The Lunarian Professor and His Remarkable Revelations Concerning the Earth, the Moon and Mars: Together with An Account of the Cruise of the Sally AnnAlexander, James B. (James Bradun)
Science
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
Alexander, James B. (James Bradun)
Human-alien encounters -- Fiction; Life on other planets -- Fiction; Utopias -- Fiction
“The changes that took place in the habits of the people in respect
to eating, walking and other things, reacted upon their physical
development, slowly and imperceptibly, however, unless comparisons were
made between people of several generations apart. The tendency as you
know, is, toward the suppression of organs not habitually used. Use and
habit keep all organs in good running order and develop them in size and
health, whereas disuse allows them to become shriveled and reduced, and
if it is persisted in for too many generations the organ will be reduced
to an unrecognizable functionless remnant or disappear altogether. All
animals including man have lost organs by ceasing to use them. Very many,
as the ox, sheep, dog, deer etc., have lost toes, many have lost part
of their intestines, some have lost a part or the whole of one lung.
Most vertebrates including man were derived from ancestors who once
possessed—but lost—an eye on the back of the head. The whales and snakes
have lost their legs and feet in whole or in part.
“You will not be surprised therefore to be told that the man of the
second millennium began to be perceptibly changed from the one you knew
in the 19th century. But when we come to the tenth millennium the change
is astonishing. Let me describe him.
“His average height is eight inches less. His legs are short and
spindling, his feet are small, and his toes reduced to small nubbins
or mere warts. He has no teeth and the males and third sex people have
not hair enough to make a scalp lock, even among the young, and it all
disappears before middle age. The females however still maintain enough
for a few bangs and spit curls. The external ears are reduced to a low
rim of cartilage around the opening, about one inch in diameter. The
lower part of the trunk is small and weak. The upper part containing
the heart and lungs is, however, very well developed. The arms and
hands are well formed strong and symmetrical. The head is very large
indicating large mental power. All these deviations from the average
man of your day became more pronounced with time, and if you could see
a man of the one hundredth millennium you would have to inquire what it
was. His stature now is but four feet, twelve inches of which is head,
eighteen inches trunk, and the other eighteen inches legs. His chest is
very broad, and very thick from front to back. His arms are stout and
long enough to allow him to reach to his knees while standing. They are
much larger and stronger than his legs. He is bald as an orange from
birth. He has an immense mouth which he uses much in singing, laughing
and speaking. He has not the vestige of an external ear nor any hair on
any part of the body. No teeth of course and no sign of a toe. The foot
is also much shortened and his walk is neither graceful nor vigorous.
Foot ball is no longer his best hold, although his ancestor in your day
may have belonged to the Sophomore foot ball eleven, of the Minnesota
University.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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