The Moon and Its People.
“I am amazed,” said I, “to learn that the moon is inhabited and by a race
apparently more advanced than our own. Our astronomers have assured us
that the moon is a desolate played out barren world without air or water;
totally unfit for inhabitants.”
“The astronomers could only report what they could see, and the side of
the moon visible from the earth is as they describe it, but they have
never seen the further side and never will, for that side is always
turned from the earth. But the population of the moon is not far from
half that of the earth and the people live in greater comfort. But there
is no population living on the surface on the hemisphere facing the
earth—I see this puzzles you,” he said.
It certainly did. “Do you mean that the Lunarians live under ground?” I
inquired.
“I will explain. The moon is a much lighter body than the earth bulk for
bulk, a cubic yard of it containing on an average only six tenths as
much matter as an average yard of earth. The reason of this is that a
very large part of the moon’s bulk is made up of interstices, caves and
openings. Now it is a remarkable fact that the hemisphere of the moon
facing the earth is much lighter than the further one, so much so that
the center of gravity is 33 miles further from this side of the moon
than from the further side. This fact has been suspected by some of your
astronomers. The consequence of it is that the sea has all gone to the
further hemisphere, and the near hemisphere is in the highest place,
about 33 miles above the level of the sea. It is much as if a concave
cap, the material of which is 33 miles thick at the center and tapers
to zero all round the rim, were fitted on to a sphere. This rim is at
the edge of the moon, as seen from the earth. Our atmosphere like yours,
gets lighter as we ascend and is too thin to support life at a height
of five miles, so that the great plateaus of our hither hemisphere are
over 20 miles higher than any appreciable atmosphere. So you can see the
impossibility of life on the hither surface of the moon if you reflect a
moment what the conditions would be on a mundane plateau 33 miles above
the sea level. Your highest mountains are only between five and six miles
high, and you know the impossibility of either vegetable or animal life
at even that altitude.
“On the earth such elevations are regions of perpetual snow, and the
hither surface of the moon would be such a region if it possessed water
and an atmosphere. But while the surface on this side is uninhabitable,
there are immense tracts of underground space, that have been converted
into habitable territory. This underground country lies so far below
the surface that it is practically near the sea level throughout. It is
approached at all parts of the rim of the cap just described, and there
are many thousands of tunnels entering it all round this rim, especially
in the equatorial parts of the moon. A great amount of labor has been
expended, not only on these entrances, but on the internal cavities to
which they lead; but compared with the work performed for us by nature,
our own labor is but an insignificant item—hardly so much as the labor
of your race in fitting up the earth for your residence. The entrances
are all volcanic craters, and the vast cavities to which they lead, were
excavated long ages ago by volcanic action. The material blown out of
the volcanoes, mostly fell upon the hither side of the moon increasing
the bulk of the cap; most of the volcanoes being on this side. But even
the material thrown from the lateral regions was drawn this way by the
attraction of the earth and after describing a longer or shorter curve,
fell on the hither side of the moon.
“Nearly all the moon’s volcanoes are on the hither portion, the volcanic
region occupying about two-thirds of the whole surface of the moon.
The weight of bodies on the hither side is appreciably less than on
the further side. These facts are supposed to be due to the earth’s
attraction neutralizing that of the moon and having resulted in building
up the vast protuberance or table land (of light and porous material)
on this side, the latter is often called, by us the “Mundane Hump” in
recognition of the earth’s instrumentality in its formation. The interior
continent is often spoken of as the “Pocket” by the people on the
further side; or sometimes as the “Chest”, and the “Hump” is called its
Lid.
“The further side of the moon is called the Exterior Continent, but often
humorously designated by the people of the “Pocket”, as the Out-door
Continent.”
“But,” said I, “what a strange life it must be in those underground
cavities. I suppose of course you can have nothing better than artificial
light there?”
“True,” he said, “our light is mostly artificial, but it is made as
bright as we can bear it. It is electric light, but it is regulated to be
quite equal to sun light and it never goes out. There is no night in the
underground country, as there is outside.”
“This is wonderful!—But where do you get the power to furnish this light?
Have you got waterfalls and coal beds down there?”
“We have many waterfalls, but do not utilize them to any great extent for
their power and we have a considerable amount of coal, which however we
do not use for fuel, but reserve for food purposes, to be drawn upon as
may be required.”
“Is stone coal what you have to eat then?” I here broke in. With
exasperating deliberation, he gave me an admonitory poke with his right
joker.
“One thing at a time—one thing at a time. You wanted to know where we
get power to turn into electric lighting. It is the power of gravity. If
one of your perpetual motion cranks understood the secret of the use of
the repulsion of gravitation, he could contrive a perpetual motion in
an hour and a half. We have many forms of such machines that have been
in use for ages. One of these is the pendulum machine. This consists
of a pendulum weighing from a few pounds to many tons and so contrived
that when it reaches the lowest part of its swing it automatically turns
on the repulsion of gravitation, which reinforces its momentum on the
ascending part of its arc, enough to compensate for the work done by
it and the friction of the machine. Another machine is the oscillating
balance. This consists of weights at each end of a beam balanced in the
middle and so governed by an automatic shunting apparatus, that one of
the weights is under the influence of attraction while the other is
under that of repulsion. When the former has reached the bottom of its
oscillation and the latter the top, the force is reversed in each and so
the motion is perpetual.
“Another machine is the Automatic hammer, which is a literal hammer
though it may weigh many tons. The end of its handle is confined by a
stationary wrist, while the hammer rises and falls under the effect of
repulsion and attraction automatically alternated by shunting apparatus.
Then we have the vertical parabolic railway; which consists of two steep
inclined tracks, meeting each other at the foot. A car runs alternately
down one and up the other on much the same principle as the pendulum
machine. There are numerous other machines, but they all operate on the
same principle, just as you have many forms of water wheels, all operated
by the weight of water. So you see our power costs us nothing at all
after the machine is built, except for the oil for its lubrication. As
these machines have been known and used by us for many thousands of
years, you may readily perceive what changes we have been able to make
in all those conditions of our planet, that relate to our comfort and
general purposes. You may add to this, that any exertion we make relating
to the movement of heavy bodies, is ten times as effectual as the same
exertion made on earth. Water and air with us are only one-sixth as heavy
as on earth, and the average soil and rocks one-tenth as heavy; so that
our laborers handle wheelbarrows holding a cubic yard of material as
easily as yours do their little barrows containing two or three cubic
feet.”
Here I interposed again. “You speak of your atmosphere being only
one-sixth as heavy as ours. That agrees with what our astronomers
have told us, and they have pointed out that even if there is such an
atmosphere, on the moon, animal life like ours is not possible there,
because the air is too thin.”
“Your astronomers do not consider that animal life and activity depend,
not on the amount of air the animal is surrounded by, but by the amount
of it he can use. The fishes in your waters have less air to the cubic
foot of space than we have, yet are active, but if you take them out of
the water and surround them with ten times as much air as they had, they
nevertheless die, because they have not lungs suitable for breathing it.
But furthermore it is not the amount of air that is of such consequence
to animal life, but the amount of oxygen. Your air consists of about 21
parts of oxygen to 79 of nitrogen, and mixed with it is a considerable
amount of carbonic acid and other impurities. In our air the proportions
of nitrogen and oxygen are about reversed, and there is a far less amount
of carbonic acid gas. There is also a much greater quantity of ozone,
which as you know, is a concentrated and more active form of oxygen. And
so on the whole, when I take a breath of air here on your earth, I get
but a slightly greater quantity of oxygen than at home.”
“Then you are not greatly inconvenienced in being transferred from lunar
conditions to those of earth?”
“Well, not with respect to breathing, but when we are at the surface of
the earth we are greatly oppressed by the weight of your atmosphere and
by our own increased weight as well. Ten or fifteen minutes is as long as
we can stand it at one time. But we can get speedy relief by ascending
ten thousand miles or so, and when we have come to earth to make extended
studies of things here, we are compelled to interrupt them by frequently
going up and remaining awhile.”
I had become not only intensely interested in the extraordinary
information communicated by my visitor, but greatly fascinated by his
person and presence; and his last speech made me painfully apprehensive
that I was about to lose his company, and so I expressed the wish that if
he felt obliged to go up stairs to recover himself, he would return and
continue the interview as soon as possible. He replied that he would be
compelled to return home as soon as he left me, but added that he would
remain with me for a considerable time longer, observing that he felt
exceedingly glad to impart information to so willing a listener. I could
not at the time reconcile his intention of remaining a considerable time
longer with what he said about not being able to remain at the earth’s
surface more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time, as I thought he had
already considerably exceeded that. But not wishing to lose time by
having him reconcile his observations, I hastened to get back to the
thread of his discourse, by asking what sort of food the Lunarians live
on.
“The Lunarians are exclusively vegetarians and live chiefly on grains and
grasses and leguminous plants in some degree resembling those on earth,
but of an entirely different habit, for they all or nearly all, mature
in the period of one-half of a lunar month or about fourteen of your
days. But this will not seem so surprising, when you reflect that we have
continuous sunshine without night during the whole time. Of course this
observation applies only to the exterior continent on the further half of
the moon. Our plants were all developed on that side and became adapted
to the seasons there, and they generally retain their habits of growth
since their introduction to the interior continent, or Pocket. But in
many cases, by changing the conditions of nourishment, new varieties have
been developed, having a longer or shorter period of growth. Much more
than half of our food products are produced under extremely artificial
conditions. The artificial heat we require for cooking, for warmth etc.,
is produced by means of electricity and so is our artificial light;
moreover, we do not allow any organic matter, such as dead bodies, dead
trees or vegetables or any sort of refuse or excrete matters, to rot
either in the open air or in the ground, and the manuring of the soil
is strictly forbidden. Our air therefore is very poor in carbonic acid
gas, (or carbonic dioxide), which constitutes almost the sole food
required for the growth of plants. In fact about all that the air gets
of this gas is that thrown off from our lungs in breathing. To use this
up, we cultivate various air plants that grow with little or no roots
and yet cover the ground with an agreeable carpet. Some of these are
eatable. All organic matters, when they become refuse, are carefully
collected in great air tight and powerful tanks, in which they are heated
under an enormous pressure until their original organization entirely
disappears. The dimensions of the tanks are reduced during this process
by the gradual forcing in of the walls, which are made movable for that
purpose, and when the contained material has become reduced to about the
consistency and constitution of your ordinary lignite or soft coal, it
is forced through a number of cylindrical holes on one side of the tank,
by which it is moulded into round sticks of coal, and is then ready to
be used over again. The whole process is an imitation of that by which
mineral coal is produced in nature, both on the earth and the moon,
except that it is accomplished artificially with us in about 50 hours,
while nature takes thousands of years for it. The fluids and nitrogenous
and other volatile substances pressed out, are secured and saved by
proper absorbents. These together with the coal are used by our food
growers in producing their plants.
“The planting is all done in vats or chambers with air tight roofs. The
bottom of a vat is covered with a few inches of soil specially prepared
and appropriate for the plant intended to be sown. After the seeds
germinate the vat is covered and the inside is brightly illuminated
with electricity and filled with carbonic dioxide, obtained by burning
a proper quantity of coal in a retort, which is also accomplished by
electricity. All the conditions necessary for rapid growth are supplied
to the plants and they are forced forward to maturity without any pause
or delay, such as takes place in the growth of plants on earth, through
the intervention of cloudy or stormy weather, too much or too little
moisture, too much or too little heat, the darkness of night etc.
“The same method of cultivation prevails to a great extent on the
exterior continent, although as the sun shines on that continent about
350 hours at a time, which constitutes the length of the day there, the
vats are often merely covered by air tight glass roofs and the sun is the
growing power instead of electricity.”
“I understand now,” said I, “what you meant by saying you reserved your
mineral coal for food purposes. You draw on it only when the steady
supply of artificial coal fails?”
“That is correct.”
“But if you rigorously save every particle of your organic matters to be
reconverted into food, I don’t see why it should ever fail unless your
population increases. But you have not informed me on that subject.”
“The control of the reproduction of the population has been in the hands
of the state from the remotest antiquity,” said he; “and no increase in
the total number has ever been permitted unless there had already been an
increase in the means of supporting the population by the discovery of
improved methods or new appliances. The tendency and policy has always
been to allow the population to keep up near the limits of the means of
support, and occasionally it has crowded a little too close. Then there
are occasional losses by fire and a more or less steady unavoidable waste
of food materials in their ordinary handling. Some are lost in the sea.
But as long as there is a store of mineral coal to draw upon, no such
losses can entail more than a temporary inconvenience. One thing that
has a considerable effect on the food supply, is the change in fashions,
that often takes place in a manner that the authorities cannot foresee or
provide for.”
“Then fashion holds sway in the moon as well as the earth! Well, I am
surprised! But as your clothes appear to grow on you I don’t see how
fashion can interfere very much, or how it could affect the question of
food.”
“Fashion with us has nothing to do with dress. As you say, nature has
provided us with a dress at once suitable and beautiful. Whatever faults
we have, personal vanity is not among them. Our attention is but little
absorbed in ourselves, but is constantly directed to others and to the
service of the community. If anyone should betake himself to personal
frills and ornaments, I fancy he would be told he was getting like the
Earthlings, and, he would be advised to go up and live on the Hump, so he
could be near the people he was trying to ape.
“But there is much variety and change of fashion with us in the
construction and ornamentation of our buildings, grounds and resorts, and
the fashion prevailing in relation to the transmutation of the dead is
making a steady inroad upon our total food supply.”
I wondered what he could mean by the transmutation of the dead—but said
nothing, awaiting his explanation.
“You may have thought,” he went on, “that our dead were utilized and
turned into lignite like other effete organic substances.”
“Certainly,” I said, “that disposition of a useless body is preferable
to any method that prevails on earth. Here as soon as a man dies his
presence becomes so intolerable to us, that we are obliged in self
defense to consign him to earth. Even then the corruption resulting from
dissolution is disseminated through the soil contaminating the water
supply and starting epidemics of diphtheria and typhoid fever, besides
occupying room that sooner or later is begrudged to him. Cremation is
certainly an improvement on inhumation, but even that is a considerable
expense, and when it is over, we have only a handful of raw mineral ashes
left. The best part of the man has gone off in smoke and we have not
three or four pounds of good coal left to show for him as you have. And
then it ought to be a source of gratification to the defunct himself if
he could know it, that his ‘corpus’ was turned to some useful account.”
He here turned his vast eyes upon me with such a deep expression of
mild and sorrowful reproach, that I instantly felt as if I had made an
exceedingly flippant speech and had said far too much or much too little,
but he gave me no time to amend it.
“We are much more sentimental than that,” he said; “our dead are not
cremated in the manner practiced on earth, but are totally disintegrated
by electricity, and turned into their component elements. No portion of
their substance is lost or dissipated, but the material is all conserved
and caused to form a new organism. The fashion originated many ages
ago, to use the materials to grow some common sort of a plant or shrub
from the seed, such as something resembling your grass or fern or some
cereal. This was done in the garden vats I have described to you. Plants
grown under these circumstances or any circumstances for that matter,
very often sprout or grow into forms differing slightly from the normal.
Taking advantage of this, our botanists have produced food plants having
a wonderful concentration of nourishing qualities in small compass and
accompanied by the least possible quantity of waste products. And in
like manner our undertakers have developed a great variety of plants to
be grown from the constituent materials of the dead. It was formerly
the fashion to preserve only a portion of the plants, thus grown. A few
leaves were distributed among the friends of the deceased and pressed in
herbariums for preservation. But the growing veneration for ancestors
and consideration for each other together with the prevalent belief
among us that we are formed in the very image of the Deity, finally
brought about the practice of preserving entire, the plants produced
by transmutation. Thus there is already a vast accumulation of these
vegetable representatives of deceased Lunarians, and our economists point
out that if this goes on, we will be compelled to constantly draw on our
natural food reserves, and that finally these will all be consumed and
everything eatable will at last become transmuted into these sacred and
inviolable forms. In short the living race will finally become transmuted
into dead dry plants. These arguments of the philosophers have as yet had
no effect on the people and their priestly leaders. They denounce the
philosophers as being unfaithful to the religion and traditions of the
race, and as advocating cannibalism.
“They say: ‘you would reduce us to the level of the necrophagous
Earthlings, who from time immemorial have consumed the elements of their
ancestors and friends and enemies alike, with beastly indifference’.”
“But,” I interrupted; “you know they are mistaken in this opinion of us.
Only a few savages on earth are man eaters.”
“True,” said he, “but what they mean is, that from your manner of
disposing of the dead, when they become decomposed, their elements are
dispersed in the air and absorbed by the soil from which they pass into
plants and finally become your food. I have heard a Lunarian say he would
starve rather than eat a grain containing a molecule of nitrogen or
carbon, that had once formed a part of one of his ancestors.”
“Well, I think that is the culmination of scrupulosity. I am glad such
phenomenal squeamishness does not exist on this planet.”
“I do not defend it nor approve of it,” he replied, “any more than
you do. But still I think your complacent congratulations of your own
race rather out of place. You are quite as much under the dominion of
indefensible ideas as we. For example, you have an ancient book whose
doctrines and precepts you think you must accept and obey whether they
are agreeable and suitable or not, although the men who gave them,
have been dead two or three thousand years, while scarcely two of you
agree as to what the precepts are and each generation has a different
interpretation of them. You have a sect that believe that your Deity is
mortally offended with all who do not submit to be immersed under water,
while others think he will be satisfied with their having a few drops
sprinkled on the face. You have sects that believe your Deity is greatly
displeased to see people hopping around on their legs, or dancing as you
call it, while one sect employ dancing as the most satisfactory mode
of worshipping him. You have a sect that believe that pictures, music
and ornaments, and coats with collars that turn down are offensive to
the Deity, and who think he is best pleased with silent worship, while
others think he likes to be flattered in loud speeches and louder songs
addressed to himself, and that he is indifferent whether coat collars
stand up or lie down. You have a sect that believe that buttons on the
clothes are offensive to him and who therefore fasten their clothing
with hooks and eyes. All these sects and many more equally absurd,
get their various contradictory notions from the same book, and they
adhere to them with such tenacity that in many cases they would die
rather than give them up and would if they dared, murder other people
for not accepting them, and in times past have done so in thousands of
instances. In former times it was a common opinion, that your Deity had
an arch enemy called the Devil, who opposed, bothered and thwarted him
in the most provoking manner, and among other things inspired and aided
thousands of unattractive old women to turn themselves into wolves, cats
and other beasts and to become witches, and in these conditions to attack
and injure their neighbors and bring strange diseases upon them. For
these offenses these old women were judged by your sacred books and were
burnt by the thousand. And yet many of the men of this generation, while
still holding to the sacred books, have not only repudiated witchcraft,
but even the devil himself, and an attempt to burn a witch would now be
met by an insurrection. Then you have a sect, or a nation rather, of
people, who claim that they are the peculiar favorites of your Deity,
who chose them from among all the nations and set them apart as his own,
and ordered them to practice a certain peculiar mutilation on the bodies
of their children as an evidence and seal of his promises to them. No
one of these people would consider himself entitled to hold up his head
if it were not for his mutilation. Notwithstanding the claims of these
peculiar people are admitted by the rest, no people on earth have been so
despised, persecuted and maltreated as they. For over 2,000 years they
have been kicked and cuffed about the earth, robbed, driven repeatedly
from one country to another, and have never in all that time possessed
the sovereignty of a single township. Then again your race believe they
are made and formed in the very image and likeness of your Deity, yet you
conceal that likeness with garments as if ashamed of it, and such are
your notions of propriety that if a man should show this divine likeness
in public, naked or even half naked, he would be sent to prison, or a
mad house. And then consider the fashions of these garments. Those whose
business it is to make clothes, constantly demand changes in the fashion,
so as to secure more employment and profit for themselves, and whenever
certain ones, who have appointed themselves to be the leaders, say the
word, everybody feels obliged to procure new clothes of such sort as
these leaders require, notwithstanding those they already have may be
good, useful and becoming, and that those prescribed, may be hideous,
unsuitable and unhealthful. Many of you are actually so infatuated with
this bondage, that if you could not comply with its requirements, you
would regard life as of no account.”
During the delivery of this tirade, the flashing eyes of my visitor
showed how much his feeling was enlisted in the subject and during the
whole time I continued to reproach myself for having started him off on
such a rampage, by an unlucky, if not impertinent remark of my own. I was
made to recall the adage that people who live in glass houses, should not
engage in throwing stones; and it was forcibly shown me how very much
“human nature” the Lunarians possess, since while he was willing to
point out, criticise and condemn the follies of his own people, he would
not allow an outsider to do it. I was greatly relieved when he paused
and gave me an opportunity to change the subject, which I did with a
precipitancy, that evidently amused him and brought back the good natured
expression that habitually possessed his eyes. In fact I believe that
the change I had observed was due to intellectual activity and was not
accompanied by any real feeling of resentment or passion. Said I, “One of
our wise men has expressed the opinion, that the people of the earth, are
“maistly fules,” and I believe that most other wise men agree with him.
So I beg you will waste no more of your precious time in arraigning our
race, but go on with your intensely interesting and instructive account
of your own race and your remarkable planet.” He thereupon goodnaturedly
resumed.
“Organic existence must everywhere be to a great extent the same. The
elements that enter into the composition of organisms, are subject to
certain laws of chemical affinity, that demand their own conditions, and
will not operate when these conditions are absent. The chief of these
are furnished by the radiations of the sun in our solar system and no
doubt by those of the stars in other systems. These radiations impressed
upon organized materials become light and heat and where they are either
in excess or deficiency organic development is not possible. These
conditions obtain throughout the solar system, and no doubt in every
system composed of the same sort of elements. But of the solar system
we can speak with some confidence, for we have been able to visit a
considerable part of it.
“The inhabitants of the different planets differ from each other in the
same way that the various animal races of earth differ from each other.
You have on earth four sub-kingdoms of intelligent animals; vertebrates,
articulates, mollusks and radiates. These have all been evolved from a
common worm-like ancestry, and each form possesses the potentiality of
receiving an equally high development, both physically and mentally.
The development of any of them in all cases depends upon the way they
are impressed by their surroundings and the proper surroundings can
develop high intelligence in either of the forms. On earth the highest
development has happened to the vertebrate branch, but with us the
articulates have always been the dominant branch, while the vertebrates
have never attained to a condition above that of your salamanders
and small lizards. The ascendant race with us as with you has always
contributed to keep the others in the background, by destroying the most
advanced and aggressive of them and pursuing them till none but the
smallest, weakest and most harmless of their tribe remain. Indeed until
this is done, the position of the ascendant race is not secure. Your own
race has had experience of this in the struggle with and subjugation of
other races. In the early history of the earth, it was for a long time
doubtful whether it was to be dominated by the human family or by a tribe
of reptiles. At that ancient period, a tribe of reptiles had become
developed that walked erect on their hind legs, and whose fore limbs
supported wings and terminated in excellent hands, having four fingers.
There were several related families of these animals, some of which were
almost or quite the equal of man in intelligence. The final triumph of
man over these advanced reptiles, was due to his superior compact social
organization. While they relied on their superior personal prowess and
often fought single handed, men always fought in bands, and hung together
in all their enterprises. The reptiles being finally vanquished and the
tribes most advanced and most to be feared having been exterminated,
the rest had two modes of escape. They could use their wings and thus
by flight keep out of the way of their enemies or they could hide by
crouching down in the grass and weeds and making themselves as small,
sly and inconspicuous as possible. Some pursued one of these courses and
some the other. The descendants of those that flew away gradually became
developed into the birds as you now have them; while those that resorted
to hiding and crouching down, were thus deprived of the opportunity to
use their limbs generation after generation and so the limbs gradually
became shrunken and useless, finally disappearing completely, or almost
so, causing the body to come down flat on its belly on the ground, and
thus were produced the serpents as you now have them.”
“No doubt,” said I, “the serpents originated in that way. They formerly
possessed limbs, because many species still have the rudiments of them.
In some cases these remnants show themselves like little hooks on the
outside of the skin, while many others are covered up by the skin and are
not seen at all. But all that retrogressive adaptation by which they
lost their limbs, must have been practically completed before our race
possessed any semblance of their present form and condition.”
“The earth,” he proceeded, “was full of contending races, and of course
the backset that was imposed on the snakes, was contributed to by others,
as well as men, but the latter were among the last and as regards the
particular family of reptiles in question, the most formidable and
effectual opponents. Some of your ancient traditions and literature
contain allusions to this contest, the reptile being styled _Nachash_.
You preserve an allusion to this ancient competition, in the legends of
the Devil, who represents the reptile, and is often called the serpent
etc. I recall this history, only to show you that the essential qualities
of predominance do not inhere in any particular animal form. Your planet
escaped the final domination of a reptile instead of a mammal, by only a
little. As you have already perceived the dominant race on our planet is
an articulate.”