It described a hypothetical machine, a flying machine, which
was made up of a substance more than half of whose mass had been
converted into repelling particles. Such a fabric would leave the earth,
pass the limits of its attraction with an accelerating velocity and move
through space. In such a way Mr. Stranger reached Mars. He found it
inhabited by a people--the Marticoli--happy in a state of socialism, and
with abundance of food manufactured from the elements, oxygen, hydrogen,
carbon and nitrogen, with electric lights, phonetic speech, but without
gunpowder or telescopes.
Its inhabitants had been derived from the earth by a most delightful
scientific fabrication. A sun and its satellites in its course around
some other center draws the earth and Mars so together that on some
parts of the earth's surface the attraction of Mars would overcome that
of the earth and gently suck up to itself inhabitants from the earth,
who would not suffer death from loss of air, as the atmosphere of both
bodies would be mingled.
These observations and this last scientific myth have some interest in
view of the actual knowledge now vouchsafed to the world through my
father's messages. I have very briefly reviewed them.
My father's premonitions were fully realized. He grew sensibly weaker as
the months of 1891 passed. His mind became eager with the cherished
expectation which grew day by day into a sort of a mild possession. It
seemed to me that there was a moderate aberration involved in his deeply
seated convictions, and when sometimes I saw him walking past the
windows on the plateau with his head thrown back, his arms outstretched
as if he were inviting the stars to take him and his murmuring voice,
repeating some snatches of song, I felt awed and frightened.
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