friends proceeded on their journey, and in due course our ship will call and take us back again. We thought that by this means we could render better service to science by visiting here whilst our friends explored the sun, and thus both objects could be dealt with together and considerable time saved. We therefore request that you will accord to us that hospitality and assistance which you yourselves would receive from our own people in similar circumstances.” This pretty, flattering little speech could have but one result, and smiles and greetings of the warmest character followed. Then came many questions on both sides, and as the natives did not know Earth by that name, a drawing was made of the solar system, and they were asked to name the various worlds. The sun they named ‘Claytor,’ a word to them signifying ‘light and heat’; Mercury they called ‘Celtas’ or ‘one,’ being nearest the sun; their own planet was ‘Ramsar,’ and ‘Surans’—the former meaning ‘two,’ or the second from the sun, the latter signifying ‘much water,’ the world having more water than land; Venus was ‘Lovis’—or ‘three,’ and Earth ‘Rathela’ or ‘four.’ Stars were called ‘Claros,’ which means ‘fixed,’ in contrast with ‘Icelaros,’ signifying ‘unfixed,’ or ‘travelling’ stars, which Earthians call ‘planets.’ “What is your orbit in the system?” asked Fred Congreve. “It is within that of Venus, journeying round the sun.” “How is it then that we have never seen it from Earth?” questioned Aubrey Bolford, who was an astronomer. “You see from this photograph that it is surrounded by a belt of semi-opaque ether, which would render it wholly, or partially invisible to you except on the rare occasions when the web lifted, and even then meteor-swarms or planetoids might intervene. We shall therefore be a ‘variable’ star to you, just as your Earth and all the other members of the solar family are not always visible to us, for which reason we call them, as a whole, the ‘Selporas,’ a word signifying ‘variables,’ as you name them.” “You may perhaps recall,” remarked Bolford, turning to Holt, “that in the year 2000 +a.d.+ many astronomers at the chief observatories in the world noticed a large object near Venus which was taken to be a ‘Nova,’ or else a new moon, but after being under observation for a few days, it disappeared and has not been seen since; it never has been visible in England. Perhaps this is the one referred to.”