application to add to his knowledge, each allowing himself merely the amount of sleep actually necessary to maintain health in order that he could—in his own line—gather as much information as possible for the ultimate benefit of the people on Earth. Very quickly, as it seemed, the time drew near when the sun was but a few million miles ahead, and its gravity had just altered the position of their vessel. Instead of the sun being _before_ them, they approaching bows first, their ship had, as it were, stood on end and the sun was _below_ them, they being still on an even keel, but instead of going _forward_, they now had simply to sink to his surface, like descending on our own world from the clouds. As soon as they perceived this change, they paused, making the ship in equilibrium, and, over five million miles above him, rested for final discussion and completion of arrangements. Already they were encountering clouds of metallic dust, still red-hot, being rapidly drawn to the sun again by their own gravity; and although the intrepid travellers were intent on sinking to the actual furnace raging below them, which now blotted out the whole of the lower heavens, the sight of the awful mass of seething ‘something’ made all quake, and the pause was generally welcome. At the same instant there rang through the ship the soft, silvery sound of the electric tubular bells, calling all to the saloon for a meeting, whilst each passenger received a telepathic message stating the object. A few moments later all were assembled and Dennis, as usual, being elected spokesman, began, with considerable emotion,— “Fellow-travellers, on the last occasion when we assembled here there were, unfortunately, mutinous companions in our midst, but now we all meet together in heart and mind one, and it may be for the last time, for in that fearful heat below us—that heat which no human mind has power to grasp or means of defining—we may be destroyed, notwithstanding all our precautions; and at this sacred and solemn moment we cannot do better than kneel and ask Him who keeps yon furnace in its place, and dots limitless space with wondrous worlds, to keep us safely also, and watch over us.” All knelt, and he continued,—