It is not necessary for me to describe the manner in which Mr. Edison
performed his tremendous task. He was as good as his word, and within six
months from the first stroke of the hammer, a hundred electrical ships,
each provided with a full battery of disintegrators, were floating in
the air above the harbor and the partially rebuilt city of New York.
It was a wonderful scene. The polished sides of the huge floating cars
sparkled in the sunlight, and, as they slowly rose and fell, and swung
this way and that, upon the tides of the air, as if held by invisible
cables, the brilliant pennons streaming from their peaks waved up and
down like the wings of an assemblage of gigantic humming birds.
Not knowing whether the atmosphere of Mars would prove suitable to be
breathed by inhabitants of the earth, Mr. Edison had made provision, by
means of an abundance of glass-protected openings, to permit the inmates
of the electrical ships to survey their surroundings without quitting the
interior. It was possible by properly selecting the rate of undulation,
to pass the vibratory impulse from the disintegrators through the glass
windows of a car, without damage to the glass itself. The windows were so
arranged that the disintegrators could sweep around the car on all sides,
and could also be directed above or below, as necessity might dictate.
To overcome the destructive forces employed by the Martians no
satisfactory plan had yet been devised, because there was no means to
experiment with them. The production of those forces was still the secret
of our enemies. But Mr. Edison had no doubt that if we could not resist
their effects we might at least be able to avoid them by the rapidity of
our motions. As he pointed out, the war machines which the Martians had
employed in their invasion of the earth, were really very awkward and
unmanageable affairs. Mr. Edison's electrical ships, on the other hand,
were marvels of speed and of manageability. They could dart about, turn,
reverse their course, rise, fall, with the quickness and ease of a fish
in the water. Mr. Edison calculated that even if mysterious bolts should
fall upon our ships we could diminish their power to cause injury by
our rapid evolutions.
We might be deceived in our expectations, and might have overestimated
our powers, but at any rate we must take our chances and try.
Watching the Martians.
A multitude, exceeding even that which had assembled during the great
congress at Washington, now thronged New York and its neighborhood
to witness the mustering and the departure of the ships bound for
Mars. Nothing further had been heard of the mysterious phenomenon
reported from the observatories six months before, and which at the time
was believed to indicate the departure of another expedition from Mars
for the invasion of the earth. If the Martians had set out to attack
us they had evidently gone astray; or, perhaps, it was some other world
that they were aiming at this time.
The expedition had, of course, profoundly stirred the interest of the
scientific world, and representatives of every branch of science,
from all the civilized nations, urged their claims to places in
the ships. Mr. Edison was compelled, from lack of room, to refuse
transportation to more than one in a thousand of those who now, on the
plea that they might be able to bring back something of advantage to
science, wished to embark for Mars.
As the Great Napoleon Did.
On the model of the celebrated corps of literary and scientific men
which Napoleon carried with him in his invasion of Egypt, Mr. Edison
selected a company of the foremost astronomers, archaeologists,
anthropologists, botanists, bacteriologists, chemists, physicists,
mathematicians, mechanicians, meteorologists and experts in mining,
metallurgy and every other branch of practical science, as well as
artists and photographers. It was but reasonable to believe that in
another world, and a world so much older than the earth as Mars was,
these men would be able to gather materials in comparison with which
the discoveries made among the ruins of ancient empires in Egypt and
Babylonia would be insignificant indeed.
To Conquer Another World.
It was a wonderful undertaking and a strange spectacle. There was a
feeling of uncertainty which awed the vast multitude whose eyes were
upturned to the ships. The expedition was not large, considering the
gigantic character of the undertaking. Each of the electrical ships
carried about twenty men, together with an abundant supply of compressed
provisions, compressed air, scientific apparatus and so on. In all,
there were about 2,000 men, who were going to conquer, if they could,
another world!
But though few in numbers, they represented the flower of the earth,
the culmination of the genius of the planet. The greatest leaders
in science, both theoretical and practical, were there. It was the
evolution of the earth against the evolution of Mars. It was a planet in
the heyday of its strength matched against an aged and decrepit world
which, nevertheless, in consequence of its long ages of existence,
had acquired an experience which made it a most dangerous foe. On both
sides there was desperation. The earth was desperate because it foresaw
destruction unless it could first destroy its enemy. Mars was desperate
because nature was gradually depriving it of the means of supporting
life, and its teeming population was compelled to swarm like the inmates
of an overcrowded hive of bees, and find new homes elsewhere. In this
respect the situation on Mars, as we were well aware, resembled what had
already been known upon the earth, where the older nations overflowing
with population had sought new lands in which to settle, and for that
purpose had driven out the native inhabitants, whenever those natives
had proven unable to resist the invasion.
No man could foresee the issue of what we were about to undertake,
but the tremendous powers which the disintegrators had exhibited and
the marvellous efficiency of the electrical ships bred almost universal
confidence that we should be successful.
Master Minds of the World.
The car in which Mr. Edison travelled was, of course, the flagship
of the squadron, and I had the good fortune to be included among
its inmates. Here, besides several leading men of science from our
own country, were Lord Kelvin, Lord Rayleigh, Professor Roentgen,
Dr. Moissan--the man who first made artificial diamonds--and several
others whose fame had encircled the world. Each of these men cherished
hopes of wonderful discoveries, along his line of investigation, to be
made in Mars.
An elaborate system of signals had, of course, to be devised for the
control of the squadron. These signals consisted of brilliant electric
lights displayed at night and so controlled that by their means long
sentences and directions could be easily and quickly transmitted.
A Novel Signal System.
The day signals consisted partly of brightly colored pennons and flags,
which were to serve only when, shadowed by clouds or other obstructions,
the full sunlight should not fall upon the ships. This could naturally
only occur near the surface of the earth or of another planet.
Once out of the shadow of the earth we should have no more clouds and
no more night until we arrived at Mars. In open space the sun would be
continually shining. It would be perpetual day for us, except as, by
artificial means, we furnished ourselves with darkness for the purpose
of promoting sleep. In this region of perpetual day, then, the signals
were also to be transmitted by flashes of light from mirrors reflecting
the rays of the sun.
Perpetual Night!
Yet this perpetual day would be also, in one sense, a perpetual
night. There would be no more blue sky for us, because without an
atmosphere the sunlight could not be diffused. Objects would be
illuminated only on the side toward the sun. Anything that screened
off the direct rays of sunlight would produce absolute darkness behind
it. There would be no graduation of shadow. The sky would be as black
as ink on all sides.
While it was the intention to remain as much as possible within the cars,
yet since it was probable that necessity would arise for occasionally
quitting the interior of the electrical ships, Mr. Edison had provided for
this emergency by inventing an air-tight dress constructed somewhat after
the manner of a diver's suit, but of much lighter material. Each ship was
provided with several of these suits, by wearing which one could venture
outside the car even when it was beyond the atmosphere of the earth.
Terrific Cold Anticipated.
Provision had been made to meet the terrific cold which we knew would
be encountered the moment we had passed beyond the atmosphere--that
awful absolute zero which men had measured by anticipation, but never
yet experienced--by a simple system of producing within the air-tight
suits a temperature sufficiently elevated to counteract the effects of
the frigidity without. By means of long, flexible tubes, air could be
continually supplied to the wearers of the suits, and by an ingenious
contrivance a store of compressed air sufficient to last for several hours
was provided for each suit, so that in case of necessity the wearer could
throw off the tubes connecting him with the air tanks in the car. Another
object which had been kept in view in the preparation of these suits
was the possible exploration of an airless planet, such as the moon.
The necessity of some contrivance by means of which we should be enabled
to converse with one another when on the outside of the cars in open
space, or when in an airless world, like the moon, where there would be
no medium by which the waves of sound could be conveyed as they are in
the atmosphere of the earth, had been foreseen by our great inventor,
and he had not found it difficult to contrive suitable devices for
meeting the emergency.
Inside the headpiece of each of the electrical suits was the mouthpiece
of a telephone. This was connected with a wire which, when not in use,
could be conveniently coiled upon the arm of the wearer. Near the ears,
similarly connected with wires, were telephonic receivers.
An Aerial Telegraph.
When two persons wearing the air-tight dresses wished to converse with
one another it was only necessary for them to connect themselves by the
wires, and conversation could then be easily carried on.
Careful calculations of the precise distance of Mars from the earth at the
time when the expedition was to start had been made by a large number of
experts in mathematical astronomy. But it was not Mr. Edison's intention
to go direct to Mars. With the exception of the first electrical ship,
which he had completed, none had yet been tried in a long voyage. It
was desirable that the qualities of each of the ships should first
be carefully tested, and for this reason the leader of the expedition
determined that the moon should be the first port of space at which the
squadron would call.
It chanced that the moon was so situated at this time as to be nearly
in a line between the earth and Mars, which latter was in opposition
to the sun, and consequently as favorably situated as possible for
the purposes of the voyage. What would be, then, for 99 out of the 100
ships of the squadron, a trial trip would at the same time be a step of
a quarter of a million of miles gained in the direction of our journey,
and so no time would be wasted.
The departure from the earth was arranged to occur precisely at
midnight. The moon near the full was hanging high over head, and a
marvellous spectacle was presented to the eyes of those below as the
great squadron of floating ships, with their signal lights ablaze,
cast loose and began slowly to move away on their adventurous and
unprecedented expedition into the great unknown. A tremendous cheer,
billowing up from the throats of millions of excited men and women,
seemed to rend the curtain of the night, and made the airships tremble
with the atmospheric vibrations that were set in motion.
Magnificent Fireworks.
Instantly magnificent fireworks were displayed in honor of our
departure. Rockets by hundreds of thousands shot heaven-ward, and then
burst in constellations of fiery drops. The sudden illumination thus
produced, overspreading hundreds of square miles of the surface of the
earth with a light almost like that of day, must certainly have been
visible to the inhabitants of Mars, if they were watching us at the
time. They might, or might not, correctly interpret its significance;
but, at any rate, we did not care. We were off, and were confident that
we could meet our enemy on his own ground before he could attack us again.
And the Earth Was Like a Globe.
And now, as we slowly rose higher, a marvellous scene was disclosed. At
first the earth beneath us, buried as it was in night, resembled
the hollow of a vast cup of ebony blackness, in the centre of which,
like the molten lava run together at the bottom of a volcanic crater,
shone the light of the illuminations around New York. But when we got
beyond the atmosphere, and the earth still continued to recede below us,
its aspect changed. The cup-shaped appearance was gone, and it began to
round out beneath our eyes in the form of a vast globe--an enormous ball
mysteriously suspended under us, glimmering over most of its surface,
with the faint illumination of the moon, and showing toward its eastern
edge the oncoming light of the rising sun.
When we were still further away, having slightly varied our course so
that the sun was once more entirely hidden behind the centre of the
earth, we saw its atmosphere completely illuminated, all around it,
with prismatic lights, like a gigantic rainbow in the form of a ring.
Another shift in our course rapidly carried us out of the shadow of
the earth and into the all pervading sunshine. Then the great planet
beneath us hung unspeakable in its beauty. The outlines of several of
the continents were clearly discernible on its surface, streaked and
spotted with delicate shades of varying color, and the sunlight flashed
and glowed in long lanes across the convex surface of the oceans. Parallel
with the Equator and along the regions of the ever blowing trade winds,
were vast belts of clouds, gorgeous with crimson and purple as the
sunlight fell upon them. Immense expanses of snow and ice lay like a
glittering garment upon both land and sea around the North Pole.
Farewell To This Terrestrial Sphere.
As we gazed upon this magnificent spectacle, our hearts bounded within
us. This was our earth--this was the planet we were going to defend--our
home in the trackless wilderness of space. And it seemed to us indeed a
home for which we might gladly expend our last breath. A new determination
to conquer or die sprung up in our hearts, and I saw Lord Kelvin, after
gazing at the beauteous scene which the earth presented through his
eyeglass, turn about and peer in the direction in which we knew that Mars
lay, with a sudden frown that caused the glass to lose its grip and fall
dangling from its string upon his breast. Even Mr. Edison seemed moved.
"I am glad I thought of the disintegrator," he said. "I shouldn't like
to see that world down there laid waste again."
"And it won't be," said Professor Sylvanus P. Thompson, gripping the
handle of an electric machine, "not if we can help it."