Here you are in your quiet room, and none the worse for your starward journey. Now you are in your normal state and I have something to say to you. For a reason that later on you will appreciate, _you are not to read what your conscious self has been made, and will yet be made to write_. Do you understand? Then at the conclusion of each journey put away whatever may have been written, and in some coming time together we will read it, and then you will comprehend why I make this request. May divine and loving influences guide and guard you. Au revoir. CHAPTER II. SPECIAL FEATURES OF MARS. De L'Ester--Again we have the pleasure of greeting you and of observing your attempt to secure yourself from intrusion, and we urge upon you the imperative necessity of continuing this precaution. Now, assume a comfortable position. How close your eyes and endeavor to compose your too active mind by joining us in harmonizing prayer. Eternal Infinite Intelligence! Eternal Infinite Energy, we, Thy children, desire to come into conscious relation with Thee. Unto Thee we offer our loving, reverent adoration, and Thou wilt guide us in all our ways. Amen, amen. George, for a little while, we will move slowly, so that madame may more clearly observe the scene below us. To physical vision the Earth's surface would appear somewhat depressed, but to our spirit vision this illusion is not apparent. To mortals, at this altitude, the atmosphere would be too rarefied and too cold to be endurable, but, as you perceive, Spirits sufficiently evolved, are not subject to physical conditions. How deep is Earth's atmosphere? He who estimates the depth of the _oxygenated_ portion of Earth's atmospheric envelope at ten English miles may safely add another half-mile, and the entire depth of Earth's atmosphere is so greatly in excess of what your scientists conceive it to be that on your account I a little hesitate to say that it runs into hundreds of miles, and through the activities of natural forces ever it is deepening. Yes, necessarily, all inhabited Planets possess oxygenated atmospheric envelopes, but you are not to confound atmosphere with ether, which fills all interstellar space, _and is substance_, but so refined as to be imperceptible to physical sense.