“That is true. This car I have with me is my ordinary carriage at home. It is a railroad car as you see by the flanges on the wheels. Railroads with us are public free highways, built and maintained by the state. They have from four to twelve tracks. Every person who is qualified by his education and training to manage a car is furnished with one by the state. The propelling power is nothing but gravity either in attraction or repulsion, the former being used on down grades and the latter on up grades, the car having rollers that hook under a flange at the top of the rail to prevent the car from rising bodily from the track. “The surface of our planet is very rough, but still the grading for roads is light, as it is possible to ascend grades of 100 per cent or even steeper. Level grades on our roads are always avoided, and in districts where this cannot be done, we use electric roads. “The cars are so constructed that different parts are electrically insulated from each other, by which means a part of the car can be placed under the influence of attraction and the rest under that of repulsion. This is done on down grades. The weight of the load and of part of the car pulling down and the weight of the rest of the car holding back. It is always arranged to have the car heavier than its load, and the driver can regulate the force used by balancing one against the other, so that a car of many tons shall press on the rails with the weight of only a very few pounds. Thus the wear and tear on road beds and rails is almost nothing and the roads are practically everlasting.” CHAPTER III. The Moon and Its People. “I am amazed,” said I, “to learn that the moon is inhabited and by a race apparently more advanced than our own. Our astronomers have assured us that the moon is a desolate played out barren world without air or water; totally unfit for inhabitants.” “The astronomers could only report what they could see, and the side of the moon visible from the earth is as they describe it, but they have never seen the further side and never will, for that side is always turned from the earth. But the population of the moon is not far from half that of the earth and the people live in greater comfort. But there is no population living on the surface on the hemisphere facing the earth—I see this puzzles you,” he said. It certainly did. “Do you mean that the Lunarians live under ground?” I inquired.