The indicating scheme was essentially the same as our own method. There was a small dial in the center, with sixteen curious numerals round its edge. The hands, of the same length, but of contrasting colors, apparently indicated the time, while in the upper corners were changeable numerals, probably showing what corresponded to the Martian month and day of the month. The lower corners were not utilized, but were simply decorated with some artistic scrolls. A third, but shorter hand, also connected to the central dial, revolving rapidly with a familiar ticking sound, probably corresponded to the second-hand on our own watches, but it was more like the long hand on a split-second stop-watch. The case of Robert’s watch seemed to interest the Martians no less than its mechanism. The watch was an old one of the bulky type which had belonged to Robert’s father. The heavy case was of solid silver. From their exclamations, as they examined the silver case, Robert judged that they prized silver highly as a precious metal. By this time the character of the country had changed. No longer were they surrounded by the fragrant forest. Vast, level, green fields stretched on either side, while in the distance the equally flat desert was visible at times. * * * * * The speed of the train began diminishing until it came to a stop beside another small station. Here they got their first view of one of the great canals or ducts upon which the plant life and the lives of every being on Mars depended. About a hundred yards beyond the station a gang of two hundred or more men were at work in and around a deep excavation, aided by several huge digging machines. All were clad in rough garments of a dull maroon color, which Robert soon learned was as common a color on Mars as our own khaki is to us. But it was not the Martians which attracted Robert’s and Professor Palmer’s chief attention. A giant cylinder lay partly exposed within the excavation, its ends disappearing into the soil at either end. In diameter it was at least seventy-five feet. It appeared to be of cementlike construction. At intervals of perhaps fifty yards along its length, smaller tubes branched off and were lost in the sides of the ditch. Where one of these branches joined the main line, a swarm of workmen struggled valiantly to mend a break from which the water gushed as if under heavy pressure. The scurrying Martians had checked the leak perceptibly by the time the train started again after a minute’s wait. A few minutes later they flashed by an immense structure situated near the tracks, looking like a great power plant of some kind. However, it reared no stacks to the sky. For miles at either end of it stretched a vast, flat expanse of some curious construction, which in the distance looked like a great, elongated checker-board. “A Martian pumping station,” hazarded Robert.