larger undertaking than they had yet attempted. They understood perfectly the mathematical principles, involved, but the very immensity of the apparatus required to be used and handled made an appalling task, and yet they declared if they could do it at all, they could do it easily. They relied of course on their great secret—the repulsion of gravitation.
The great scheme was therefore not the hoax they were willing to have the general public believe it to be, but a well considered project, by some of the most astute financiers and physicists in the solar system. The following are some of the principal names and firms enlisted in the enterprise. U. L. & V; J. Y. & Co., K. G. Q.; A. W. Z. & Sons; H. O. & Co.; R. H. R. Sons and Co.; M. D. C. C. C.; J. X. & J.; I. & P.; D. J. & N.; L. H. I. & F.; N. B.; S. I. & Co.; C. M. & Co.; R. T. & X.; C. E. The timidity of capital is notorious; likewise its gullibility and therefore its instinctfor secrecy and slyness. But the above array of names is an ample guaranty against trifling.
There had occurred to me from the first, the interesting question, what the business could be that would impose such a long and fatiguing journey on the Professor as a visit to Mars; I remembered the evasive reply he gave me when asked in regard to the great scheme for the abduction of that planet. I presume it was the tension on my mind, relating to this subject, that gave him an inkling telepathically of my wish to learn more of this great scheme and led him to pause and comply as related above. As to their ability to work out so vast an enterprise; it may be doubted. When Mars is in a direct line between Jupiter and the Sun, if they could give it a vigorous repulsory push from Jupiter while the sun’s attraction remains in activity, both his orbit and time would approximate those of the Earth. It might take several such repulsory pushes to secure the degree of conformity required for the adjustment of the three orbits—Moon, Mars and Earth. There is no denying the imminent risk to be incurred even by such experts as our Lunarians, in handling three bulky globes in such close proximity, for it is not Mars alone that will be involved in any change that may be brought about; but all three. It will prove a much greater contract than handling Deimos and Phobos.
These thoughts passed rapidly through my brain, while the Professor after another hasty inspection of his car, suddenly stepped inside and closed the door, fastening it with clamps like therest. While he was doing this I eagerly inquired if he would not meet me again sometime and resume the story of my race in the far future beyond the one hundredth millennium.
He nodded his head affirmatively with a most benignant smile of his great kindly eyes, and said something I could only partially understand—“I will meet you here August — 9 — — —,” something preceded and something followed the nine, but I cannot tell what. The nine probably refers to the year—but nine occurs in every remaining year of this century, and in every one of the next. He waved his hand to me, then reached forward from his seat in the back of the car touched a button—or something—and began at once to rise, rather rapidly from the first, and increasing in speed so fast that the car as I gazed after it, dwindled with wonderful rapidity and soon went out. Before he shut himself in his car I had instinctively taken off my hat, and I stood there holding it in my hand, but without sufficient presence of mind to frame an appropriate farewell. The fact is, his personality was overpowering and in his presence—I speak only for myself—one felt small and insignificant.
“Well! can you make it out?” The words startled me and looking up I saw Allan Ocheltree standing before me with a bucket of water in his hand. I could not realize for a few moments where I was. Looking down I saw in my hands the stake with the red blotches on that I had tried to read before I met the Professor. But that was long ago. I had but little idea how long, but it musthave been tedious for Allan during the long period I was interviewing the Professor. I wondered how he had occupied himself, and why he had not disturbed the interview—though I was exceedingly grateful that he had not. Perhaps he had seen the Professor himself. I asked him.
“What are you giving me?” said he, “I have seen no professor.”
“But he has only this moment left me, perhaps he is still in sight,” said I, and I at once turned an eager gaze toward the sky overhead and directly descried a small black speck. “There! what’s that—I believe that’s the Professor.”
“That,” said Allan coolly, “is a crane, you can see it moving toward the east. It is going home to Crane Island. What’s the matter, are you dreaming?”
I briefly explained.
“Well,” said Allan, “you must have fallen into a doze and got to dreaming. Don’t give yourself any worry about the way I have put in the time, I have been very agreeably occupied getting this bucket of water.”
“Do you mean to say,” said I, “that all this interview has taken only”—
“I mean to say that you have been sitting down there on that bank holding that piece of stick with the blurred keel marks on it, just long enough for me to walk to that rock yonder dip up a bucket of water and walk back. Here, time me with your watch and I will show you how long it took.”
Whereupon he threw away the water in his bucket, walked to the rock, refilled it and walkedback—in one minute and forty seconds! Thus may one get an idea of the quickness of thought. I had heard of it before, but never realized it so completely.
As we went on with our preparations for our dinner I gave Allan some further account of what I seemed to have heard and seen, and he became quite interested in it.
“I think,” said he, “you ought to write it down, and do it at once before you forget it. You had better go right back to your cottage at the other end of the lake. I’ll go with you, perhaps I can help you. I can write while you dictate.”
I thought myself, I ought to write it down, and was pleased that he made the suggestion. It was soon arranged. After dinner we piled our things in the Sally Ann and were soon under way. Instead of rowing back to the outlet of Halsteds Bay, we steered for a narrow depression in the long point of land that separates the Bay from the upper lake. At this place which is only a few yards wide, we made a portage by dragging the boat over by main strength, and in a minute were in the lake, and just in time to hail a little steamer on its way down. They threw us a line which we made fast to the Sally Ann, and were thus towed back to Excelsior. Here Allan left me to go and settle his board bill and get his things, with the understanding that he would come over to my cottage next morning, while the steamer pursued her way toward the St. Louis hotel. Opposite Cottagewood I threw off the line and in a fewminutes was back in my cottage. This terminated the cruise of the Sally Ann.
That night I dreamed over the entire interview with the Professor, I believe verbatim.
Next morning a messenger came with a note from Allan saying that he had found awaiting him a telegram from a favorite niece demanding his presence at her wedding due to come off at St. Louis at a time that required his immediate departure. This he considered imperative and he had accordingly started the night before. He would try and come back after the wedding was over, he said.
I began to write up the “interview” that day, and that night I dreamed it all over again. It seemed to be now well fixed in my mind and I wrote rapidly. A week later I got another note from Allan. Business had claimed him again and he regretted that he would have to forego any further outing till next season. I have never heard from him since.
I wrote vigorously on the interview, and finished it in two weeks. I was very tired and glad to get back to the city and to work so as to rest up from the fatigues of my outing.
The Reader will remember that the Professor stated that the alternating gravity currents—the secret of which the Lunarians so tightly gripped—could be applied only to metals and has no effect on organic substances. In order to get the use of these currents for moving or controlling such bodies, it must be acquired through the manipulation of the metals. Thus if a piece of metal be attached to a block of wood, according to the Professor, the greater quantity of the metal will control the movement. If a box be constructed of metal so as to hold non reversible materials of course they will share the movement of the metal.
The following account of the discovery by Professor Mitchell, taken from a paper of the period, is suggestive of a connection between that and the discovery by the Lunarians.
Sometime in the sixth decade of this century (19th) a very remarkable discovery was said to have been made by the celebrated astronomer, Prof. O. M. Mitchel, then of Cincinnati, and director of Dudley and Cincinnati Observatories. He discovered either a new metal or an amalgam, alloy or compound, which when formed into plates possessed the property of preventing the passage through it of the influence of gravitation. In short iteffectually stopped the passage of the lines of force that constitute gravitation, so that if a cage or box were made of such material any solid body placed inside of it would lose its weight and not tend to fall. If a man were to get inside of such a box, he would find himself destitute of weight toward the ground. But if he should open the top of the box he would admit the influence of gravity from that direction, coming from the moon, planets or stars that might happen to be in that direction at the moment and it would at once commence to rise. Acting upon the obvious suggestions enforced by such experiments the Professor caused a cage to be built large enough to contain 4 or 5 persons, and in order to secure secrecy had it conveyed in pieces, together with all needed apparatus and stores, to a solitary and obscure circular hollow or depression in the valley of the Mississippi not far from Natchez, and called the Devil’s Punch-bowl. Here the cage was put together and the numerous openings in the plates on all sides covered by movable sliding lids of the same material, were carefully closed and secured, all the scientific apparatus, the provisions’ flasks of compressed air etc., were conveyed within, and lastly the voyagers themselves. By opening the ports in the direction of the moon they soon began to fall toward her. As they approached her, by a judicious manipulation of the sliding doors they were enabled to make a complete revolution around her. They did not land, reserving that adventure for another trip. On their return to earth they steadied themselves in a position some milesup, and allowed the earth to revolve under them until the Devils punch-bowl came directly beneath them, when they dropped into it. They dismantled and secreted their machine intending to return. Shortly after this the Civil war came on, during which Prof. Mitchel became a general in the service and died at Beaufort, South Carolina, October 30, 1862, and the secret of his discovery as I suppose died with him.
P. S.:—Notice! If any of the companions of Professor Mitchell on the above trip to the moon are still living they would greatly oblige the author by sending him their address.
Taking our stand in the future alongside of the men and women that will then be pressing their brains against the apparently insoluble problem of over-population, we will share their amazement at the insane panic that penetrated the American people of the 19th century to give away and on any terms to get rid of their magnificent domain and have it pass into the control and ownership of any undesirable bipeds that would take it as a gift. They acted as if they thought land was an encumbrance and something that was impoverishing and ruining the nation. If they had held out an exclusive welcome to the hardy and liberty loving people of the north of Europe, the stock that fought for liberty and independence in the first place, it would have been at least more rational. But under any conditions, why such a panic to fill up the country with people? Carlylespeaking of the prosperity of America 50 or 60 years ago said: “You may boast of your free institutions and your dimmocracy and all that, but America is prosperous, because you have a great deal of land for a very few people.”
He was right.
As long as land was abundant or rather as long as people were scarce, there was enough of the necessaries of life to give a competence and comfort to all. When the country is filled up there is no longer the profusion that nature set out for us at first. The land that we ought to have reserved for our children, educated in our ways and inheriting our ideas is given to foreigners, and our own are disinherited. The miraculous insanity of this, is that we view this prospect with more than complacency and are anxious to help it along. We not only crowd the country with immigrants, many of whom we are obliged to class as objectionable, but we encourage a double rate of increase by the Apotheosis of the parents of large families, as if fecundity were a merit or there were any danger of “race suicide”. The danger is greater that nature out of patience with our colossal stupidity will visit homicide on the whole race, just as she has so often done on parts of it.
The danger the Professor sees ahead is no dream. Neither is the final remedy he so confidently proposes. Even now, are some of these vital questions being solved, and along the Professor’s lines. We shall learn to begin our study of sociology with the Bees and the Ants; older races than we are, and in practical hard sense far ahead.
Many people do not know that we have gone to sleep directly over a weak spot in the Earth’s crust, that although it gives many warnings by growlings and grumblings, it fails to wake us up. We turn over and half awake, we mutter—it isn’t going to be much of a quake I guess. If some crank does not succeed in sounding the alarm loud enough and none but a crank will be likely to sound it at all, the citizen peers out—“’tis nothing but that crank,” he says, and he rolls over as if he thought it better to be overwhelmed by a quake than saved by a crank. So much the worse if even the crank cannot save us.
The questions that we seem desirous to push aside are the most persistent in pressing for solution. What is the aim of the aimless multitudes that swarm to our shores? What do any of us live for? To live? Is living worth it, if it cannot be done in comfort? The old theological query shows up—“What is the chief end of man”? As they answered; it was nothing at all to man and of paltry insignificance to anybody else.
I inferred from a remark the Professor dropped that he regarded the present human race as gradually developing a third or worker sex from those present, especially the female; and this without any artificial effort. It is evident to the most superficial observation that the women are pushing ahead into occupations that a few years ago were monopolized by the men. The men, arebeing dispossessed of their employments, and the women usurp their places. Women thus employed and self supporting, cannot reasonably be expected to see anything very alluring in a marriage that presents a prospect to the woman of being obliged to support a husband and children as well as herself. This condition of things will certainly cause a decline in matrimony, has already done it in fact; amongst the women of the greatest enterprise.
The Professor’s plan of the abortion or extinction of the digestive apparatus is in direct continuance of evolution. There are many cases in nature in which a process or system is abandoned or superseded by a different one, and new organs and new functions may totally displace others. For example the Amphibians are supplied with gills, and are able to live continuously under water, but they begin to live part of the time in the air, and lungs are developed which at first begin to do part of the office of aerating the blood of the animal, and gradually assume the whole of the function, the gills becoming atrophied and abolished.
The prognostication of the Professor in regard to the metamorphosis of the digestive apparatus is neither wild nor extravagant. The unborn infant lives on food digested by its mother and introduced into its system. After its birth the food is digested and supplied by its own internal laboratory, instead of that of the mother. It might just as well be supplied by a chemical laboratory.The only essential condition is that the food be perfectly assimilable by the tissues and without any surplus of substances not required. The transfer of the food supply from the circulation of the mother to its production by the chemist is reached by several stages or changes. First it is from the mothers circulation supported by exterior supplies of food. Next it is furnished by the circulation of the infant supported by exterior supplies; commonly beginning with the natural lacteal secretion, then after a time the demand changes from this to stronger food; also to acquired habits in taste the use of stimulants, narcotics etc. Thus nature changes the organism in the most radical way to keep it in conformity with conditions that are necessary for its support, and likewise changes its environment to furnish the conditions with which conformity is essential. If we consider how great the changes are, in the structure and functions of one body during the living of one life; we cannot feel surprised at the changes in human anatomy that we know to have occurred in the long ages up which we have so laboriously toiled, nor at the further changes which the foresight of the Professor points out to us, and for which he helps himself to such a prodigal allowance of time. The changes we have met and passed are far greater than those assumed for the future. As to our evolution we are certainly not yet half through.
The following notes of the conditions of Mars and its tiny satellites are furnished by our mundaneastronomers, and will give an idea of the problems that demanded solution by the Lunarians in their famous contract. Gravity on Mars is four-tenths as much as on the Earth. The atmospheric pressure is two and a quarter pounds per square inch against 15 pounds on the Earth. The climate of the poles is much milder than the same regions of Earth, although there are heavy falls of snow. In June and July 1892, 1,600,000 square miles of snow melted off in the southern zone of Mars. April 9, 1890, 3,000,000 square miles of snow fell. Ice is not formed anywhere except close to the poles in winter time. The channels are connected from sea to sea. They are 60 miles wide and from 3,000 to 4,000 miles long in a straight line. There are many of the channels that are duplicates, the duplicate being parallel with and 200 to 400 miles from the main channel. There are from 7 to 20 of these duplicate channels. Most of the surface of Mars is boggy syrtis, neither sea nor good dry land. Clouds float 20 miles high—4 times as high as on Earth.
The year of Mars is equal to 687 of our days. His day is 24 hours and 37 minutes. His diameter is about 4,500 miles; his distance from the sun 145,000,000 of miles; his nearest position to the Earth 35,000,000 miles.
The moon Phobos is 8 to 9 miles in diameter. It is 3,760 miles from the surface of Mars, and revolves around him in 7 hours and 39 minutes, at a rate of 79.6 per minute. It rises in the west and sets in the east. Its orbit is 36,486 miles. Deimosrises in the east and sets in the west, so to Mars, does the Earth, Sun and Moon. The diameter of Deimos 6 to 7 miles, distance from the surface of Mars 12,500 miles and his revolution is performed in 30 hours and 18 minutes, rate 50 miles a minute.
FOOTNOTES[1]After reaching home and looking over the notes of the survey, I found the number of the stake to be between 1175 and 1185, and it was set on Saturday afternoon, October 25, 1879.[2]Plastidule is the lowest, or unit molecule of protoplasm.[3]The Professor probably referred to the instruction found in Matt. 19: 12.[4]A Kik is worth about 10 cents American money.[5]I have gone over these figures and I find the King was correct. Author.
[1]After reaching home and looking over the notes of the survey, I found the number of the stake to be between 1175 and 1185, and it was set on Saturday afternoon, October 25, 1879.
[1]After reaching home and looking over the notes of the survey, I found the number of the stake to be between 1175 and 1185, and it was set on Saturday afternoon, October 25, 1879.
[2]Plastidule is the lowest, or unit molecule of protoplasm.
[2]Plastidule is the lowest, or unit molecule of protoplasm.
[3]The Professor probably referred to the instruction found in Matt. 19: 12.
[3]The Professor probably referred to the instruction found in Matt. 19: 12.
[4]A Kik is worth about 10 cents American money.
[4]A Kik is worth about 10 cents American money.
[5]I have gone over these figures and I find the King was correct. Author.
[5]I have gone over these figures and I find the King was correct. Author.