“You forget that our monkeys will be sealed in a vacuum,” he answered. “There is an inner and an outer case of vanadium steel mixed with a secret composition which will resist even thermite. And even if the temperature does rise—well, if a homely instance may be allowed—you are aware that canned beef, as the Americans term it, will remain fresh in an air-tight tin even in the tropics. That is dead matter, while our monkeys will be millions of living cells. The vacuum is created by simply screwing on this cap.” “But not a perfect vacuum,” I interposed. “That is impossible.” “Sufficiently near to eliminate the aerobic bacilli which flourish on oxygen, and the infinitesimal amount of that remaining in the cylinder is probably absorbed and transmuted by the surface capillaries and lungs, leaving simply carbon dioxide, neon, crypton, et cetera.” I examined the cylinder nearest me with interest. A small dial was set into its cap. Lazaroff anticipated my question. “That is the most ingenious part of the mechanism,” he explained. “It is a hundred-year clock, made specially for me by Jurgensen, of Copenhagen, and, to salve your conscience, paid for, like the cylinders, out of my private purse. It runs true to within three-tenths of a second. The alarm can be set to any year, if necessary. A good alarm clock for lazy people, Miss Esther. This one, you see, I have already set to a hundred years ahead. This is at sixty-five; I shall set that to a hundred presently, for we don’t want one of our monkeys to awaken several generations ahead of his friends. This one is not set. Now, observe, I turn the hands on the dials. The large figures are years. The smaller ones are days. Now as soon as the cap is screwed on, the internal vacuum causes this lever to fall, catching this cam and starting the mechanism. We have then a bottled monkey in an indestructible shell, for really I do not know what could make much impression on steel of this thickness, which is both resistant and malleable, and fireproof too. It is impossible, in short, to release the inmate before the appointed time, and, even then, immediate death would ensue.” “Why?” I asked. “Because resuscitation must be gradual. I base my hopes upon the chance that the lungs and heart will automatically resume their functions, being in their most perfect medium. But if air were admitted before the bodily machine had become, so to say, synchronized, the swarm of micro-organisms would make short work of our subject. Besides, the hasty respiration produced by this rush of air would produce immediate death by its transformation into carbon dioxide. The air must enter under slight pressure, in minute quantities, during a period of about ten days. Very well! As the timepiece gradually runs down, the cap slowly unscrews, and a tiny quantity of filtered air leaks in. It is so arranged that, at the exact end of the period, the cap flies off, and the subject awakes.”