"March 13. As we entered within the magnetic radius of Mars, and were emerging from the outer into the inner concentric circles, so characteristic of that planet, we met a reception committee of several thousand, and after formal greetings, we were escorted to a magnificent edifice, where were in waiting innumerable throngs of spiritual dignitaries and others to receive us. I here desire to remark that in my use of words I resort to your own vocabulary, for the thought language of the Marsians is quite different from the sound of your words, and to employ their terms would only confound you and militate against your proper conception and understanding of the narrative. For instance, I use the word edifice to indicate a structure, but they use an entirely different term and form of expression, and so on _ad infinitum_. The edifice referred to I am unable to describe, and it can only be fully understood in thought. In dimensions so great that your city of Cincinnati could be settled in one corner of it without attracting but very little attention. The material of which it is composed has no fitting representative on earth in its present state of development. Your diamonds and precious stones are as dim and unreflecting in comparison as a cloudy, murky day of autumn is to a bright summer day with the sun at meridian and the horizon unobstructed by cloud or a single mist. This comparison may serve to give you some idea of the absorbingly intense brilliancy of the mammoth structure, yet this is of itself but as a mote in the sunbeam to what I am assured exists in the immeasurable immensity of the higher creations in the inconceivable and boundless universe of God. Oh, how diminutive is this little ball of matter called earth, when we only measurably take in the vast immensity of the infinite domain of God. And poor, puny man, what a mere speck--a mere infinitisimal animalcule. As we approached this mammoth structure, it seemed to be tremulous with motion, and the motion, superinduced by such intensely penetrating, soul dazzling strains of music as to perfectly appal with ecstatic emotion our enraptured tourists. But for the preparation of us for it by the scientific spirits, who they called the Ulaetta, we could not have withstood it. I will give you this process of preparation on some future occasion, and I am sure it will be interesting to you and valuable when you come over. The ceremonies of reception were performed, not in speech, but in musical opera, which, singular to state, we were enabled to understand by the preparation mentioned. When I say musical opera I do not mean singing accompanied by music, but that the music itself was intensely operatic, and infused thought by the most astonishing and utterly inexplicable process into our interior soul consciousness. It was something worth years of suffering and pain to enjoy, and in contemplating its inconceivable grandeur I return to my own sphere, feeling how little I