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                                   THE
                           LUNARIAN PROFESSOR
                                   AND
                  His Remarkable Revelations Concerning
                      the Earth, the Moon and Mars
                              TOGETHER WITH
                     An Account of the Cruise of the
                                Sally Ann

                                   BY
                           JAMES B. ALEXANDER
         AUTHOR OF THE DYNAMIC THEORY, THE SOUL AND ITS BEARINGS
                               AND OTHERS

                           MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.
                                  1909

                             COPYRIGHT 1909
                                   BY
                           JAMES B. ALEXANDER

CONTENTS

    CHAPTER                                   PAGE

          Preface.

       I. An Outing                              1
          An Old Time Adventure                  2
          Cruise of the Sally Ann                4
          The M. & N. W. Railway                10
          An Old Stake                          14

      II. The Professor                         17

     III. The Moon and Its People               31

      IV. Lite on and in the Moon               51

       V. Mundane Prognostication               70
          The Profile of Time                   73
          Single Tax                            81

      VI. Confiscation of Lands                 93
          Purchase of the Railways             101
          Regulation of the Currency           105
          Socialism                            107

     VII. Woman’s Rights                       113
          The Family                           117
          Progress in the Church               119

    VIII. Marriage and Divorce                 124
          Changes in Map of U. S.              128
          Russia and England                   129
          New Political Divisions              133
          The Flying Machines                  140
          Sun Power                            152
          Over Population                      155

      IX. Pessimism vs. Optimism               158
          The Three Grand Nations              164

       X. The Third Sex                        182
          The Decay of the Family              187

      XI. The Millenniums                      195
          The Man of the 100th Millennium      199

     XII. Universal State and Language         207

    XIII. Mars and the Martians                225

     XIV. The Canals                           238
          The Moons                            241

      XV. The Great Debt                       255
          Deimos and the Great Cable           260

     XVI. Phobos                               268
          The New Cable                        273
          Proposed Abduction of Mars           277
          The Return Voyage                    282
          Appendix                             283

PREFACE.

The reader will please remember that this visit and revelation of the
Lunarian Professor took place in 1892, seventeen years ago, and some of
the predictions are already due of fulfillment or of apparent progress
in that direction. For example he gives Minneapolis a population of
1,780,000 in the year 1925 only sixteen years from the present. This is
worse than Walton. But I do not feel at liberty to alter the Professional
utterances. If I should begin to do this I would never know where to
stop. There will doubtless be found other predictions at variance with
our ideas, especially as to the time in which the fulfillment should
take place. Time is the most uncertain element concerned in prophetic
utterances. Give a prophet time enough and he will successfully predict
you anything you like. “All things come to him who _waits_.” But I have
not the assurance to change anything the Professor has said and I am not
prepared to aver that the truths as they appear to common mundane mortals
are to be preferred to the errors however manifest of so illustrious a
prophet—just as we accept the dicta of Moses or St. Paul—when we are
entirely sure they do not know what they are talking about. Our Professor
is probably wrong in regard to the settlement of some of the questions
taken up by him, but to tell the honest truth, I am too ignorant of the
disputed points to contradict him. If he says black is white it is safer
for me not to talk back. But when it comes to plain statements of facts,
concerning the present conditions on the Moon and Mars, in which, from
the abundance of personal knowledge there remains no license to draw upon
his imagination for his facts, I implicitly trust the Professor. I never
saw a pair of eyes so full of honesty for their size, or of as large
capacity for honesty as his. Even there, however, some of his statements
are liable to be contradicted. For example, the theory of the hump or
protuberance on the hither side of the Moon, which had some currency
among our astronomers 40 or 50 years ago appears later to have been
abandoned by at least some of them, but we should not allow mere theory
to counter-balance the testimony of a competent eye witness.

It may seem strange that the Professor has made almost no mention of the
great Japanese-Russian war. But as this war settled nothing, did not
even settle what there was to be settled it may be considered as a mere
incident in the discussion of the real question at issue. This is only my
conjecture of the reason of his silence.

The point of view assumed by a Prophet is of little consequence compared
with what he sees. Some say, back-sight is more reliable than foresight,
and that, considered as a magazine of facts, history is preferable to the
imagination. But back-sight is history, and like good liquor it requires
aging and maturing. The association of the imagination supplies these
effects. History must be read with the help of the imagination even for
present use; still more if the inquiry embraces a glance into the future.

_Si quaeris futura, circumspice._ If you would know the future look
around you. That which has been will be. All things have ever been under
the domination of evolution and they ever will be. Therefore, let the
imagination explore its trail, and you are at once a prophet.

CHAPTER I.

An Outing.

Let me see. It was six (6) years since I had an outing. It seemed a long
time and it was long enough to obscure the conviction I had once arrived
at that the average outing is on the whole more of a bore than a pleasure
and that its principal value consists in making a fellow satisfied with
his ordinary work and glad to get back to it again. I am tolerably sure
that I should have reached the same opinion even if I had not been the
victim of a certain wretched adventure that happened away back in my
“courting days”. On the occasion referred to I had taken my best girl
for a little rowing and fishing on Brush Lake. We had not proceeded far
when she “got a bite”, and it nearly drove her wild with excitement, she
stood up in the boat and from her frantic exertions I judged she had
hooked nothing less than a six pound bass. At last she pulled it out with
a horizontal sweep, and whirling around with it, the middle of the line
struck my head with such force as to send the fish revolving around my
neck five times, and wound up by inserting the hook in the end of my nose
and leaving the fish dangling and flapping against my face—a ridiculous
little Sunfish not over three inches long. The excited lady dropped her
pole and made such a violent lunge to secure her prize that she upset
the boat and left us both floundering in the water. Amongst the fifteen
or twenty spectators on the shore was Aquarius Jinks, whose father was
a fisherman and had brought him up to think no more of jumping into the
water than a water spaniel. So in he jumped and in a jiffy he rescued my
lady and took her to the nearest house to get some dry clothes. As for
myself, I was getting out all right in spite of the embarrassment of the
choking line, my lacerated nose and that wretched fish that did not for
a moment let up its frantic struggling and flapping. In addition to this
I had the misfortune to be encumbered by the clumsy assistance of a fat
German saloon-keeper, who by the help of the pole, which had now floated
near the shore, drew me up, amid the jeers of the crowd, that now by the
barbarous custom of the times, I was obliged to “treat.”

This exposure laid me up for six weeks with the chills, and about the
end of that time there was a wedding—my girl married that Jinks, who
took this perfidious advantage of me. I felt very sore for a long time
in the region of the diaphragm. The poets usually designate the heart as
the particular organ affected in such cases, but I am persuaded it is
the semi lunar ganglion or solar plexus, probably the former, from the
fact that the victim is apt to be affected by semi lunacy. But that is a
question of physiology.

Although I never had another such disastrous experience, yet as I said at
first, the average outing with its accidents, fatigues and discomforts,
had on the whole, left no very favorable impression on me. Yet I had made
up my mind after an interval of six years to try one more. My literary
work had tired me out, and a trip, if it gave no pleasure, would hurt at
least in another place.

August the third, 1892, found me installed in a cottage, at Cottagewood,
at the eastern end of Lake Minnetonka. My plans were simple. I had a gun,
a boat and fishing tackle, but of these I intended to make small use. I
would rest most of the time, and lie under the trees and read or loaf as
I saw fit. I would buy my food of such kind and in such condition as to
take but little time for its preparation, for I intended to “keep bach”
for which I was qualified by more or less previous experience. If at any
time I wanted a square meal, I could take a row around to the St. Louis
hotel, or if the wind were favorable could sail over to the Lafayette,
or to Excelsior. In short, I meant to rest and take it easy; do nothing
at all to-day, that I could put off till to-morrow. I thought this all
over the first day and in accordance with the programme proceeded to make
myself as lazy as possible. I succeeded well. It requires but little
effort to become lazy when one is in the afternoon of life. During a week
my activity was reduced to a minimum; I saw but few people, although I
had neighbors only a few rods away concealed by the thick brush, that
grew between us. Once a dog came and after looking around, trotted away.
As I sat or lolled on a rustic bench near the lake, the drowsy monotonous
lapping of the water against the shore kept me for hours on the border
land of sleep, just in that condition in which one does not know whether
the motions of his brain are dreams or waking thoughts, and in which he
often dreams that he is dreaming. The sound of the distant puffing of a
steam yacht or the merry laughter of a sailing party, that occasionally
ricocheted to the shore rather directed than disturbed the train of these
passive activities.

The exhausted body or brain is like a machine that has run too long
without being oiled. It goes with reluctance and with damaging wear and
tear. But when we are thoroughly rested, the motives that before were
unable to move us, now set us going with the greatest facility.

After the rest and quiet of a week, I began to feel an impulse to do
something or to go somewhere; and a short debate settled that I would
take a trip by sail and oar to the upper lake. As I did not intend
to hurry and might be gone two or three days, I laid in a stock of
provisions accordingly; with such cooking apparatus as a coffee pot
and frying pan. Nowhere is a cup of coffee, a slice of ham, crackers
and cheese so relishable as when they satisfy real thirst and hunger
alongside a camp-fire of dry sticks. Then perhaps I might shoot a duck or
hook a croppy. At night the sail stretched over a fishing pole could be
formed into a shelter tent, something like the “dog tents” Uncle Sam gave
us for shelter in the southern campaigns in the early sixties. In short
I intended to make a regular cruise, and as my boat was named Sally Ann,
this trip should be known in history as the cruise of the Sally Ann.

It was a fine morning when, all things ready, I hoisted sail. The wind
was from the southeast and I started off before it at an exhilarating
speed, steering northwest. In a short time I came abreast of Big Island,
when turning west skirting its north shore, I soon got becalmed, the
island cutting off the wind. I was obliged to take the oars, but as I
dallied and loitered along, it was a full hour before I passed the island
and caught my breeze again. I was here steering southwest across the wind
and heading for the narrows, and the canal leading into the upper lake.
Nothing can exceed the beauty of this lake, no matter at what point the
view is taken. At this place looking northeast over the stern of the
boat, the village of Wayzata partly obscured by Spirit Island, appeared
as if seated in the water half a mile away, though in reality it is five
miles. On the southeast within a mile, was the Lake Park hotel and beyond
it, half a mile further and across the entrance to Gideon’s Bay, a part
of Excelsior could be seen climbing its picturesque hills, while along
the piers at the bottom of their slopes, were numerous steam and sailing
crafts of various kinds, besides a fleet of row boats.

As I approached the entrance to the canal, I observed standing on the
south bank, a man with a gun in his hand and dressed in outing costume,
whose figure and attitude reminded me of someone I had seen before. “Can
it be possible,” I said to myself, “that that is Allan Ocheltree?” By the
time the boat touched the land, I had made sure that it was and I sprang
ashore to greet him. The recognition and gratification at meeting were
mutual. Our friendship for each other, was always the closest friendship
either of us had. We had been room-mates and class-mates for four years
at college, and our temperaments and tastes were like complementary
colors, of such harmonious contrast as to fit each other to a T. In our
class we were to each other like the two end men of a minstrel troup; he
at one end—the head end—and I at the other. It is singular how people,
like drift wood on the stream of time, are at times drifted toward each
other and float along together till some eddy or obstruction in the
current separates them, and hurries them off in diverging directions,
perhaps to meet again farther down the stream, it may be more than once.
Sometimes a leave-taking under circumstances, that seem to forebode
it to be the last and clothe it in gloom, and sorrow, is nevertheless
not the last by many; while a cheerful good-by with a light hearted
“ta-ta-old-fellow-see-you-to-morrow,” may prove the beginning of a
separation destined to endure for years—perhaps forever.

The Ocheltree family and my ancestors, were from the same Scotch-Irish
stock, were friends and neighbors near Belfast and emigrated to Maryland
about two hundred and thirty years ago, settling at first in Somerset
County. A few years later they moved north into Cecil County, and from
there in 1760 a large emigration took place to Mechlenburg County,
North Carolina. Among these emigrants, were Duncan Ocheltree and my
grandfather’s Uncle John. These two were friends and neighbors in the new
settlement and when the revolutionary war broke out, they both adopted
the patriotic cause. The Mechlenburg declaration of independence was
adopted and signed May 20th or 31st, 1775, by a convention of which
John was secretary, and it was supported by Duncan. But in 1780, Lord
Cornwallis overran the state and captured Charlotte, the county seat
of Mechlenburg, and Duncan, believing all was lost, hastened to turn
Tory and make his submission to his lordship in order to save his wealth
of which he had acquired a goodly share. This was a bad break and he
made it worse by the supererogatory zeal of a new convert, in harassing
his former friends and piloting the red-coated foragers to their hay
stacks, hen roosts and pig pens, not sparing his old friend John. But
the triumph of Cornwallis was short; in a few days, he was obliged to
evacuate Charlotte and then Duncan realized that he had placed himself in
a very bad position. As the British troops were packing their knapsacks
preparatory to decamping from Charlotte between two days, Duncan
determined to throw himself upon the generosity of his former friend
John, and so under cover of the darkness he rode out to his farm-house
nine miles in the country. John, who was two miles off in the patriot
camp, was sent for. Duncan surrendered his sword and begged his old
friend to forgive bygones and advise him what to do. John’s sympathy
for him at that stage of affairs was not particularly tender as may be
supposed, but nevertheless his advice was no doubt the best possible.
He said: “Ocheltree, neither your life nor your property is safe in
Mechlenburg. The Whigs will take both. Your only safety is in instant
flight. I advise you to reach the Yadkin before daylight.” He took the
advice. And so they parted. Four generations later like two stray straws
on a flood, Allan Ocheltree and I were floated into the same class
room at school. Did it make any difference to me or to him that his
great grandfather, made a bad guess seventy years before? Not a bit.
Every man’s ancestral tree is just the same height as all the rest, his
lineage is just as long and his pedigree must contain practically the
same number of terms whether we reckon back to Adam or to the Ascidian
or to original protoplasm. Not a member of the long line made himself
or the circumstances surrounding him, and in no two cases were these
precisely the same. The circumstances that made Confucius or Alexander
the Great, or Julius Caesar, or Columbus, or Washington never happened to
anybody else. It was no fault of the obscure ancestors or descendants or
cousins near and remote of those worthies that these circumstances never
surrounded _them_. On the other hand it cannot be ascribed to the merit
of the long line of those belonging to the dead level of the average,
in size and in quality, that they have been missed by the untoward
circumstances that selected certain individuals to be in one respect or
another conspicuously below that dead level.

After quitting college, Allan and I occasionally ran across each other,
but the last meeting before this, occurred in 1876 on Arch Street,
Philadelphia. He was interested in an exhibit in the great exposition,
and being then in a great hurry made an appointment to meet me next
morning. I kept the engagement, but he was not there. I knew urgent
business had turned up to prevent him, and after I returned to my home I
received his letter saying so, and appointing another hour. This letter
had missed me at my hotel and followed me to Illinois. Here then, we were
having our reunion sixteen years after it was due. But now we could make
up for lost time for neither had engagements that required attention for
a week at least. It was speedily arranged that Allan should accompany
me and that we should carry out together the plan I had proposed for
myself. He wrote a note for his boarding house keeper in Excelsior,
saying he would be gone some days, and gave it to a rowing party going
to Excelsior, that we shortly after fell in with, and who cheerfully
consented to deliver it. The wind was still from the southeast, but light
and we slowly sailed westerly and south-westerly passing successively
the state fruit farm and Sampson’s place lying on our left, and Spring
Park on our right, had in a short time reached Howard’s Point that juts a
third of a mile into the lake from the south shore. We sailed through the
strait between this and picturesque Rockwell’s Island with its attractive
summer hotel, and restful looking surroundings, and turned southwest
toward Smithtown Bay.

We entered Smithtown Bay, but did not go to the end of it, for the
wind was not favorable, and as we turned west toward the highlands of
the upper lake I fell into a reminiscent mood. Up to this time we had
occupied ourselves in admiration of the delightful scenery and in such
careless chat as occurred to us, sometimes taking a pull at the oars,
when we entered a locality becalmed by being screened from the wind,
and sometimes pulling in the fish line that dragged over the stern of
the boat to see why we never got a bite. But here the memories that
crowded upon me completely absorbed my attention and I became silent. I
had tramped all over this country in 1877 in the selection of a route
for the Minneapolis and Northwestern Narrow Gauge Railroad, and so was
familiar with the topography, not only of the upper lake, but of the
whole route from Minneapolis to Hutchinson. The first preliminary line
surveyed from Hutchinson to Minneapolis in the latter part of November,
1877, passed along the foot of the high bluff just in front of us, but
the line was not finally located till October, 1879.

When I explained to my friend how the line passed south-easterly along
the foot of the bluff, at the edge of the water, except where it dodged
behind Hoflin’s headland, and then swept around the head of Smithtown
Bay turning north-easterly toward Excelsior, “I declare,” he exclaimed,
“there never was so romantic a place to locate an excursion railroad. So
attractive a line ought surely to have been built. Why wasn’t it?”

“Well,” I replied, “it was a case of infanticide.”

“How was that?” he asked.

“You’ve heard of treacherous midwives and nurses and murderous
baby-farmers being subsidized to strangle an unwelcome cherub as soon as
it is ushered into the world?”

“Yes, was it a case of that sort?”

“This infant was born healthy and vigorous after what might be called a
rather protracted period of gestation—some thirty months. It had no less
than twenty-one nurses in the shape of directors, which number was four
times as great as it should have been and one over.

“When there is such a mob of officials, the management usually devolves
on a few of the more active and interested. That active minority in this
case somehow either had from the first, or acquired, a greater interest
in killing this enterprise to please its rivals than in carrying it out
in good faith.”

“How did the line run west of here?” he asked.

“It passed northwesterly along the foot of the bluff yonder, on the top
of which you see Smith’s stone house, then along the shore just in front
of the “hermitage”, and a quarter of a mile beyond that it turned toward
the west and cutting through the ridge of the peninsula that separates
the upper lake from Halsteds Bay, it skirted the south shore of that bay,
and thence bore in a generally westerly and northwesterly direction,
through Minnetrista township to St. Boniface and thence to Watertown.

“Halsteds bay itself is so secluded as to form practically a separate
lake and a beautiful one too.”

“Suppose we sail up along this shore,” said Ocheltree, “I am quite
interested in the place.”

We turned the nose of Sally Ann toward the northwest and sailed slowly
before the very light wind. We passed Crane Island lying upon the right—a
sort of lying-in hospital and nursery strictly sacred to the use of
Cranes only, whose occupancy dates back of the earliest settlement of
the country, and whose title has been secured to them by an act of the
legislature, against the claims of all featherless bipeds. Further on,
upon the mainland, is the hermitage and just in front of it the grave
of Halsted, who many years ago, lost his life in the lake so sadly and
mysteriously. A short distance beyond the hermitage, I pointed out the
place where the survey left the shore of the main lake and cut across to
Halsteds bay. We concluded to go on to the strait leading into that bay
and sail around to its south shore. To reach the strait involved sailing
north a mile and then over half a mile west. As the wind was still
favorable this was soon accomplished. But when we reached the strait, we
could no longer use the sail, and were obliged to have recourse to the
oars. Inside the bay there was but little wind, and that was against us,
as our route now lay due south. A little over a mile of rowing brought
us to the south shore of the bay. Here the bluff covered with timber and
underbrush slopes down to the water’s edge. Along the foot of this slope,
I pointed out to Ocheltree the position of the narrow gauge survey. “It
is a wonderfully romantic place for a pleasure road,” said he.

It was now considerably past noon, and our exercise had begun to tell on
us both somewhat and to suggest a rest and something to eat. Accordingly
we pulled the boat up on the beach, and got out some cooking utensils
and provisions. I started off to collect some dry sticks to make a fire
and Allan took a pail and proceeded along the shore to find a deep place
or a boulder from which he could dip up clear water for our coffee. We
happened to go together for a few rods, when glancing up the slope a
short distance, I discovered a stake sticking in the ground. I gave an
exclamation of surprise and quickly ran to secure it. It proved to be
what I suspected, one of the stakes of the narrow gauge survey. “What
have you found, old fellow?” Allan asked. I told him, and it seemed
surprising to both of us that that frail bit of a pine stick should
have survived the storms and accidents of thirteen years. We had used
for stakes on those surveys common plastering lath; one lath four feet
long being cut in the middle made two stakes. This was such a stake, an
inch and a half wide and three-eighths of an inch thick. It owed its
exceptional preservation to the fact that it was full of pitch and to its
protected position. It had been driven in a slanting position, partly
under the body of a large fallen tree, that lay over the point where the
stake should have been set. The number of the stake had been written
with red chalk, on the side that had happened to come underneath and so
was largely protected from the rains. But it was now illegible, four red
blotches being all that remained.

A person walking through our Minnesota woods will often meet with a
little mound of earth, alongside of which he will see a cupshaped
depression in the ground. The depression marks the spot where at some
time in the past there stood a noble tree, and it indicates that the
tree yielding to the force of an ancient tornado was toppled over, and,
pulling its roots out of the ground drew up with them a cubic yard,
more or less, of earth. Afterwards when the roots began to decay the
earth was dropped in a heap beside the hole. There was such a mound and
hollow at the west end of the rotten log in question, showing that it
had been overthrown by the fierce assault of a western hurricane. The
mound was old, well rounded by the action of the weather and covered with
a mat of grass. I sat down on this mound in a half reclining position,
with the stake in my hand, and tried again without success to make
out the number[1]. A solitary mosquito was singing about my right ear,
and persisted in returning and constantly evaded my efforts to capture
it. Directly however, its wings became still, and unaccountable stupor
appeared to steal over me, my head drooped over toward the left till it
touched the grass and for a moment I was unconscious. But it was only for
a moment for a new consciousness almost immediately supervened. It was a
consciousness composed chiefly of subjective sensations, although I hold
that even subjective sensations, very often in an unperceived manner,
receive their direction and stimulation to activity from objects around
us. But that is a question of psychology. At all events the sensations,
I am about to relate were the most remarkable I ever experienced, and at
the time were not accompanied by the least intimation, that they were not
purely objective.

CHAPTER II.

The Professor.

First there was a loud singing noise in my right ear, pitched in a high
key. Presently this pitch became lower and the sound resembled the rattle
of rolling car wheels on a track, and they seemed to be approaching. I
suddenly realized that they were advancing to the place where I lay, and
greatly startled, I sprang to my feet. I was none too quick, for a train
of four cars rolled rapidly over the very spot where I had lain. I saw
they were filled with gay well dressed people evidently on a pleasure
excursion. As I gazed after them toward the west along the gleaming
rails, I remembered there was no locomotive with the train. Of course
not, thought I, the road is run by electricity. But there was no overhead
wire and no trolley. O, I see, these cars are propelled by storage
batteries that they carry with them. I felt no surprise at this, nor at
the fact that the road had been built after all, for it all seemed to be
a matter of course. Turning toward the east where the line penetrated
the ridge that lies between the bay and the lake, I saw on the edge of
the cut the tall white mile post so illuminated by the direct sunshine
that the number 24 in large black figures could be made out, although
the distance was a third of a mile or more. While I was still gazing in
that direction I suddenly became aware of a strange looking object coming
through the cut and around the curve. It was a four wheeled vehicle
something like a hand car, but it was not being “pumped” nor were there
any handles for propelling it in that way.

The idea suddenly came to me that this car like the first I had seen, was
propelled by a storage battery concealed somewhere about its anatomy. But
the interest created by the car was quickly eclipsed by that inspired
by its occupant; and a more remarkable creature I never read about or
dreamed about. He sat bolt upright on the seat at the rear end of
the car and while he was at a distance, I took him for a rather stiff
dignified and odd specimen of a man. But as he approached and I got a
better opportunity for observing details, I directly came to doubt if he
could be a man at all. When I first saw him, I observed what seemed to be
a large fan-like appendage projecting from his back, which I then took
to be some peculiar garment streaming out behind. But as he approached,
this appendage separated into two, and spreading out to the right and
left acted like brakes against the wind and rapidly checked the speed
of the car, reminding me of the action of the wings of a bird, when it
alights. In short to my great astonishment it turned out they were wings.
I instinctively stepped back two or three paces to allow this strange
apparition to pass, but to my surprise the car stopped directly opposite
to me and its occupant with a slight flutter of the aforesaid wings,
hopped lightly out of it and stood beside the track so near to me, that I
could have touched him. For a moment or two he busied himself with some
arrangement about his car, the nature of which I did not observe, as my
attention was absorbed chiefly by himself.

In the description, that I shall now give of him, will be included a
number of details that I did not observe at first, but which showed
themselves during the progress of our interview. The large wings
mentioned above were at least six feet in radius, and each was nearly a
semicircle. They could be folded like a fan and when in that position
they lay down along his back from his shoulders to his heels and when
fully extended reached from his heels to a point nearly five feet above
his head. They were of a soft semitransparent, but thick and tough
membranous material, full of veins and nerves and supported by stiff
elastic ribs, radiating from their articulation at the shoulder to the
circumference.

Besides these wings, he had two other pairs similar in texture, but much
smaller. One pair was attached just in front of the principal pair and
ordinarily they were directed upward beside his head and reaching above
it. But he could also extend them laterally, so as to cover his face, as
well as the back of his head and did so repeatedly while he was with me,
apparently to shield himself from the rays of the sun. The other two were
attached just below the main wings and extended downwards alongside of
the body to the feet. But they too were extensible laterally and could
be made to cover the entire lower half of the body. In short, these four
minor wings were equivalent to clothes, and the numerous nerves by which
they were traversed, indicated that they were also delicate organs of the
sensations of heat and touch.

In addition to these wings, there were six other limbs, two of which were
legs and two were arms, in much the same position in which they occur in
man. The third pair of limbs were attached to the thorax between the arms
and legs, and were ordinarily folded across the thorax. I came to the
conclusion these limbs could be used either as hands or feet as occasion
required, but while he was with me he made little other use of them than
to occasionally give me a sly poke with one of them—usually the right—in
the side—usually the left side—about the position of the second rib from
the bottom. As these gestures always came about in connection with some
humorous or ludicrous idea, it occurred to me in a whimsical way to call
these limbs his jokers. His head was immense, possessing, I should say,
double the capacity of the largest human head. The top part was globular,
and the lower part, which might be called the face, was long and wedge
shaped, tapering down to the jaws. The jaws were strong and well set with
teeth and worked laterally instead of vertically as with us, and the slit
forming the mouth was vertical and in the middle. There was no chin. The
eyes were placed just above the mouth and at the base of the upper dome
shaped portion of the head. They were of enormous size fully two inches
in diameter, half globular and set far apart, forming as it were the
corners of the face. They were not movable as ours are, because every
part of the surface of the eye was equally good to see with; and their
position enabled their owner to see three-fourths of the horizon without
turning his head. The face had not one particle of expression or mobility
to it, but this was compensated a hundred times by the expression of the
eyes. Their usual expression, when at rest, was one of supreme kindliness
and benevolence with a slight element of humor. But when the mind was
in activity, the eyes beamed with good natured wit, were suffused with
tender sentiment or flashed with intellectual brilliancy to a degree I
would never have imagined possible. Under each of the wings there was an
opening leading into the body, those of the middle wings being nearly
three-fourths of an inch in diameter, and the others very much smaller.
All were protected by movable lips. I soon discovered that these were for
the purpose of breathing, the air being constantly inhaled and exhaled
through them. I have no doubt the lining membrane of these breathing
tubes was sensitive to odors and was therefore an organ of smell. As to
ears, there was one plainly to be seen on the upper part of each arm, and
I observed him move his arm in the proper directions to catch the sound.
In the long conversation I had with him I cannot say that I heard any
articulate voice. There was a slight humming noise, rising and falling
in very agreeable musical cadences, and these appeared to accompany
the enunciation of his ideas and thoughts when he addressed me. When I
spoke to him, I used articulate words in plain English and he appeared
to hear in the ordinary way. But his thoughts came to me like waves or
pulsations and appeared to be injected bodily into my brain without any
distinct sensation of hearing them. In short I directly came to perceive
that it was a case of the telepathic transfer of ideas, experiments in
which are known to most people, but which was in this case vastly more
complete and perfect than I had ever imagined possible. In the report of
the conversation between us that I give herein it is to be understood
that I do not quote his language, but give the impression of his thoughts
upon me in my own language, and the best I have been able to do, I am
sensible, forms a very inadequate dress in which to set off the beauty of
his sentiment or the strength of his reason.

When my visitor had finished whatever arrangement he was making with his
car, he turned partly around and I saw he had in his hand a small spool
of copper wire, two strands from which connected with the car. Next he
performed some slight manipulation with his coil of wire, the nature of
which I could not make out, but which produced the surprising result,
that the car slowly rose from the track continuing upward till stopped by
the wire, then my visitor drew it gently to one side and pushing a stout
iron pin into the ground, he attached the spool and coil to it and left
it there, picketed out, precisely as a cow-boy pickets his mule, except
that the car floated in the air gently pulling on its tether. I had for
some moments been casting about in my mind for some appropriate manner in
which to address my singular visitor. The more I observed his actions,
the higher my opinion rose of his character, abilities and position in
the scale of existence. Royal and aristocratic titles, such as Your
Majesty, My Lord etc., are very awkward in the mouth of an American and
seemed by no means sure to be appropriate in this case. Then I thought of
our American titles, General, Colonel, Major, Judge, Squire, Governor,
none of which of course would do. But the surprise and curiosity excited
by this performance of picketing the car in the air would in another
minute have overcome the tension of diffidence and doubt and I should
have addressed him as _something_, even if no better title than plain
_Mister_ occurred to me.

But he saved me this necessity, by opening the conversation himself. He
seemed to know what I had been thinking of.

“A title of address,” said he, “should be significant of facts. It
is ridiculous to call a man Honorable, because you have sent him to
the legislature, or to congress, or another person ‘Majesty’ whose
understanding is below mediocrity. You may call me, ‘Sir,’ which title
as you know means simply an older person and I will call you by some
title, that means young—if it means _quite_ young, it will still be very
appropriate, eh?”

This was accompanied, by a queer, but decidedly jolly and good natured
expression of the eyes and a gentle poke with his right middle hand
described above.

“Then,” said I, “you think you are the older. The fact is, I am so well
preserved, that almost everyone rates me ten or fifteen years younger
than I am, and perhaps you do.”

“I am nineteen,” he said.

“Why,” I exclaimed, “I am more than three times that old.”

“Nevertheless, I am very much older than you,” he replied.

“You talk in riddles,” said I, “I don’t understand you.”

“Well, I will explain. You understand, that every race is made by its
environment and the same is true of each individual of the race.”

“Certainly, that is my pet theory.”

“Well, the environment of the race is in reality, the environment of
every individual in it, for every individual inherits the impress made
upon the race during all past ages. For this reason a human infant just
born is a being of far greater experience than a mature elephant; the
experience of the race is his and it is expressed in the structure of his
brain and body. In like manner an individual of our race has the long
life of his race behind him and is older at birth than a human being is
at 80, because our race has a vastly longer history and experience than
yours.”

“Your idea is ingenious, but yet it must be admitted that a mature
elephant knows more than a new born human infant.”

“That depends on what you mean by knowledge,” he replied. “The most
knowing person has no knowledge when he is asleep, but he possesses the
potentiality of getting it when he wakes up, and when he is awake, his
knowledge extends only to the things about which his brain is active for
the moment, while as to other things, the most that can be said is that,
he may possess the potentiality of knowing them when the activity of his
brain is directed to them, by appropriate stimulations. In like manner
the potentiality of all the knowledge belonging to his race, slumbers
in the new born infant; and as he gradually wakes up in the process of
his growth and development, this knowledge, upon proper stimulation of
the brain, flashes into view. Therefore everything depends upon the race
to which one belongs. Our race had already reached a high degree of
cultivation before yours was distinguishable from four footed beasts.”

My disposition to generalize, unwittingly influenced no doubt by my early
Sunday School education, here led me to make an observation, that a
moment later I perceived to be crude and ill considered. It was to the
effect that this great age to which his race had attained, had made their
superior mental development possible and had given the time necessary for
their physical evolution through and from the human form.

His answer to this was a loud and prolonged, ha ha ha! That is to say, I
heard nothing quite like that, but was impressed by a sensation that his
mental state exhibited in human expression would be laughter loud and
long.

Said he; “the conceit of the human race is the laughing stock of all our
people, but you are a very young race and you will know a great deal
more when you get older. Individuals of our race and kindred races have
visited the earth, and allowed themselves to be seen. And descriptions of
them have been attempted by some of your ancient seers.

“The human race having become dominant on earth, they have entirely
overrated their importance and not only fancy that they will some day own
the rest of the solar system, but imagine that they will sprout wings and
develope into beings like us; but any of you that have studied natural
history and your new theories of evolution, ought to know that beings
having twelve limbs could never be evolved from a race having but four.
The only possible evolution by which your race could ever possess wings,
would be the conversion through use and habit of your arms into wings,
which has actually occurred in the case of your bats and birds.

“The families on earth that are related to and resemble us are the
insect tribes. In fact we trace our origin back to an ancestry, which
according to many of our best scientists is exactly parallel with that
of your insects, and they alone of mundane inhabitants could ever expect
to evolve a posterity at all like us, and they never will, for the
conditions on earth will forever keep them in a subordinate position to
the present dominant race.”

During this speech, notwithstanding its intense interest to me I was
becoming impatient and nervous with the apprehension that he might leave
me without telling me where he was from and how he made that car of his
disregard the law of gravitation. In the solution of this last riddle
especially I could readily see a utilitarian outcome of overwhelming
importance. I am afraid that my questions were put with an undignified
eagerness and precipitancy, which no doubt he observed, for he first
proceeded to say that he had much information to communicate to me and
was glad to see me desirous of receiving it.

“You understand the law of the _attraction of_ gravitation”—I nodded
assent—“but you know nothing of the _repulsion_ of gravitation.” Indeed I
did not. I had never heard of such a thing.

He continued: “All polar attractions are accompanied by repulsions.
This you see in magnetism and in electricity, and it is equally true in
gravitation. The force with which bodies fall toward each other consists
merely of the _difference_ between the attractive and the repulsive
force. Ordinarily the attractive force takes hold of the _near_ ends
of the molecules of ether contained in solid or fluid bodies, and the
repulsive force affects only the further ends of the same molecules, so
that by reason of the difference in the distances over which these two
forces operate the attractive force always over-powers repulsion. But we
have discovered a way by which the action of these forces is reversed, so
that the work of repulsion is performed on the near end of the molecules
and attraction on the _further_ end, and then attraction being the weaker
of the two, the body, as a whole, is repelled. We imitate in fact the
action that takes place when the attraction between two electrified
bodies turns to repulsion. Repulsion also takes place between the sun and
the tails of comets. The comet’s tail is attracted toward the nucleus of
the comet and at the same time repelled from the sun. We have not been
able to make bodies discriminating like that in their attractions.

“But,” said I, “it must take as much power to make this change as the
changed condition yields after it is made and I cannot see where you get
the power; you cannot make something out of nothing.”

“Very true,” said he, “but the resistance to the change is in
reality—very small, and it is accomplished, even by neuro-magnetism in a
wonderfully simple manner. The proportion of force required to do it is
no greater than that required to move the slide valve in the steam chest
of one of your steam engines, by which the enormous force of the steam is
alternately shifted to first one end and then the other of the cylinder.
We can generate the force required for this, in our own tissues and it
accumulates in electric organs possessed by us similar to those of your
electric eels. I will show you.”

With that he reached out and touched me on the mouth. There was a flash
and a sensation as if a coal of fire had touched me, and a smart shock
passed through my limbs. I was easily enough convinced that he possessed
large electric storage capacity, and he told me he could give me a shock
100 times as strong as the one I had received. I was willing to take his
word for that. But I was by no means satisfied with his explanation of
the reversal of the forces in gravitation. It seemed to me to involve
a mechanical fallacy and I half suspected he purposely avoided giving
me the true explanation. Although I have since given the subject
considerable thought I have not been able to clear it up. Theorize as I
might however, there was the fact that gravitation was somehow suspended,
in the case of the car.

I said to him earnestly, that I would give anything I possessed to be
able to understand and apply these principles as he did.

“I have no doubt at all of that,” said he, “but it is our secret, and
I could commit no more heinous act of treason against my people or our
planet, than by divulging it.”

“For goodness sake,” I exclaimed, “tell me what planet you inhabit, and
what harm could result from giving this invaluable information.”

“My home is the moon,” he said quietly, and I have ever since wondered
how I came to receive the announcement without the slightest degree of
surprise as if it were an every day occurrence to meet people from the
moon.

“The discovery you wish me to reveal to you, was made by our ancestors
over a million years ago,” he went on, “the population of the moon was
then as great as the planet would support in comfort, and its regulation
and maintenance had been reduced to a strictly scientific basis. It was
seen at once and soon experimentally proved that our people could by the
use of this principle easily visit the earth, and if the discovery should
be communicated to the earth people, there would be nothing to prevent
flooding the moon with an undesirable horde of adventurers, who would
like a swarm of seventeen year locusts proceed to lay claim to everything
in sight and seriously disturb the lunar peace and prosperity. And so
the communication of this secret was forbidden on pain of the terrible
punishment of projection.”

My inquiring look showed that I did not understand this, and he continued.

“Projection is the extreme penalty of our laws. In it the criminal is
locked up in a spherical shell of cast iron having two small glass
windows and furnished with compressed air in alumina flasks, and food
sufficient to last from a few days to two years according to the severity
of the sentence, the larger amount of food going with the more severe
sentence. After he is fastened in, the repulsion of gravitation is turned
on and the ball instantly projects itself into space bounding off at a
terrific speed. Yet no matter what direction it takes it can never come
into collision with any body whether planet or sun, but whenever it
approaches one it is instantly repelled, and thus it continues to be
hurled from one to another forever, and the longer the criminal lives
to perceive and reflect that he is an outcast from all worlds, the
greater his punishment is supposed to be. It is a theory of some of our
scientists that a projected person continues to be repelled from sun to
sun till at last he reaches the edge of creation and is hurled completely
out of the universe. However this may be, the friends of a projected
person never know where he is.”

“I hope,” said I, “that you are not often under the necessity of
inflicting such a terrible punishment as that.”

“No one has been projected for over forty years, but 500,000 years ago
the punishment was frequently resorted to.”

“In traversing the space between the earth and the moon, I suppose you
will first move by repulsion from the earth?”

“Yes, I use repulsion for the first part of the journey. This gives me
a rapid send off from the earth. My speed constantly increasing till
I reach the distance of 216,000 miles from the earth, at this point
the repulsion of the moon—which by the way is exerted against me from
the time I leave the earth—is just equal to that of the earth, but
the momentum acquired by that time carries me almost home, the moon’s
repulsions constantly diminishing the speed and at last bringing me to a
stand still or sheering me off to one side. It is then necessary to turn
on attraction, which causes me to approach the moon with a speed which
is easily checked and regulated by using repulsion when necessary.”

“The terrific speed with which you travel or fall, as we might say, from
one planet to another, I should think would overpower you—take your
breath away.”

“We have to guard against this, while we traverse the atmosphere, both
at this and at the other end of the journey, but once clear of the
atmosphere we fall through empty space without the slightest sensation
of motion and realize that we are going only by the rapid decrease in
the apparent size of the globe we are leaving and increase of the one we
approach. It is impossible to conceive a more thrilling experience than
is conveyed by the perception of the growth in a few hours of your earth
from a ball six feet in diameter as it appears to us at the start, to the
vast and illimitable expanse of variegated beauty it gets to be before we
reach it.

“On the journey, it is necessary to guard against the blistering heat
of the sun’s rays upon the side on which they fall, and the intense
cold which we encounter on the shady side; and we must look out that
neither ourselves nor any of the loose articles we carry in the car
such as our flasks of compressed air, our food etc. are repelled from
the car and allowed to fall to earth or moon by their ordinary gravity,
for the change to repulsion only applies to the iron part of the car
and not other things. It cannot be applied to wood or to animal or
vegetable tissue etc. We guard against all these contingencies by having
a stout cover over our car, supported by steel hoops, when we are on an
intermundane trip. When we travel on the ground, this is folded up and
not used.”

“Then I suppose the wheels of your car come into use when you travel
on the ground, for I can see no use for them in your “intermundane”
journeys.”

“That is true. This car I have with me is my ordinary carriage at home.
It is a railroad car as you see by the flanges on the wheels. Railroads
with us are public free highways, built and maintained by the state.
They have from four to twelve tracks. Every person who is qualified by
his education and training to manage a car is furnished with one by the
state. The propelling power is nothing but gravity either in attraction
or repulsion, the former being used on down grades and the latter on up
grades, the car having rollers that hook under a flange at the top of the
rail to prevent the car from rising bodily from the track.

“The surface of our planet is very rough, but still the grading for roads
is light, as it is possible to ascend grades of 100 per cent or even
steeper. Level grades on our roads are always avoided, and in districts
where this cannot be done, we use electric roads.

“The cars are so constructed that different parts are electrically
insulated from each other, by which means a part of the car can be placed
under the influence of attraction and the rest under that of repulsion.
This is done on down grades. The weight of the load and of part of the
car pulling down and the weight of the rest of the car holding back. It
is always arranged to have the car heavier than its load, and the driver
can regulate the force used by balancing one against the other, so that
a car of many tons shall press on the rails with the weight of only a
very few pounds. Thus the wear and tear on road beds and rails is almost
nothing and the roads are practically everlasting.”

CHAPTER III.

The Moon and Its People.

“I am amazed,” said I, “to learn that the moon is inhabited and by a race
apparently more advanced than our own. Our astronomers have assured us
that the moon is a desolate played out barren world without air or water;
totally unfit for inhabitants.”

“The astronomers could only report what they could see, and the side of
the moon visible from the earth is as they describe it, but they have
never seen the further side and never will, for that side is always
turned from the earth. But the population of the moon is not far from
half that of the earth and the people live in greater comfort. But there
is no population living on the surface on the hemisphere facing the
earth—I see this puzzles you,” he said.

It certainly did. “Do you mean that the Lunarians live under ground?” I
inquired.

“I will explain. The moon is a much lighter body than the earth bulk for
bulk, a cubic yard of it containing on an average only six tenths as
much matter as an average yard of earth. The reason of this is that a
very large part of the moon’s bulk is made up of interstices, caves and
openings. Now it is a remarkable fact that the hemisphere of the moon
facing the earth is much lighter than the further one, so much so that
the center of gravity is 33 miles further from this side of the moon
than from the further side. This fact has been suspected by some of your
astronomers. The consequence of it is that the sea has all gone to the
further hemisphere, and the near hemisphere is in the highest place,
about 33 miles above the level of the sea. It is much as if a concave
cap, the material of which is 33 miles thick at the center and tapers
to zero all round the rim, were fitted on to a sphere. This rim is at
the edge of the moon, as seen from the earth. Our atmosphere like yours,
gets lighter as we ascend and is too thin to support life at a height
of five miles, so that the great plateaus of our hither hemisphere are
over 20 miles higher than any appreciable atmosphere. So you can see the
impossibility of life on the hither surface of the moon if you reflect a
moment what the conditions would be on a mundane plateau 33 miles above
the sea level. Your highest mountains are only between five and six miles
high, and you know the impossibility of either vegetable or animal life
at even that altitude.

“On the earth such elevations are regions of perpetual snow, and the
hither surface of the moon would be such a region if it possessed water
and an atmosphere. But while the surface on this side is uninhabitable,
there are immense tracts of underground space, that have been converted
into habitable territory. This underground country lies so far below
the surface that it is practically near the sea level throughout. It is
approached at all parts of the rim of the cap just described, and there
are many thousands of tunnels entering it all round this rim, especially
in the equatorial parts of the moon. A great amount of labor has been
expended, not only on these entrances, but on the internal cavities to
which they lead; but compared with the work performed for us by nature,
our own labor is but an insignificant item—hardly so much as the labor
of your race in fitting up the earth for your residence. The entrances
are all volcanic craters, and the vast cavities to which they lead, were
excavated long ages ago by volcanic action. The material blown out of
the volcanoes, mostly fell upon the hither side of the moon increasing
the bulk of the cap; most of the volcanoes being on this side. But even
the material thrown from the lateral regions was drawn this way by the
attraction of the earth and after describing a longer or shorter curve,
fell on the hither side of the moon.

“Nearly all the moon’s volcanoes are on the hither portion, the volcanic
region occupying about two-thirds of the whole surface of the moon.
The weight of bodies on the hither side is appreciably less than on
the further side. These facts are supposed to be due to the earth’s
attraction neutralizing that of the moon and having resulted in building
up the vast protuberance or table land (of light and porous material)
on this side, the latter is often called, by us the “Mundane Hump” in
recognition of the earth’s instrumentality in its formation. The interior
continent is often spoken of as the “Pocket” by the people on the
further side; or sometimes as the “Chest”, and the “Hump” is called its
Lid.

“The further side of the moon is called the Exterior Continent, but often
humorously designated by the people of the “Pocket”, as the Out-door
Continent.”

“But,” said I, “what a strange life it must be in those underground
cavities. I suppose of course you can have nothing better than artificial
light there?”

“True,” he said, “our light is mostly artificial, but it is made as
bright as we can bear it. It is electric light, but it is regulated to be
quite equal to sun light and it never goes out. There is no night in the
underground country, as there is outside.”

“This is wonderful!—But where do you get the power to furnish this light?
Have you got waterfalls and coal beds down there?”

“We have many waterfalls, but do not utilize them to any great extent for
their power and we have a considerable amount of coal, which however we
do not use for fuel, but reserve for food purposes, to be drawn upon as
may be required.”

“Is stone coal what you have to eat then?” I here broke in. With
exasperating deliberation, he gave me an admonitory poke with his right
joker.

“One thing at a time—one thing at a time. You wanted to know where we
get power to turn into electric lighting. It is the power of gravity. If
one of your perpetual motion cranks understood the secret of the use of
the repulsion of gravitation, he could contrive a perpetual motion in
an hour and a half. We have many forms of such machines that have been
in use for ages. One of these is the pendulum machine. This consists
of a pendulum weighing from a few pounds to many tons and so contrived
that when it reaches the lowest part of its swing it automatically turns
on the repulsion of gravitation, which reinforces its momentum on the
ascending part of its arc, enough to compensate for the work done by
it and the friction of the machine. Another machine is the oscillating
balance. This consists of weights at each end of a beam balanced in the
middle and so governed by an automatic shunting apparatus, that one of
the weights is under the influence of attraction while the other is
under that of repulsion. When the former has reached the bottom of its
oscillation and the latter the top, the force is reversed in each and so
the motion is perpetual.

“Another machine is the Automatic hammer, which is a literal hammer
though it may weigh many tons. The end of its handle is confined by a
stationary wrist, while the hammer rises and falls under the effect of
repulsion and attraction automatically alternated by shunting apparatus.
Then we have the vertical parabolic railway; which consists of two steep
inclined tracks, meeting each other at the foot. A car runs alternately
down one and up the other on much the same principle as the pendulum
machine. There are numerous other machines, but they all operate on the
same principle, just as you have many forms of water wheels, all operated
by the weight of water. So you see our power costs us nothing at all
after the machine is built, except for the oil for its lubrication. As
these machines have been known and used by us for many thousands of
years, you may readily perceive what changes we have been able to make
in all those conditions of our planet, that relate to our comfort and
general purposes. You may add to this, that any exertion we make relating
to the movement of heavy bodies, is ten times as effectual as the same
exertion made on earth. Water and air with us are only one-sixth as heavy
as on earth, and the average soil and rocks one-tenth as heavy; so that
our laborers handle wheelbarrows holding a cubic yard of material as
easily as yours do their little barrows containing two or three cubic
feet.”

Here I interposed again. “You speak of your atmosphere being only
one-sixth as heavy as ours. That agrees with what our astronomers
have told us, and they have pointed out that even if there is such an
atmosphere, on the moon, animal life like ours is not possible there,
because the air is too thin.”

“Your astronomers do not consider that animal life and activity depend,
not on the amount of air the animal is surrounded by, but by the amount
of it he can use. The fishes in your waters have less air to the cubic
foot of space than we have, yet are active, but if you take them out of
the water and surround them with ten times as much air as they had, they
nevertheless die, because they have not lungs suitable for breathing it.
But furthermore it is not the amount of air that is of such consequence
to animal life, but the amount of oxygen. Your air consists of about 21
parts of oxygen to 79 of nitrogen, and mixed with it is a considerable
amount of carbonic acid and other impurities. In our air the proportions
of nitrogen and oxygen are about reversed, and there is a far less amount
of carbonic acid gas. There is also a much greater quantity of ozone,
which as you know, is a concentrated and more active form of oxygen. And
so on the whole, when I take a breath of air here on your earth, I get
but a slightly greater quantity of oxygen than at home.”

“Then you are not greatly inconvenienced in being transferred from lunar
conditions to those of earth?”

“Well, not with respect to breathing, but when we are at the surface of
the earth we are greatly oppressed by the weight of your atmosphere and
by our own increased weight as well. Ten or fifteen minutes is as long as
we can stand it at one time. But we can get speedy relief by ascending
ten thousand miles or so, and when we have come to earth to make extended
studies of things here, we are compelled to interrupt them by frequently
going up and remaining awhile.”

I had become not only intensely interested in the extraordinary
information communicated by my visitor, but greatly fascinated by his
person and presence; and his last speech made me painfully apprehensive
that I was about to lose his company, and so I expressed the wish that if
he felt obliged to go up stairs to recover himself, he would return and
continue the interview as soon as possible. He replied that he would be
compelled to return home as soon as he left me, but added that he would
remain with me for a considerable time longer, observing that he felt
exceedingly glad to impart information to so willing a listener. I could
not at the time reconcile his intention of remaining a considerable time
longer with what he said about not being able to remain at the earth’s
surface more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time, as I thought he had
already considerably exceeded that. But not wishing to lose time by
having him reconcile his observations, I hastened to get back to the
thread of his discourse, by asking what sort of food the Lunarians live
on.

“The Lunarians are exclusively vegetarians and live chiefly on grains and
grasses and leguminous plants in some degree resembling those on earth,
but of an entirely different habit, for they all or nearly all, mature
in the period of one-half of a lunar month or about fourteen of your
days. But this will not seem so surprising, when you reflect that we have
continuous sunshine without night during the whole time. Of course this
observation applies only to the exterior continent on the further half of
the moon. Our plants were all developed on that side and became adapted
to the seasons there, and they generally retain their habits of growth
since their introduction to the interior continent, or Pocket. But in
many cases, by changing the conditions of nourishment, new varieties have
been developed, having a longer or shorter period of growth. Much more
than half of our food products are produced under extremely artificial
conditions. The artificial heat we require for cooking, for warmth etc.,
is produced by means of electricity and so is our artificial light;
moreover, we do not allow any organic matter, such as dead bodies, dead
trees or vegetables or any sort of refuse or excrete matters, to rot
either in the open air or in the ground, and the manuring of the soil
is strictly forbidden. Our air therefore is very poor in carbonic acid
gas, (or carbonic dioxide), which constitutes almost the sole food
required for the growth of plants. In fact about all that the air gets
of this gas is that thrown off from our lungs in breathing. To use this
up, we cultivate various air plants that grow with little or no roots
and yet cover the ground with an agreeable carpet. Some of these are
eatable. All organic matters, when they become refuse, are carefully
collected in great air tight and powerful tanks, in which they are heated
under an enormous pressure until their original organization entirely
disappears. The dimensions of the tanks are reduced during this process
by the gradual forcing in of the walls, which are made movable for that
purpose, and when the contained material has become reduced to about the
consistency and constitution of your ordinary lignite or soft coal, it
is forced through a number of cylindrical holes on one side of the tank,
by which it is moulded into round sticks of coal, and is then ready to
be used over again. The whole process is an imitation of that by which
mineral coal is produced in nature, both on the earth and the moon,
except that it is accomplished artificially with us in about 50 hours,
while nature takes thousands of years for it. The fluids and nitrogenous
and other volatile substances pressed out, are secured and saved by
proper absorbents. These together with the coal are used by our food
growers in producing their plants.

“The planting is all done in vats or chambers with air tight roofs. The
bottom of a vat is covered with a few inches of soil specially prepared
and appropriate for the plant intended to be sown. After the seeds
germinate the vat is covered and the inside is brightly illuminated
with electricity and filled with carbonic dioxide, obtained by burning
a proper quantity of coal in a retort, which is also accomplished by
electricity. All the conditions necessary for rapid growth are supplied
to the plants and they are forced forward to maturity without any pause
or delay, such as takes place in the growth of plants on earth, through
the intervention of cloudy or stormy weather, too much or too little
moisture, too much or too little heat, the darkness of night etc.

“The same method of cultivation prevails to a great extent on the
exterior continent, although as the sun shines on that continent about
350 hours at a time, which constitutes the length of the day there, the
vats are often merely covered by air tight glass roofs and the sun is the
growing power instead of electricity.”

“I understand now,” said I, “what you meant by saying you reserved your
mineral coal for food purposes. You draw on it only when the steady
supply of artificial coal fails?”

“That is correct.”

“But if you rigorously save every particle of your organic matters to be
reconverted into food, I don’t see why it should ever fail unless your
population increases. But you have not informed me on that subject.”

“The control of the reproduction of the population has been in the hands
of the state from the remotest antiquity,” said he; “and no increase in
the total number has ever been permitted unless there had already been an
increase in the means of supporting the population by the discovery of
improved methods or new appliances. The tendency and policy has always
been to allow the population to keep up near the limits of the means of
support, and occasionally it has crowded a little too close. Then there
are occasional losses by fire and a more or less steady unavoidable waste
of food materials in their ordinary handling. Some are lost in the sea.
But as long as there is a store of mineral coal to draw upon, no such
losses can entail more than a temporary inconvenience. One thing that
has a considerable effect on the food supply, is the change in fashions,
that often takes place in a manner that the authorities cannot foresee or
provide for.”

“Then fashion holds sway in the moon as well as the earth! Well, I am
surprised! But as your clothes appear to grow on you I don’t see how
fashion can interfere very much, or how it could affect the question of
food.”

“Fashion with us has nothing to do with dress. As you say, nature has
provided us with a dress at once suitable and beautiful. Whatever faults
we have, personal vanity is not among them. Our attention is but little
absorbed in ourselves, but is constantly directed to others and to the
service of the community. If anyone should betake himself to personal
frills and ornaments, I fancy he would be told he was getting like the
Earthlings, and, he would be advised to go up and live on the Hump, so he
could be near the people he was trying to ape.

“But there is much variety and change of fashion with us in the
construction and ornamentation of our buildings, grounds and resorts, and
the fashion prevailing in relation to the transmutation of the dead is
making a steady inroad upon our total food supply.”

I wondered what he could mean by the transmutation of the dead—but said
nothing, awaiting his explanation.

“You may have thought,” he went on, “that our dead were utilized and
turned into lignite like other effete organic substances.”

“Certainly,” I said, “that disposition of a useless body is preferable
to any method that prevails on earth. Here as soon as a man dies his
presence becomes so intolerable to us, that we are obliged in self
defense to consign him to earth. Even then the corruption resulting from
dissolution is disseminated through the soil contaminating the water
supply and starting epidemics of diphtheria and typhoid fever, besides
occupying room that sooner or later is begrudged to him. Cremation is
certainly an improvement on inhumation, but even that is a considerable
expense, and when it is over, we have only a handful of raw mineral ashes
left. The best part of the man has gone off in smoke and we have not
three or four pounds of good coal left to show for him as you have. And
then it ought to be a source of gratification to the defunct himself if
he could know it, that his ‘corpus’ was turned to some useful account.”

He here turned his vast eyes upon me with such a deep expression of
mild and sorrowful reproach, that I instantly felt as if I had made an
exceedingly flippant speech and had said far too much or much too little,
but he gave me no time to amend it.

“We are much more sentimental than that,” he said; “our dead are not
cremated in the manner practiced on earth, but are totally disintegrated
by electricity, and turned into their component elements. No portion of
their substance is lost or dissipated, but the material is all conserved
and caused to form a new organism. The fashion originated many ages
ago, to use the materials to grow some common sort of a plant or shrub
from the seed, such as something resembling your grass or fern or some
cereal. This was done in the garden vats I have described to you. Plants
grown under these circumstances or any circumstances for that matter,
very often sprout or grow into forms differing slightly from the normal.
Taking advantage of this, our botanists have produced food plants having
a wonderful concentration of nourishing qualities in small compass and
accompanied by the least possible quantity of waste products. And in
like manner our undertakers have developed a great variety of plants to
be grown from the constituent materials of the dead. It was formerly
the fashion to preserve only a portion of the plants, thus grown. A few
leaves were distributed among the friends of the deceased and pressed in
herbariums for preservation. But the growing veneration for ancestors
and consideration for each other together with the prevalent belief
among us that we are formed in the very image of the Deity, finally
brought about the practice of preserving entire, the plants produced
by transmutation. Thus there is already a vast accumulation of these
vegetable representatives of deceased Lunarians, and our economists point
out that if this goes on, we will be compelled to constantly draw on our
natural food reserves, and that finally these will all be consumed and
everything eatable will at last become transmuted into these sacred and
inviolable forms. In short the living race will finally become transmuted
into dead dry plants. These arguments of the philosophers have as yet had
no effect on the people and their priestly leaders. They denounce the
philosophers as being unfaithful to the religion and traditions of the
race, and as advocating cannibalism.

“They say: ‘you would reduce us to the level of the necrophagous
Earthlings, who from time immemorial have consumed the elements of their
ancestors and friends and enemies alike, with beastly indifference’.”

“But,” I interrupted; “you know they are mistaken in this opinion of us.
Only a few savages on earth are man eaters.”

“True,” said he, “but what they mean is, that from your manner of
disposing of the dead, when they become decomposed, their elements are
dispersed in the air and absorbed by the soil from which they pass into
plants and finally become your food. I have heard a Lunarian say he would
starve rather than eat a grain containing a molecule of nitrogen or
carbon, that had once formed a part of one of his ancestors.”

“Well, I think that is the culmination of scrupulosity. I am glad such
phenomenal squeamishness does not exist on this planet.”

“I do not defend it nor approve of it,” he replied, “any more than
you do. But still I think your complacent congratulations of your own
race rather out of place. You are quite as much under the dominion of
indefensible ideas as we. For example, you have an ancient book whose
doctrines and precepts you think you must accept and obey whether they
are agreeable and suitable or not, although the men who gave them,
have been dead two or three thousand years, while scarcely two of you
agree as to what the precepts are and each generation has a different
interpretation of them. You have a sect that believe that your Deity is
mortally offended with all who do not submit to be immersed under water,
while others think he will be satisfied with their having a few drops
sprinkled on the face. You have sects that believe your Deity is greatly
displeased to see people hopping around on their legs, or dancing as you
call it, while one sect employ dancing as the most satisfactory mode
of worshipping him. You have a sect that believe that pictures, music
and ornaments, and coats with collars that turn down are offensive to
the Deity, and who think he is best pleased with silent worship, while
others think he likes to be flattered in loud speeches and louder songs
addressed to himself, and that he is indifferent whether coat collars
stand up or lie down. You have a sect that believe that buttons on the
clothes are offensive to him and who therefore fasten their clothing
with hooks and eyes. All these sects and many more equally absurd,
get their various contradictory notions from the same book, and they
adhere to them with such tenacity that in many cases they would die
rather than give them up and would if they dared, murder other people
for not accepting them, and in times past have done so in thousands of
instances. In former times it was a common opinion, that your Deity had
an arch enemy called the Devil, who opposed, bothered and thwarted him
in the most provoking manner, and among other things inspired and aided
thousands of unattractive old women to turn themselves into wolves, cats
and other beasts and to become witches, and in these conditions to attack
and injure their neighbors and bring strange diseases upon them. For
these offenses these old women were judged by your sacred books and were
burnt by the thousand. And yet many of the men of this generation, while
still holding to the sacred books, have not only repudiated witchcraft,
but even the devil himself, and an attempt to burn a witch would now be
met by an insurrection. Then you have a sect, or a nation rather, of
people, who claim that they are the peculiar favorites of your Deity,
who chose them from among all the nations and set them apart as his own,
and ordered them to practice a certain peculiar mutilation on the bodies
of their children as an evidence and seal of his promises to them. No
one of these people would consider himself entitled to hold up his head
if it were not for his mutilation. Notwithstanding the claims of these
peculiar people are admitted by the rest, no people on earth have been so
despised, persecuted and maltreated as they. For over 2,000 years they
have been kicked and cuffed about the earth, robbed, driven repeatedly
from one country to another, and have never in all that time possessed
the sovereignty of a single township. Then again your race believe they
are made and formed in the very image and likeness of your Deity, yet you
conceal that likeness with garments as if ashamed of it, and such are
your notions of propriety that if a man should show this divine likeness
in public, naked or even half naked, he would be sent to prison, or a
mad house. And then consider the fashions of these garments. Those whose
business it is to make clothes, constantly demand changes in the fashion,
so as to secure more employment and profit for themselves, and whenever
certain ones, who have appointed themselves to be the leaders, say the
word, everybody feels obliged to procure new clothes of such sort as
these leaders require, notwithstanding those they already have may be
good, useful and becoming, and that those prescribed, may be hideous,
unsuitable and unhealthful. Many of you are actually so infatuated with
this bondage, that if you could not comply with its requirements, you
would regard life as of no account.”

During the delivery of this tirade, the flashing eyes of my visitor
showed how much his feeling was enlisted in the subject and during the
whole time I continued to reproach myself for having started him off on
such a rampage, by an unlucky, if not impertinent remark of my own. I was
made to recall the adage that people who live in glass houses, should not
engage in throwing stones; and it was forcibly shown me how very much
“human nature” the Lunarians possess, since while he was willing to
point out, criticise and condemn the follies of his own people, he would
not allow an outsider to do it. I was greatly relieved when he paused
and gave me an opportunity to change the subject, which I did with a
precipitancy, that evidently amused him and brought back the good natured
expression that habitually possessed his eyes. In fact I believe that
the change I had observed was due to intellectual activity and was not
accompanied by any real feeling of resentment or passion. Said I, “One of
our wise men has expressed the opinion, that the people of the earth, are
“maistly fules,” and I believe that most other wise men agree with him.
So I beg you will waste no more of your precious time in arraigning our
race, but go on with your intensely interesting and instructive account
of your own race and your remarkable planet.” He thereupon goodnaturedly
resumed.

“Organic existence must everywhere be to a great extent the same. The
elements that enter into the composition of organisms, are subject to
certain laws of chemical affinity, that demand their own conditions, and
will not operate when these conditions are absent. The chief of these
are furnished by the radiations of the sun in our solar system and no
doubt by those of the stars in other systems. These radiations impressed
upon organized materials become light and heat and where they are either
in excess or deficiency organic development is not possible. These
conditions obtain throughout the solar system, and no doubt in every
system composed of the same sort of elements. But of the solar system
we can speak with some confidence, for we have been able to visit a
considerable part of it.

“The inhabitants of the different planets differ from each other in the
same way that the various animal races of earth differ from each other.
You have on earth four sub-kingdoms of intelligent animals; vertebrates,
articulates, mollusks and radiates. These have all been evolved from a
common worm-like ancestry, and each form possesses the potentiality of
receiving an equally high development, both physically and mentally.
The development of any of them in all cases depends upon the way they
are impressed by their surroundings and the proper surroundings can
develop high intelligence in either of the forms. On earth the highest
development has happened to the vertebrate branch, but with us the
articulates have always been the dominant branch, while the vertebrates
have never attained to a condition above that of your salamanders
and small lizards. The ascendant race with us as with you has always
contributed to keep the others in the background, by destroying the most
advanced and aggressive of them and pursuing them till none but the
smallest, weakest and most harmless of their tribe remain. Indeed until
this is done, the position of the ascendant race is not secure. Your own
race has had experience of this in the struggle with and subjugation of
other races. In the early history of the earth, it was for a long time
doubtful whether it was to be dominated by the human family or by a tribe
of reptiles. At that ancient period, a tribe of reptiles had become
developed that walked erect on their hind legs, and whose fore limbs
supported wings and terminated in excellent hands, having four fingers.
There were several related families of these animals, some of which were
almost or quite the equal of man in intelligence. The final triumph of
man over these advanced reptiles, was due to his superior compact social
organization. While they relied on their superior personal prowess and
often fought single handed, men always fought in bands, and hung together
in all their enterprises. The reptiles being finally vanquished and the
tribes most advanced and most to be feared having been exterminated,
the rest had two modes of escape. They could use their wings and thus
by flight keep out of the way of their enemies or they could hide by
crouching down in the grass and weeds and making themselves as small,
sly and inconspicuous as possible. Some pursued one of these courses and
some the other. The descendants of those that flew away gradually became
developed into the birds as you now have them; while those that resorted
to hiding and crouching down, were thus deprived of the opportunity to
use their limbs generation after generation and so the limbs gradually
became shrunken and useless, finally disappearing completely, or almost
so, causing the body to come down flat on its belly on the ground, and
thus were produced the serpents as you now have them.”

“No doubt,” said I, “the serpents originated in that way. They formerly
possessed limbs, because many species still have the rudiments of them.
In some cases these remnants show themselves like little hooks on the
outside of the skin, while many others are covered up by the skin and are
not seen at all. But all that retrogressive adaptation by which they
lost their limbs, must have been practically completed before our race
possessed any semblance of their present form and condition.”

“The earth,” he proceeded, “was full of contending races, and of course
the backset that was imposed on the snakes, was contributed to by others,
as well as men, but the latter were among the last and as regards the
particular family of reptiles in question, the most formidable and
effectual opponents. Some of your ancient traditions and literature
contain allusions to this contest, the reptile being styled _Nachash_.
You preserve an allusion to this ancient competition, in the legends of
the Devil, who represents the reptile, and is often called the serpent
etc. I recall this history, only to show you that the essential qualities
of predominance do not inhere in any particular animal form. Your planet
escaped the final domination of a reptile instead of a mammal, by only a
little. As you have already perceived the dominant race on our planet is
an articulate.”

CHAPTER IV.

Life In and On the Moon.

“I confess,” said I, “that you have demonstrated the possibility of
a development among the articulates quite equal at least to that of
mammals. You must have animals of some sort in your seas and lakes; what
do you do with them?”

“We have some large soft bodied animals, something akin to your large
mollusks and others having a cartilaginous frame, but we have no bony
fishes. These animals are sometimes caught and turned into food products,
the same as other organic refuse, but never eaten directly, as we
are vegetarians. The amount of water surface on our planet is quite
small compared with yours. The seas are narrow, but of immense depth.
Indeed, some of them are known to have passages communicating directly
through the planet and connecting the waters of the exterior continent,
with those of the “Pocket”. The fluctuation of the tides takes place
bi-monthly, with enormous force through these “bores.” When the moon is
between the earth and sun the tide rises on the exterior continent, and
when on the opposite side, it rises in the interior continent, the amount
of the rise being very great in the neighborhood of these “bores,” but
inconsiderable elsewhere.”

“Your climate I suppose is very different from ours—of course it must be.”

“Yes certainly, and the climate of the interior continent differs
greatly from that of the exterior. On the polar regions of the exterior
continent, we experience the extreme change of seasons, that occur on
earth, from a very cold winter to a very hot summer—all in the space of
about 29½ of your days or 709 hours. In the equatorial regions, however,
the extremes are greatly tempered by the winds, which always blow toward
the position of the sun, by the great evaporation that takes place during
the day, and by the fact that the air of the equatorial belt is both
higher and denser than that in the polar regions. In many cases, the
upper air is charged with heavy clouds, that remain suspended all night
or all winter, as you choose, and these prevent the land from becoming
very cold.”

“Vegetation must come on very rapidly during your little summers,” I
observed.

“Yes, it does. We have grasses that grow from the sown seed and mature
their grains in eight days. But, we have others, whose habit requires
that they be sown about midwinter, and they are harvested in midsummer.
Other plants are annual, dropping their leaves soon after darkness sets
in and putting forth new ones again as soon as daylight returns. Our food
plants are, however, chiefly raised artificially in both the exterior and
the interior continents. The farms are often immense buildings covering
several acres and consisting of from ten to twenty stories, each story
comprising a farm. As our space can thus be multiplied indefinitely, and
as we can raise twelve or more crops a year in the same space, you see
a single acre can be made to be equal to one or two hundred. It is not
necessary to use this degree of economy of room in all cases, and so,
many farms consist of but a single story on the ground, and often on the
exterior continent only the suns rays are employed instead of electricity
to furnish energy for the growth of the crop. Even this method gives us
about 13 crops a year. The artificial methods are generally preferred,
however, as they are far more certain and reliable. In the interior
continent of course these methods prevail exclusively.”

“It seems strange,” said I, “that the spaces in the interior continent,
should be great enough to hold any considerable population. We have on
earth some large caves, but put them all together and they would not
afford shelter for the inhabitants of a small city.”

“The caves that are at present accessible to you, are small and due to
the action of water. All springs, by carrying out mineral matter in
solution from below the surface, are constructing caves, and much more
extensive ones than might be supposed. But those formed by the action of
volcanoes, your explorers have had little opportunity to study, and, but
few probably have any adequate idea of the sizes of the holes left under
the surface, by the ejection of materials by volcanoes.

“Some of your scientists estimated that the volcano Krakatoa, in the East
Indies, during a couple of days in August, 1883, discharged a cubic mile
of materials. The volcano has had a great many eruptions in times past,
and has thrown out a great many cubic miles. The materials composing
the mountain itself, have all been thrown from its crater, and the same
thing has happened in the case of all the volcanoes on earth, of which
there are thousands. The spaces left in the crust of the earth by this
process, have amounted in the aggregate to hundreds of thousands of
cubic miles. Many spaces thus formed, have been filled again by melted
materials pressed up from below, by the pressure of the crust upon the
melted interior. But a vast amount of empty space yet remains and will
continue to be added to for millions of years to come. As the earth grows
older and colder, internally, the crust will become thicker and more
unyielding, so that as new subterranean spaces are formed by volcanic
activity, fewer of these will be filled up again and the final aggregate
of them will doubtless in time reach millions of cubic miles. The spaces
comprising the “Pocket” continent of the moon, above the sea level, are
estimated by us to amount to about 1,500,000 cubic miles.”

“This then,” I observed, “must give you a continent in there of something
like 1,500,000 cubic miles, supposing the space to be a mile high.”

“Yes, but that is not the shape of the interior. The ground floor of our
continent at or near the sea level is only about 800,000 square miles,
and it consists of thousands of separated chambers, varying from a few
rods to many miles in extent, and of every conceivable shape, some being
circular or oval, some long and narrow, and straight or crooked. There
are a great many of the long narrow sort, extending in some cases as much
as 400 miles, widening in some places to as much as ten miles and again
narrowing down to half a mile. These are nothing less than cracks in our
planet. They run in many directions, often intersecting each other, and
they extend far down toward the center and upward in some places eight
or ten miles before the sides arch together in a mighty dome. There are
water marks high up the sides of these great chambers showing the sea
level to have been much higher in ancient times than at present, and the
action of the water on the sides has greatly widened the spaces, the
materials being washed into the bottomless fissures, that extend toward
the center of the planet.”

“How do you account for the changes in the sea-level?” I inquired.

“As the moon cooled off, a great deal of water was taken up by the rocks,
while crystallizing and thus chemically united with them, a great deal
more was absorbed by them mechanically, by their pores, while a still
greater quantity occupies large fissures and chambers, penetrating in
all directions through the planet communicating with each other and
connecting the interior waters with those of the exterior continent. The
action of the water has greatly contributed, not only to the enlargement
of the spaces in the interior continent, but to the creation of a
pulverized soil and pleasing landscapes. The chambers that are inhabited,
are of course all connected with each other, but besides these, it is
quite certain there are great numbers of very extensive ones in the
masses of materials that bound the inhabited chambers. Artificial tunnels
are constantly being cut into these walls and so new countries are often
discovered and connected with the rest and opened for settlement. In
addition to those chambers that come down to the sea level the aggregate
of the area of which I told you is about 800,000 square miles, there
are vast areas situated at higher levels in the material, that bounds
the sea-level chambers. These elevated areas are at all heights from
one-fourth of a mile to four or five miles above the sea-level. There
are known to be many above these, but they are not habitable, on account
of lightness of the air. The elevated chambers are connected with each
other, and with the lower ones, by means of sloping passages at all
grades. In some cases chambers are located directly on top of the thick
roof of others and are reached by long and circuitous routes. In a number
of cases, the walls of sea-level chambers, after closing in almost
together to form an arch over them, widen out again above and thus form
other chambers above, and sometimes these stories continue one above
another until the surface of the hump is reached, where the openings
appear sometimes as channels, and at others, as circular craters.”

“No doubt,” said I, “the craters that our astronomers see in such
vast numbers on this side of the moon communicate with your interior
continent.”

“Yes they do.”

“Then is it possible, that they sometimes see down to your interior
habitations? They report some of these craters, as appearing to be many
miles deep.”

“They cannot see down to our habitations, for two reasons. In the first
place, although the craters connect with the vast labyrinth of passages
and chambers below, with few exceptions they bend and subdivide into
numerous dividing branches long before they get down to a habitable
level. In the second place there are perpetual clouds standing in
all those passages, that lead to the surface of the hump, at various
elevations of from two or three to eight or ten miles above the sea
level. Of course it is not possible to see down through these—nor up
through them either—except when they are cleared away for a special
purpose, as is done sometimes for the benefit of our astronomers.”

“They sometimes look out through these craters then, do they? How do
they get rid of the clouds?”

“I will describe one of the craters used by the astronomers for an
observatory. It is the shape of a funnel with a diameter at the surface
of the hump of twenty-five miles. From there it tapers rapidly inwards
till at a distance of about 29 miles below the surface, it has narrowed
down to a mile in diameter. This is the entrance, down to what was
originally a vast dome shaped chamber. This chamber is now filled to
the roof on one side, by material poured down through the funnel, while
on the other side the material consisting of volcanic ashes, scoria,
rocks etc., slopes down for three miles, the over-arching dome finally
closing down to it leaving only a few narrow passages through into other
chambers. Well up on this slope and nearly under the center of the great
funnel, our astronomers established their observatory. This is for the
special purpose of examining the earth, which is always in sight from
this point, and as it rolls itself over every twenty-four hours, without
apparently moving out of its tracks, it is seemingly on exhibition for
our sole benefit. As we revolve around it every month we are enabled to
see both poles alternately, while the whole of the equatorial parts can
be seen every twenty-four hours.

“We are thus enabled to make far more complete and perfect maps of the
earth, than you have yourselves. We have powerful telescopes. The one at
the funnel observatory I am telling you of, can bring the earth within
forty miles.”

“If it brought it eleven miles further it would stop up the funnel and
become invisible, wouldn’t it?” said I.

His eyes expressed a slight gleam of humor, which I fancied was tinged by
a shade of compassion, as he recognized this for a joke, and then he went
on:

“As to the clouds—they are cleared away whenever we wish, by means of
artificial thunder storms. Metallic conductors have been put in place
up the sides of the lofty chambers, and at the proper heights are fixed
with their poles pointing across the space, the positive on one side and
the negative on the opposite. Heavy electric discharges are then made,
the spark which is often one-fourth of a mile long traversing the cloud
and speedily condensing it into rain. The observatory, I have spoken
of, is too high to be often affected by clouds, but when the funnel is
hazy, it can soon be cleared out. There are several observatories on this
side of the moon situated like this one, and their chief business is the
examination of the earth, which is our most interesting celestial object,
and which can never be seen from the external continent, except at its
extreme east and west ends, from which position it is seen low down on
the horizon.”

“It must be extremely handy,” said I, “to be able to produce a shower
whenever you wish. The formation of these clouds however presupposes
great evaporation.”

“Yes, evaporation takes, place from the numerous sheets of sea water
in the various chambers, the aggregate of which is estimated at about
120,000 square miles. There is more or less of this sea water in
almost every one of the sea-level chambers. Besides the evaporation
from these bodies of water, more or less evaporation occurs from every
one of the industries in which water is used, and so the aggregate is
very considerable. But it is always nearly uniform in quantity, in the
interior continent. As the suspended moisture comes into contact with
the upper walls and roofs of the lofty chambers, it is being constantly
condensed, and the fresh water thus formed trickles down the walls and
slopes in drops, rills and brooks, and finds its way through the ground
and porous rocks. Many underground streams are formed that find their way
into the high-level chambers, which are thus supplied with pure water.
The inhabitants of others have supplied themselves by tunnelling through
into the upper parts of lofty chambers, that have their floors at the
sea-level, and thus they tap the clouds themselves.”

“Our astronomers tell us that some of the Lunar craters are 60 or 80
miles in diameter or even more, which indicates that an enormously
greater amount of volcanic action has taken place on the moon than on the
earth. How is that?”

He replied, “Our opinion is this: The volcanic action in the moon
toward its close and final cessation, was enormous. The planet had
already been completely honeycombed by former convulsions and the seas
had poured themselves into the underground openings, until there was
almost as much water below the surface as above. This water kept up
a continual contention with the melted interior, resulting in still
greater explosions, sending out enormous quantities of volcanic matter,
forming cones in some cases twenty-five miles high and over 100 miles
in diameter. The enormous weight of these volcanic cones in many cases
proved too great to be supported by the crust, that separated them from
the interior cavities their materials had been blown out of, and so
they broke through—that is the central part of the cones broke through,
leaving a margin of their bases all around, standing like the walls of a
crater. But these are not the original craters, as you can see. If they
were, they would be on top of elevated cones of enormous height, which
they are not.”

“This view appears to me very plausible and I feel the more interested in
the subject, because the idea constantly impresses itself upon me, that
the earth is repeating the history of the moon. According to our theories
of evolution the two bodies separated from each other, when they were in
the condition of hot expanded gases, and as the moon contained only 1/81
part as much matter as the earth, it cooled down and became a habitable
world, many millions of years before the earth. Since you have been
talking to me, the impression has constantly grown upon me, that your
moon history is really an anticipation of our own, and it becomes the
more interesting on that account.”

His eyes expressed extreme satisfaction, as he replied that he was glad
that I had seen that point.

“We have in one of the provinces of the interior continent, an immense
university, devoted to the study of mundane affairs, past, present and
future. The duty is assigned me of holding a professorship in this
university, in the college of ‘Mundane Prognostication’. As this college
has been in operation for over 100,000 years, we have had abundant
opportunity to verify our system of prognostication, and you would be
surprised at the accuracy with which our predictions have been realized
in your history. Of course, we could have done nothing, but for the basis
our own history gave us to work on.”

“Well,” said I, “I can’t say that I am sorry to know that my time will be
out long before the earth reaches the conditions that makes it necessary
for the inhabitants to retreat underground. These spaces below must
indeed be queer places to live in, for it don’t seem like they would be
exposed to storms, as if out of doors, and yet not cosy and homelike, as
if in a house, and I don’t see how they can be otherwise than cold damp
and gloomy—that is, viewed from the stand point of earth. Am I right?”

“No,” he replied, “you are not. Those abodes, as we have them fixed up on
the moon, you would regard as more delightful than anything you have on
earth, and as equalling your dreams of paradise. There are as you suppose
no storms and no extremes of temperature. There is always a very light
breeze blowing, half the time in one direction, and half in the other.
This is caused by the action of the sun on the external continent, as
it progressively passes over it from east to west. There is always fog
and cloud at all the entrances to the interior continent that prevent
the radiation of heat and help preserve an even temperature within. All
the inhabited chambers are made as bright as sunlight by immense and
numerous electric lights, which are placed with reference to the best,
effects both from a utilitarian and an artistic point of view. They are
generally placed at great elevations, and are often arranged to imitate
the constellations of the heavens, so that looking up, one may see a
portion of the sky as he would see it from the external continent, and
by traveling about among the various interior provinces, he can see the
whole of it. In some of the chambers, the lights are made to represent
the members of the solar system and each one is caused to make the
movements properly, belonging to it, the whole constituting a planetarium
on an immense scale—in some instances—several miles in diameter and three
miles above the floor.”

“I can well imagine the glory of such scenery and such possibilities,”
said I, “but I do not see by what mechanism you can accomplish such
results.”

“You must remember,” he replied, “that we have resources, that your race
does not possess. With you a great many things would be practically out
of the question that with us are very easy. In the first place, we are
a flying race as you see, and this means a great deal on the moon’s
external continent, and still more in the internal continent, where on
account of the attraction of the earth and the hump, our weight is much
reduced without a corresponding reduction of strength. The fluttering and
flying about of crowds overhead is one of the pleasing features of our
life.

“In the second place, the power of neutralizing the gravity of metals,
as I have explained to you, enables us to erect works miles above the
ground more easily than you do at the surface. In fact the works erect
themselves and the most we do is to tether them at the proper height
to keep them from going too far. When motion is required to be given
them, the globes of light are sometimes attached to a car that is made
to run on a single rail elliptical track, which may be suspended at any
elevation and reduced to a minimum weight by proper adjustments of its
gravitation, the light globe being either suspended from the car or
floating above it. The elliptical orbit is inclined enough to enable
gravity to propel the car. An automatic shunt turns on repulsion when
the car reaches the lowest part of the orbit and it is then forwarded on
the up grade portion, shunted again at the top and so on perpetually.
Another machine often used is a hollow cylindrical stem suspended from
the dome, having a series of wheels, concentric with the cylinder, one
above another and caused to revolve horizontally at different rates, by
clockwork inside the cylinder. Globes of light are suspended by long
wires to these wheels, which by their revolution, at varying rates, cause
the globes by centrifugal motion to describe large or small orbits as
desired. All sorts of eccentric and peculiar motions are imparted to the
globes by variations in the regularity of the revolutions of the wheels,
the spheres falling toward the center when the motion is slow and flying
outward when it is fast. The mazes of a cotillion are often imitated,
and the performance is called the ‘dancing of the spheres’. This is
also accompanied by music, sometimes by local bands situated on the
ground playing in concert with the movement, at other times by immense
instruments operated by the same machinery that drives the spheres.

“It is not difficult for you to imagine the beauty and grandeur of some
of these overhead scenes. Of course the power used is electricity, and
it is used liberally and freely since its cost is merely nominal. Heat
as well as light is supplied through the same means and used for all
purposes, domestic, industrial and public. Our houses are very tasteful
and often highly ornamental. The architecture is light and graceful and
suited to a mild and quiet climate, for we have the pleasant air of
your tropics without their storms or excessive heat. A slight sprinkle
of rain is all we ever have in the shape of a storm in any part of the
interior continent, and these sprinkles are rendered periodical by
artificial means. There are no wide agricultural tracts with us, nor
densely populated cities, but the population is distributed in towns,
and continuous villages line the roads, each of which is devoted to some
principal productive industry. There are principal streets that run
miles, passing through and connecting these towns, and often bending
so as to make a complete circuit. The streets are wide and we are
always furnished with a number of rail tracks, and paved with a hard
smooth material—sometimes stone and sometimes iron or alumina. The only
vehicles used on the streets, besides the rail cars are light, private
and pleasure carriages, propelled by storage batteries. The roads that
unite the various internal provinces to each other and to the external
continent, are chiefly the gravity roads, that I have already described
to you. In some cases to save room, the roads are built in stories, one
track above another. The work shops and farms, are situated conveniently
near on streets parallel to the main thoroughfares, and their products
are conveyed from them, and their materials to them, on roads laid on
those streets.”

“I should like to know something about your social and political
arrangements, your industrial economy and your form of government,” said
I. “If the government controls the increase of population, I suppose it
must control labor and production; and consumption too—how is that?”

“The sort of control, which the government exercise is almost exclusively
advisory. There is no government control in the sense of the term as used
on earth. All productive labor is expended for the creation of common
property, to which, when created, every individual has equal title.
Not the slightest compulsion however is put upon labor, nor the least
prohibition upon consumption.”

“Do you mean to say that nobody is obliged to work, and yet everyone can
take what he wants from the common stock?”

“Yes.”

“Then yours is an angelic race, truly. We have not anything like that on
this earth, and I reckon, we never will have.”

“The human race, as a whole, is not yet like it, although the tendency is
certainly that way and it would be rash to predict it never will be, but
there are other and older races on earth, that you overlook. Consider our
relatives the Bees; did you ever see a lazy bee or one that wanted more
than a reasonable share of the common property?”

“Yes,” said I, “it has become instinctive with them to work and their
wants are likewise, only such as instinct dictates.”

“Instincts,” he replied, “are only crystallizations of reason. They are
habits become hereditary to such a degree that the person is liable to
fall into them with little or no teaching. I know that the people of the
human race pride themselves greatly on the assumed fact that they act
from reason, while other animals act from instinct, but the fact is, that
99 out of every 100 good acts that human beings perform, are done through
instinct or inherited disposition to do them, while only one is reasoned
out. And your teachers appear to understand that your instincts alone are
to be depended upon to produce good actions, since they always depreciate
and throw suspicion on good acts not done from the “heart” that is, not
done from instinct. They give little or no credit for such actions,
and strive by cultivation of the emotions to substitute disinterested
impulse or in other words instinct, for mere calculating reason. Now,
we Lunarians have long since passed this stage. Lazy Lunarians are
as impossible as lazy bees. To work is instinctive with us and so is
consideration for the rights and dues of the rest, and as everyone can be
relied on to obey his instincts, it is not necessary to watch any one to
keep him from plundering the public or shirking out of his duties.”

“There have often been socialistic communities with us,” said I, “that
have endeavored to live on the principles you speak of. But their lives
have been of the most monotonous dead level sort. There is no chance
for individuality or for the development or exercise of the superior
talents, which some are certain to possess in a higher degree than
others. They are merely little despotisms and endure only while their
leaders are people of exceptional ability. We do not regard such a state
of society as desirable even if it could be made permanent.

“With us,” he replied, “the greatest liberty is accorded to the
individual, but so well grounded is our predisposition to work for the
benefit of the community, that no one has any fear or suspicion that
another is not doing what he ought, or is able to do for the common
good. There are extensive colleges for art, literature, science and
invention, accessible to any according to their several tastes. If a
person thinks, for example, that he has the conception of a valuable
invention, he is admitted to the college of invention where there is
every facility and appliance for developing the idea and constructing the
machine or instrument. In these colleges there are depositories of models
something like your patent office, and professors are on hand familiar
with physics, chemistry and kindred sciences to advise and assist the
inventor. As they are all working for the good of all, the inventor is
not afraid his idea will be stolen, he finds the assistance he gets
invaluable, and is often saved the useless labor of doing something
that has been done already or attempting something in contravention
of the principles of physics and therefore impossible. An invention,
when made, is the property of the public, and if it lightens labor in
any direction, it allows it to take on greater activity in some other
direction.

“All articles that can be produced in quantities by machinery are
distributed to everybody desiring them, but individual works of art as
great pictures and statuary and rare and curious things, are placed in
public art galleries, libraries etc., accessible to all.”

“Well,” said I, “this is extremely pretty and no doubt it works all right
with you wise Lunarians, but I cannot help imagining what sort of a mess
we should make of it on earth, if we adopted the same policy. I admit
that many of us are workers by instinct or at least a semi instinct, that
controls us after some habit got by practice, and it is also instinctive
with us to care for the young and those who are helpless from disease
or old age, but there are plenty of people with whom it is equally
instinctive never to do a lick of work if they can help it, and at the
same time their instincts allow them to help themselves to the proceeds
of the labor of others without any limit, except that of forcible
restraint.”

“The trouble with you,” said he, “is that you have no control over the
production of your people. You are like the civilized Indians, that once
inhabited some of the western parts of your country, who were constantly
threatened and invaded and finally exterminated by wild and barbarous
neighbors, except that they were physically too weak to help themselves.

“It is true your civilization is now in little danger from foreign
savages, but you allow yourselves to be steadily invaded by fresh
generations, of them born in your midst, and the crudeness and injustice
of your political and social conditions, are such as to give but
slight encouragement to the development of the unselfish instincts in
anybody. Wealth carries power and power commands respect. Your wealth is
distributed without justice, sometimes by accident and to those who are
merely lucky, at other times to those who are simply selfish greedy and
unscrupulous, and generally least to those who create it, and so luck and
greed become prominent objects for your attention and emulation. How very
young your race is and how much you have to learn!”

CHAPTER V.

“Mundane Prognostication”—The Profile of Time.

“You said something about a college of “Mundane prognostication,” you
have on the moon where you study our affairs and forecast our future.
I should be infinitely gratified to know what your learned college has
figured out for us—if it is no secret.”

“It is no secret at all,” he answered, “and I shall be glad to give you
such insight in your future, as our profiles in their present condition
afford.”

With this he drew from a receptacle something like a pocket under his
right lower wing, a cylindrical roll of paper three inches in diameter,
and ten inches long, exactly resembling a roll of profile paper, such as
civil engineers use in plotting the profile of a survey for a railroad.
Familiarity with such things together with the idea that he intended
handing it to me, caused me almost involuntarily to reach out for it, but
he retained it in his own hands and began with great dexterity unrolling
it, holding the scroll in his right hand, while with his left he rolled
up again the unrolled end. As he held these two rolled ends in his front
hands a yard apart with that length of the profile open between them, he
used his middle pair of hands to point out the various marks and lines
on the paper to which attention was directed. I could not help observing
what a vast advantage one has with four hands instead of two. When we
hold a profile thus, there is nothing left to point with, but the nose.

In plotting the profile of a railroad survey, the engineer uses paper
several feet long and 8 to 12 inches wide, covered with fine horizontal
lines, running the whole length of it and ruled so close together, that
there are from 20 to 50 lines to the inch. Then there are other lines
drawn across the paper at right angles to the first, and one-fourth
of an inch apart. These last represent distances of 100 feet each; or
“stations;” while each of the spaces between the horizontal lines is
called a foot. Having the survey of a line of stations with the relative
height of each, ascertained by a leveling instrument, the line is plotted
on this paper so that its distance from the lower edge of the paper at
each station corresponds with the height of the ground at that station.
The irregular line thus formed is a fac simile of the surface of the
ground with its vertical undulations and irregularities. The engineer
then draws a grade line on this profile of the ground, that indicates
the position of the surface of the road bed, as he intends it to be when
finished. In some places this line is above the ground line and this
indicates that here is to be a fill. In other places it runs below, and
this shows a cut.

Now the profile that the Lunarian Professor of “Mundane Prognostication”
held in his multiple hands (I shall call him the Professor hereafter)
very much resembled in appearance that just described, except that
instead of only one there were several profiles on this one strip of
paper, one above another. In each one there was the irregular surface
line accompanied with the more or less straight grade line showing
cuts in some places and fills in others. The professor explained
these profiles to be graphic exhibits of the state of various human
institutions and conditions as they appeared during a continuous term of
time beginning in the past, and extending into a far distant future.

After examining these profiles a short time, I had little difficulty
in getting the ideas intended to be conveyed by them. They will be
readily understood without much explanation. Thus the line of “muscular
development” is shown in the remote past as being almost up to grade, but
as gradually falling below it in the course of time, then rising again
and coming almost to the grade line about the year 2500, but after that
gradually falling away again. Selfish instinct, which has always shown
heavy cutting, comes down nearly to grade, about the year 7200. While
altruistic instinct that regards the common welfare and has been below
grade, always, but at times higher than at present, is seen to rise and
come to grade about the same time. Health has always shown a fill, often
a large one, but gradually rises almost to grade about the year 2500.
Crime has always been a cut, but disappears in the future about the same
time as theology.

_Peace_, which is a condensation or composite of all the rest and the
end for which they all exist, has always been a fill and always must be
until human actions become absolutely instinctive and unconscious, which
they never can do until men have been acted upon and molded by habit by
every stimulation possible to their environment. Reasoned acts are those
which arise from stimulations, that are new or unusual to us, and new
stimulations will continue to come as long as knowledge increases or
continues to be pursued, or to be thrust upon us. If the accumulation
of knowledge should stop, actions would finally become instinctive, and
unconscious. This would be complete absence of misery, and also absence
of happiness, but perfect peace. So the grade line of Peace is a dead
level. Above it is the ragged line of misery always a great cut, and
below it is the line of happiness always a fill, somewhat lighter than
the cut above the line, and terminating in grade soon after it.

I inquired of the Professor, the principle, upon which predictions
of the future were worked out. He replied, that the principles were
exceedingly simple, although the actual working out of any scheme of the
future involved the consideration of such a vast number of details and
conditions, as to render it a labor of magnitude. “Prediction,” said
he, “is only past history, projected forward. If we know precisely what
happened in the past, our knowledge will include the antecedent causes
of the events. Events beget events, and they succeed each other as one
generation succeeds another. Knowing the character and condition of
one generation and the modifications that have been made in it by its
environment, we have the principal data for estimating the character of
its successor and so on. The principal uncertainty we encounter, is in
the prediction of changes in the environment itself. Thus the invention
of a self portable power like steam made the invention of railroads
possible and the construction of railroads completely changed the
environment of the succeeding generations.

“Now it is difficult to forecast just what particular turn invention
will take, but it is not impossible, because inventions constitute
a race with generations one begetting another. Knowing all that is
known to-day makes it possible to see what this knowledge will lead to
to-morrow. The trouble is for one to know all that is known. As I have
already mentioned, our own Lunarian history greatly aids us in our
study of your future, for we have passed through an experience, which,
while it is different from what yours has been or will be, is parallel
and comparable with it. And making due allowance for the difference in
physical structure of the two races and considering that we are 500,000
years older than you, we have only to consult our past in order to get
your future, or something much like it, for many generations to come.”

“These profiles of yours, Professor,” said I, “are evidently the result
of much learned detail work and they are of extreme interest and value
to the philosophical and scientific student. But to common people the
details themselves are more interesting, because they are more easy to
be understood and come nearer to the common life. Could you not favor
me with some of the future history of our planet and especially of the
United States and of the State of Minnesota. Any of the facts that you
have prognosticated and from which you have deduced the generalizations
that you embody in your profiles, would be of great interest.”

He seemed a little disappointed at this request, as no doubt his habits
of thought had made him familiar with and attached to the comprehensive
and wholesale treatment of these questions, and he looked upon the
detailed story as a means to an end and containing but little interest in
itself. But it is easier to generalize from details, than to construct
the details. However he complied, observing that he would be compelled
to get these details in part from his memory, which however would be
prompted and refreshed by the general profile he held in his hands.

“I will take my stand,” said he, “at about the year 2,000 of your era,
and then by looking forward and backward along these lines, I think I
can recover the principal factors that have entered into their make-up.
This will also allow me to give you the descriptions in the past tense as
events that have been accomplished up to that time and from that date we
will also look forward, for the events subsequent to it.”

It occurred to me that he must be tired of holding the profile so long
between his outstretched hands and so I offered to hold it for him
awhile, or at least hold one end of it. At that he shifted the rolls from
his front to his middle pair of hands, by which maneuver he gave me to
understand that he had abundant resources for resting himself without
outside help. How I did envy him that extra pair of hands.

He then began as follows:

“The close of the 19th century, was remarkable as being a turning point
in American affairs and the beginning of a new era. Previous to that
time the United States had been a nation very much to itself. It had
kept aloof from the politics of the rest of the world and had no policy
in regard to it except to prohibit European nations from meddling in
affairs of the western hemisphere or acquiring any further possessions
in it. But before the century was out public opinion was accustoming
itself to the idea that the foremost nation of the earth ought to take a
more active and influential part in the general affairs of the world.
The first thing designed to give weight to the influence of the country
was the development of a powerful navy. It is power that inspires the
consideration and respect of others. It was a favorite idea with many of
the leaders of political thought that arbitration might become the last
resort in the settlement of international disputes instead of the ancient
plan, by which the contestants temporarily laid aside such civilization
as they might have acquired, reduced themselves back to barbarism in
murdering each other, destroying property, plundering commerce, and often
spending more money several times over than the matter in dispute was
worth. But even these statesmen saw that a plan favoring peace would come
with much more force and authority from a nation having power to enforce
it by war, and so all were glad to see the great navy built.

“As the public lands became transferred to private ownership and
prices steadily went up, attention was turned to the sparsely settled
territories of neighboring countries, and the elements of a great party
in favor of their annexation were developed in the ranks of all the
parties, at the same time the theories of the land tax advocates received
additional attention, especially from mechanics and the manufacturing
classes. They reasoned that the increase in the value of land ought to
belong to the state instead of to the people who had bought the land,
and if the state had that increase, the interest on it would support
the government and taxes could be abolished. The enormous amounts
raised by taxation came at last from labor, they said, part of it in