Life on Mars, they found to be Utopian in the fullest sense of the
word, compared to which the democracies of the earth were naught but
the greatest farces. Mars, of course, was a much older world compared
with the earth, so far as human life was concerned and naturally
greater things could have been accomplished.
Here on Mars each individual was accountable to his neighbor for a
certain amount of work; every man, woman and child had some one thing
to do, and did it willingly.
They had long realized that upon the proper application of scientific
knowledge depended the welfare of their civilization. Science was
their God, and they worshiped it as we do our Creator!
Most marvelous of the many wonderful things the two earth people
encountered on every hand was the application of wireless to many walks
of life. Every Martian carried a small and delicate receiving set
with him. No matter where he was he was always equipped and ready for
whatever message might be sent him. Numerous stations were continually
broadcasting the news of the day. No papers were needed; in fact the
written language had been discarded long ago as an obsolete thing.
There were no schools, churches, or meeting halls such as we have on
earth. The people sat in their homes and were informed of all there was
to know.
Transportation, too, differed greatly from that of the earth. All the
railways were underground, and instead of tracks and wheeled cars,
such as we have, cylindrical tubes were shot forward like pistons in
a cylinder, or rather these cylinder-like cars were sucked from one
station to another, at a terrific speed, by means of great solenoids,
the electrical current for which was secured from the numerous
hydro-electric generating stations that dotted the banks of the canals,
which served the Martians a double purpose. They furnished the water
needed to irrigate the fields and at the same time ran the generating
plants.
Carl was forcibly struck by the ingenuity displayed in the utilizing
of these canal waters. The waters used at one station, after being
discharged, were carried along for a short distance, until, through
a series of steps it fell to a lower level, to again be used by a
generating station. It was only after it had served its purpose of
generating power that the water was finally pumped over the fields.
The fields ran along both sides of the canals for thousands of miles
and averaged perhaps fifteen miles in width. He saw, too, that while
most of the canals ran parallel with each other, there were some that
crossed each other at different elevations.
Very little labor was performed by hand. Practically all the work on
Mars was done by electrical machinery, devised by the inhabitants of
that strange world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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