It was ascertained by actual experiment that the strands were effective in transmitting their properties of withstanding the passage of heat to a considerable distance around their mass, and when cords a line thick (one-twelfth of an inch) were placed half an inch apart, phosphorus and other elements, which are self-igniting in a dry atmosphere, covered with such a mesh received no added heat and remained unconsumed, though the net was subjected to a temperature of over 3000° C. The experiments were a brilliant success, and in order to make assurance doubly sure and so avoid all risk of danger to themselves and their ship, the friends had the net woven with fine strands in so close a mesh that they could but dimly see through it when placed before one of the vessel’s powerful search-lights. It was nearly two years after their return from Jupiter before they were in a position to commence the work of weaving, which was to be conducted under their own supervision in a windowless building specially erected adjoining the shed, and not till the web was finished could they let their object be known. To all inquiries they had returned smiling and evasive answers. It was guessed that something wonderful was afoot, or they would not have remained busy yet closed up for two years. All kinds of rumours were circulated, not the least of which was that something had gone wrong with the _Regina_, and the owners, unable to use the vessel again, had built another shed and were constructing a second ship, making a mystery over it to cover their incompetency. Every movement was closely watched and publicly reported; every time they went to either of the sheds dozens of watching craft ‘waved’ the news to the whole earth, and so great a nuisance did this become that the secret workers built a covered way from one shed to the other. This privacy, together with the knowledge that from the house to the new shed was an underground passage, all in electrification, but added fuel to the fire of public curiosity, and the four friends could not step outside the buildings for their daily exercise, which they always took in the grounds, without being besieged by correspondents from airships overhead, who pressed for interviews in the hope of gleaning more information than the little already known.