hay, and for countless other things too numerous to mention. “All this vast motive power which he now stores up by the aid of evaporation and the atmospheric circulation involves scarcely any waste. There is an inexhaustible quantity of it. Millions of horse-powers are daily going to waste on every square mile of land and sea. Thus the burdenless man begins to walk more erect and with an increased elasticity in his step. His slave is emancipated. His draught animal, which required feed and care, is extinct. The pride of his mechanical genius, the steam engine for which he had to mine the coal in the damp mine, has also disappeared from the stage of action. And now the Marsites receive all their motive power from the present sunbeam without being first organized into a vegetable or animal, or without extracting it from the coal which was buried millions of ages ago. “Is it not marvelous how the human mind, with its limited experience, has discovered such complex relations existing between certain phenomena? For examples, how a tiny sunbeam, after having traversed the abyss of space intervening the sun and our planets, warms the atmosphere in certain localities; how this produces atmospheric currents; how the windmills, driven by these currents, charge the storage battery cells, and fill other electric reservoirs; and how these cells and reservoirs of stored power furnish the motive power for train, ship, aerial projectile, factory, carriage, plow, elevator, etc., etc.; how they heat and light the factories, houses, stables, cars, vehicles, roads, etc. What a grand accomplishment when one contemplates this! What a display of human ingenuity; and yet we think that with all these marvelous achievements, even the Marsites are only living in the dawn of an approaching day whose effulgent brilliancy no human intellect has thus far contemplated. “The foregoing, as you no doubt comprehend, are a few of the many reasons why we can support a denser population than you can.” CHAPTER XII. COMMERCIAL AND MERCANTILE SYSTEMS. The next time we met to listen to Mr. Midith’s interesting narrative and to his vivid description of the Marsian world was on a pleasant, calm Sunday afternoon. All nature seemed to be glad and animated. The earth was covered with green grass. The flowers were blooming. The ripe strawberries were painting the hillside with their red cheeks. The verdant foliage was dressing the trees and shrubs with its richest garments. The clear little brook, not far from Mr. Uwins’ residence, was sending its water over its pebbly bed toward the mighty ocean. The birds were singing their songs and building their nests, regardless of its being Sunday.