I now perfectly remembered that through the invention of spectrum analysis in the latter half of the nineteenth century it had indeed become possible to discover metals and several other elements in the different celestial bodies, and I conceived some faint idea of the possibility of recognising, with the aid of greatly improved apparatus, even the chemical character of such small portions of the lunar surface as for example the Tycho stripes. The only thing quite inexplicable to me was this, how could there be people left in the twenty-first century so credulous as to believe in the exploration of tin mines in the moon by us, the inhabitants of the earth? When I put this question to Bacon, the following was his reply: "My dear sir, on this point, as on many others, men have not much altered. At all times there have been dupes, the victims of those that preyed upon them and of their own cupidity. The originators of this unlimited liability company know full well that there is no possibility of getting at the tin mines in the moon; all they want to explore is the cheque-books of the public at large. In former centuries we have had the same speculations; at that time in the shape of tin, copper, and lead mines that existed nowhere except on imaginary maps, or in the form of landed estates, which on closer examination of the facts often dwindled down into pigstyes, or in the cultivation of fertile soil, which turned out to be mere wildernesses; very often a clever array and combination of figures was resorted to, and people were often brought to believe that one and one are four, and that two times two are ten. So it has been, and always will be. Think of the very old maxim, Mundus vult decipi. All that is required for such adventurers is an elastic conscience, a good deal of "brass," and a certain knack not to squeeze people's credulity too much, but to blind the masses by an artificial coating of truth. In former times--before science had to dispose of its enormous resources--had any one proposed to fetch tin from the moon, the commonest clown would have looked upon him as an addle-pate; but now-a-days so great is the number of recent discoveries and inventions, which to the uneducated mind savour almost of miracles, that many end in believing almost anything, and to my mind this is not to be wondered at. Start a company for parcel delivery by electric telegraph, issue a prospectus stuffed with learned twaddle, and an elaborate quasi-scientific demonstration of your scheme--above all, hold out hopes of a wonderful profit--and you are sure to find shareholders enough." Universal Suffrage, etc.