The Professor.
First there was a loud singing noise in my right ear, pitched in a high
key. Presently this pitch became lower and the sound resembled the rattle
of rolling car wheels on a track, and they seemed to be approaching. I
suddenly realized that they were advancing to the place where I lay, and
greatly startled, I sprang to my feet. I was none too quick, for a train
of four cars rolled rapidly over the very spot where I had lain. I saw
they were filled with gay well dressed people evidently on a pleasure
excursion. As I gazed after them toward the west along the gleaming
rails, I remembered there was no locomotive with the train. Of course
not, thought I, the road is run by electricity. But there was no overhead
wire and no trolley. O, I see, these cars are propelled by storage
batteries that they carry with them. I felt no surprise at this, nor at
the fact that the road had been built after all, for it all seemed to be
a matter of course. Turning toward the east where the line penetrated
the ridge that lies between the bay and the lake, I saw on the edge of
the cut the tall white mile post so illuminated by the direct sunshine
that the number 24 in large black figures could be made out, although
the distance was a third of a mile or more. While I was still gazing in
that direction I suddenly became aware of a strange looking object coming
through the cut and around the curve. It was a four wheeled vehicle
something like a hand car, but it was not being “pumped” nor were there
any handles for propelling it in that way.
The idea suddenly came to me that this car like the first I had seen, was
propelled by a storage battery concealed somewhere about its anatomy. But
the interest created by the car was quickly eclipsed by that inspired
by its occupant; and a more remarkable creature I never read about or
dreamed about. He sat bolt upright on the seat at the rear end of
the car and while he was at a distance, I took him for a rather stiff
dignified and odd specimen of a man. But as he approached and I got a
better opportunity for observing details, I directly came to doubt if he
could be a man at all. When I first saw him, I observed what seemed to be
a large fan-like appendage projecting from his back, which I then took
to be some peculiar garment streaming out behind. But as he approached,
this appendage separated into two, and spreading out to the right and
left acted like brakes against the wind and rapidly checked the speed
of the car, reminding me of the action of the wings of a bird, when it
alights. In short to my great astonishment it turned out they were wings.
I instinctively stepped back two or three paces to allow this strange
apparition to pass, but to my surprise the car stopped directly opposite
to me and its occupant with a slight flutter of the aforesaid wings,
hopped lightly out of it and stood beside the track so near to me, that I
could have touched him. For a moment or two he busied himself with some
arrangement about his car, the nature of which I did not observe, as my
attention was absorbed chiefly by himself.
In the description, that I shall now give of him, will be included a
number of details that I did not observe at first, but which showed
themselves during the progress of our interview. The large wings
mentioned above were at least six feet in radius, and each was nearly a
semicircle. They could be folded like a fan and when in that position
they lay down along his back from his shoulders to his heels and when
fully extended reached from his heels to a point nearly five feet above
his head. They were of a soft semitransparent, but thick and tough
membranous material, full of veins and nerves and supported by stiff
elastic ribs, radiating from their articulation at the shoulder to the
circumference.
Besides these wings, he had two other pairs similar in texture, but much
smaller. One pair was attached just in front of the principal pair and
ordinarily they were directed upward beside his head and reaching above
it. But he could also extend them laterally, so as to cover his face, as
well as the back of his head and did so repeatedly while he was with me,
apparently to shield himself from the rays of the sun. The other two were
attached just below the main wings and extended downwards alongside of
the body to the feet. But they too were extensible laterally and could
be made to cover the entire lower half of the body. In short, these four
minor wings were equivalent to clothes, and the numerous nerves by which
they were traversed, indicated that they were also delicate organs of the
sensations of heat and touch.
In addition to these wings, there were six other limbs, two of which were
legs and two were arms, in much the same position in which they occur in
man. The third pair of limbs were attached to the thorax between the arms
and legs, and were ordinarily folded across the thorax. I came to the
conclusion these limbs could be used either as hands or feet as occasion
required, but while he was with me he made little other use of them than
to occasionally give me a sly poke with one of them—usually the right—in
the side—usually the left side—about the position of the second rib from
the bottom. As these gestures always came about in connection with some
humorous or ludicrous idea, it occurred to me in a whimsical way to call
these limbs his jokers. His head was immense, possessing, I should say,
double the capacity of the largest human head. The top part was globular,
and the lower part, which might be called the face, was long and wedge
shaped, tapering down to the jaws. The jaws were strong and well set with
teeth and worked laterally instead of vertically as with us, and the slit
forming the mouth was vertical and in the middle. There was no chin. The
eyes were placed just above the mouth and at the base of the upper dome
shaped portion of the head. They were of enormous size fully two inches
in diameter, half globular and set far apart, forming as it were the
corners of the face. They were not movable as ours are, because every
part of the surface of the eye was equally good to see with; and their
position enabled their owner to see three-fourths of the horizon without
turning his head. The face had not one particle of expression or mobility
to it, but this was compensated a hundred times by the expression of the
eyes. Their usual expression, when at rest, was one of supreme kindliness
and benevolence with a slight element of humor. But when the mind was
in activity, the eyes beamed with good natured wit, were suffused with
tender sentiment or flashed with intellectual brilliancy to a degree I
would never have imagined possible. Under each of the wings there was an
opening leading into the body, those of the middle wings being nearly
three-fourths of an inch in diameter, and the others very much smaller.
All were protected by movable lips. I soon discovered that these were for
the purpose of breathing, the air being constantly inhaled and exhaled
through them. I have no doubt the lining membrane of these breathing
tubes was sensitive to odors and was therefore an organ of smell. As to
ears, there was one plainly to be seen on the upper part of each arm, and
I observed him move his arm in the proper directions to catch the sound.
In the long conversation I had with him I cannot say that I heard any
articulate voice. There was a slight humming noise, rising and falling
in very agreeable musical cadences, and these appeared to accompany
the enunciation of his ideas and thoughts when he addressed me. When I
spoke to him, I used articulate words in plain English and he appeared
to hear in the ordinary way. But his thoughts came to me like waves or
pulsations and appeared to be injected bodily into my brain without any
distinct sensation of hearing them. In short I directly came to perceive
that it was a case of the telepathic transfer of ideas, experiments in
which are known to most people, but which was in this case vastly more
complete and perfect than I had ever imagined possible. In the report of
the conversation between us that I give herein it is to be understood
that I do not quote his language, but give the impression of his thoughts
upon me in my own language, and the best I have been able to do, I am
sensible, forms a very inadequate dress in which to set off the beauty of
his sentiment or the strength of his reason.
When my visitor had finished whatever arrangement he was making with his
car, he turned partly around and I saw he had in his hand a small spool
of copper wire, two strands from which connected with the car. Next he
performed some slight manipulation with his coil of wire, the nature of
which I could not make out, but which produced the surprising result,
that the car slowly rose from the track continuing upward till stopped by
the wire, then my visitor drew it gently to one side and pushing a stout
iron pin into the ground, he attached the spool and coil to it and left
it there, picketed out, precisely as a cow-boy pickets his mule, except
that the car floated in the air gently pulling on its tether. I had for
some moments been casting about in my mind for some appropriate manner in
which to address my singular visitor. The more I observed his actions,
the higher my opinion rose of his character, abilities and position in
the scale of existence. Royal and aristocratic titles, such as Your
Majesty, My Lord etc., are very awkward in the mouth of an American and
seemed by no means sure to be appropriate in this case. Then I thought of
our American titles, General, Colonel, Major, Judge, Squire, Governor,
none of which of course would do. But the surprise and curiosity excited
by this performance of picketing the car in the air would in another
minute have overcome the tension of diffidence and doubt and I should
have addressed him as _something_, even if no better title than plain
_Mister_ occurred to me.
But he saved me this necessity, by opening the conversation himself. He
seemed to know what I had been thinking of.
“A title of address,” said he, “should be significant of facts. It
is ridiculous to call a man Honorable, because you have sent him to
the legislature, or to congress, or another person ‘Majesty’ whose
understanding is below mediocrity. You may call me, ‘Sir,’ which title
as you know means simply an older person and I will call you by some
title, that means young—if it means _quite_ young, it will still be very
appropriate, eh?”
This was accompanied, by a queer, but decidedly jolly and good natured
expression of the eyes and a gentle poke with his right middle hand
described above.
“Then,” said I, “you think you are the older. The fact is, I am so well
preserved, that almost everyone rates me ten or fifteen years younger
than I am, and perhaps you do.”
“I am nineteen,” he said.
“Why,” I exclaimed, “I am more than three times that old.”
“Nevertheless, I am very much older than you,” he replied.
“You talk in riddles,” said I, “I don’t understand you.”
“Well, I will explain. You understand, that every race is made by its
environment and the same is true of each individual of the race.”
“Certainly, that is my pet theory.”
“Well, the environment of the race is in reality, the environment of
every individual in it, for every individual inherits the impress made
upon the race during all past ages. For this reason a human infant just
born is a being of far greater experience than a mature elephant; the
experience of the race is his and it is expressed in the structure of his
brain and body. In like manner an individual of our race has the long
life of his race behind him and is older at birth than a human being is
at 80, because our race has a vastly longer history and experience than
yours.”
“Your idea is ingenious, but yet it must be admitted that a mature
elephant knows more than a new born human infant.”
“That depends on what you mean by knowledge,” he replied. “The most
knowing person has no knowledge when he is asleep, but he possesses the
potentiality of getting it when he wakes up, and when he is awake, his
knowledge extends only to the things about which his brain is active for
the moment, while as to other things, the most that can be said is that,
he may possess the potentiality of knowing them when the activity of his
brain is directed to them, by appropriate stimulations. In like manner
the potentiality of all the knowledge belonging to his race, slumbers
in the new born infant; and as he gradually wakes up in the process of
his growth and development, this knowledge, upon proper stimulation of
the brain, flashes into view. Therefore everything depends upon the race
to which one belongs. Our race had already reached a high degree of
cultivation before yours was distinguishable from four footed beasts.”
My disposition to generalize, unwittingly influenced no doubt by my early
Sunday School education, here led me to make an observation, that a
moment later I perceived to be crude and ill considered. It was to the
effect that this great age to which his race had attained, had made their
superior mental development possible and had given the time necessary for
their physical evolution through and from the human form.
His answer to this was a loud and prolonged, ha ha ha! That is to say, I
heard nothing quite like that, but was impressed by a sensation that his
mental state exhibited in human expression would be laughter loud and
long.
Said he; “the conceit of the human race is the laughing stock of all our
people, but you are a very young race and you will know a great deal
more when you get older. Individuals of our race and kindred races have
visited the earth, and allowed themselves to be seen. And descriptions of
them have been attempted by some of your ancient seers.
“The human race having become dominant on earth, they have entirely
overrated their importance and not only fancy that they will some day own
the rest of the solar system, but imagine that they will sprout wings and
develope into beings like us; but any of you that have studied natural
history and your new theories of evolution, ought to know that beings
having twelve limbs could never be evolved from a race having but four.
The only possible evolution by which your race could ever possess wings,
would be the conversion through use and habit of your arms into wings,
which has actually occurred in the case of your bats and birds.
“The families on earth that are related to and resemble us are the
insect tribes. In fact we trace our origin back to an ancestry, which
according to many of our best scientists is exactly parallel with that
of your insects, and they alone of mundane inhabitants could ever expect
to evolve a posterity at all like us, and they never will, for the
conditions on earth will forever keep them in a subordinate position to
the present dominant race.”
During this speech, notwithstanding its intense interest to me I was
becoming impatient and nervous with the apprehension that he might leave
me without telling me where he was from and how he made that car of his
disregard the law of gravitation. In the solution of this last riddle
especially I could readily see a utilitarian outcome of overwhelming
importance. I am afraid that my questions were put with an undignified
eagerness and precipitancy, which no doubt he observed, for he first
proceeded to say that he had much information to communicate to me and
was glad to see me desirous of receiving it.
“You understand the law of the _attraction of_ gravitation”—I nodded
assent—“but you know nothing of the _repulsion_ of gravitation.” Indeed I
did not. I had never heard of such a thing.
He continued: “All polar attractions are accompanied by repulsions.
This you see in magnetism and in electricity, and it is equally true in
gravitation. The force with which bodies fall toward each other consists
merely of the _difference_ between the attractive and the repulsive
force. Ordinarily the attractive force takes hold of the _near_ ends
of the molecules of ether contained in solid or fluid bodies, and the
repulsive force affects only the further ends of the same molecules, so
that by reason of the difference in the distances over which these two
forces operate the attractive force always over-powers repulsion. But we
have discovered a way by which the action of these forces is reversed, so
that the work of repulsion is performed on the near end of the molecules
and attraction on the _further_ end, and then attraction being the weaker
of the two, the body, as a whole, is repelled. We imitate in fact the
action that takes place when the attraction between two electrified
bodies turns to repulsion. Repulsion also takes place between the sun and
the tails of comets. The comet’s tail is attracted toward the nucleus of
the comet and at the same time repelled from the sun. We have not been
able to make bodies discriminating like that in their attractions.
“But,” said I, “it must take as much power to make this change as the
changed condition yields after it is made and I cannot see where you get
the power; you cannot make something out of nothing.”
“Very true,” said he, “but the resistance to the change is in
reality—very small, and it is accomplished, even by neuro-magnetism in a
wonderfully simple manner. The proportion of force required to do it is
no greater than that required to move the slide valve in the steam chest
of one of your steam engines, by which the enormous force of the steam is
alternately shifted to first one end and then the other of the cylinder.
We can generate the force required for this, in our own tissues and it
accumulates in electric organs possessed by us similar to those of your
electric eels. I will show you.”
With that he reached out and touched me on the mouth. There was a flash
and a sensation as if a coal of fire had touched me, and a smart shock
passed through my limbs. I was easily enough convinced that he possessed
large electric storage capacity, and he told me he could give me a shock
100 times as strong as the one I had received. I was willing to take his
word for that. But I was by no means satisfied with his explanation of
the reversal of the forces in gravitation. It seemed to me to involve
a mechanical fallacy and I half suspected he purposely avoided giving
me the true explanation. Although I have since given the subject
considerable thought I have not been able to clear it up. Theorize as I
might however, there was the fact that gravitation was somehow suspended,
in the case of the car.
I said to him earnestly, that I would give anything I possessed to be
able to understand and apply these principles as he did.
“I have no doubt at all of that,” said he, “but it is our secret, and
I could commit no more heinous act of treason against my people or our
planet, than by divulging it.”
“For goodness sake,” I exclaimed, “tell me what planet you inhabit, and
what harm could result from giving this invaluable information.”
“My home is the moon,” he said quietly, and I have ever since wondered
how I came to receive the announcement without the slightest degree of
surprise as if it were an every day occurrence to meet people from the
moon.
“The discovery you wish me to reveal to you, was made by our ancestors
over a million years ago,” he went on, “the population of the moon was
then as great as the planet would support in comfort, and its regulation
and maintenance had been reduced to a strictly scientific basis. It was
seen at once and soon experimentally proved that our people could by the
use of this principle easily visit the earth, and if the discovery should
be communicated to the earth people, there would be nothing to prevent
flooding the moon with an undesirable horde of adventurers, who would
like a swarm of seventeen year locusts proceed to lay claim to everything
in sight and seriously disturb the lunar peace and prosperity. And so
the communication of this secret was forbidden on pain of the terrible
punishment of projection.”
My inquiring look showed that I did not understand this, and he continued.
“Projection is the extreme penalty of our laws. In it the criminal is
locked up in a spherical shell of cast iron having two small glass
windows and furnished with compressed air in alumina flasks, and food
sufficient to last from a few days to two years according to the severity
of the sentence, the larger amount of food going with the more severe
sentence. After he is fastened in, the repulsion of gravitation is turned
on and the ball instantly projects itself into space bounding off at a
terrific speed. Yet no matter what direction it takes it can never come
into collision with any body whether planet or sun, but whenever it
approaches one it is instantly repelled, and thus it continues to be
hurled from one to another forever, and the longer the criminal lives
to perceive and reflect that he is an outcast from all worlds, the
greater his punishment is supposed to be. It is a theory of some of our
scientists that a projected person continues to be repelled from sun to
sun till at last he reaches the edge of creation and is hurled completely
out of the universe. However this may be, the friends of a projected
person never know where he is.”
“I hope,” said I, “that you are not often under the necessity of
inflicting such a terrible punishment as that.”
“No one has been projected for over forty years, but 500,000 years ago
the punishment was frequently resorted to.”
“In traversing the space between the earth and the moon, I suppose you
will first move by repulsion from the earth?”
“Yes, I use repulsion for the first part of the journey. This gives me
a rapid send off from the earth. My speed constantly increasing till
I reach the distance of 216,000 miles from the earth, at this point
the repulsion of the moon—which by the way is exerted against me from
the time I leave the earth—is just equal to that of the earth, but
the momentum acquired by that time carries me almost home, the moon’s
repulsions constantly diminishing the speed and at last bringing me to a
stand still or sheering me off to one side. It is then necessary to turn
on attraction, which causes me to approach the moon with a speed which
is easily checked and regulated by using repulsion when necessary.”
“The terrific speed with which you travel or fall, as we might say, from
one planet to another, I should think would overpower you—take your
breath away.”
“We have to guard against this, while we traverse the atmosphere, both
at this and at the other end of the journey, but once clear of the
atmosphere we fall through empty space without the slightest sensation
of motion and realize that we are going only by the rapid decrease in
the apparent size of the globe we are leaving and increase of the one we
approach. It is impossible to conceive a more thrilling experience than
is conveyed by the perception of the growth in a few hours of your earth
from a ball six feet in diameter as it appears to us at the start, to the
vast and illimitable expanse of variegated beauty it gets to be before we
reach it.
“On the journey, it is necessary to guard against the blistering heat
of the sun’s rays upon the side on which they fall, and the intense
cold which we encounter on the shady side; and we must look out that
neither ourselves nor any of the loose articles we carry in the car
such as our flasks of compressed air, our food etc. are repelled from
the car and allowed to fall to earth or moon by their ordinary gravity,
for the change to repulsion only applies to the iron part of the car
and not other things. It cannot be applied to wood or to animal or
vegetable tissue etc. We guard against all these contingencies by having
a stout cover over our car, supported by steel hoops, when we are on an
intermundane trip. When we travel on the ground, this is folded up and
not used.”
“Then I suppose the wheels of your car come into use when you travel
on the ground, for I can see no use for them in your “intermundane”
journeys.”
“That is true. This car I have with me is my ordinary carriage at home.
It is a railroad car as you see by the flanges on the wheels. Railroads
with us are public free highways, built and maintained by the state.
They have from four to twelve tracks. Every person who is qualified by
his education and training to manage a car is furnished with one by the
state. The propelling power is nothing but gravity either in attraction
or repulsion, the former being used on down grades and the latter on up
grades, the car having rollers that hook under a flange at the top of the
rail to prevent the car from rising bodily from the track.
“The surface of our planet is very rough, but still the grading for roads
is light, as it is possible to ascend grades of 100 per cent or even
steeper. Level grades on our roads are always avoided, and in districts
where this cannot be done, we use electric roads.
“The cars are so constructed that different parts are electrically
insulated from each other, by which means a part of the car can be placed
under the influence of attraction and the rest under that of repulsion.
This is done on down grades. The weight of the load and of part of the
car pulling down and the weight of the rest of the car holding back. It
is always arranged to have the car heavier than its load, and the driver
can regulate the force used by balancing one against the other, so that
a car of many tons shall press on the rails with the weight of only a
very few pounds. Thus the wear and tear on road beds and rails is almost
nothing and the roads are practically everlasting.”