What is the future of communication by electricity? Who can tell? Let me quote some words of Sir William Preece, who as Engineer-in-Chief of the General Post Office for many years, was responsible for many advances in telegraphy which I have described. “One cannot help speculating as to what may occur through planetary space. Strange mysterious sounds are heard on all long telephone lines when the earth is used as a return, especially in the calm stillness of night. Earth currents are found in telegraph circuits, and the Aurora Borealis lights up our northern sky when the sun's atmosphere is disturbed by spots. The sun's surface must at such times be violently disturbed by electrical storms, and if oscillations are set up and radiated through space in sympathy with those required to affect telephones, it is not a wild dream to say that we may hear on this earth a thunderstorm in the sun. If any of the planets be populated with beings like ourselves, having the gift of language and the knowledge to adapt the great forces of Nature to their wants, then, if they could oscillate immense stores of electrical energy to and fro in telegraphic order, it would be possible for us to hold commune by telephone with the people of Mars.” If this condition of things does come to pass, I am quite sure that the General Post Office will be equal to the situation: they will add another floor to the building in St. Martin's le Grand to deal with the new business, and will issue regulations both for our guidance and that of the good people of Mars. CHAPTER XIII THE TELEPHONE If there was one thing more than another which must have seemed to our forefathers essential to conversation it was the presence of two or more individuals within what we call speaking distance of one another. Even in the cases where men have believed themselves to be in communication with the unseen world, the spirit with whom they held intercourse has been with them or near them. The one thing of which they could never have dreamed was, that in London you could talk rationally to a friend in Paris on the price of Consols or the state of the weather.