"The alcoves of the Registeries were really ample rooms. Cases holding
voluminous records were ranged upon their walls; maps, charts, even
paintings and drawings, as made by the arriving spirits hung upon the
walls, and in broad albums were gathered the portraits, in small size,
of the incarnated persons. The Registeries were young men who, from long
intercourse with the affairs and occupants of each of the different
extra-Martian bodies, whence spirits came, had become familiar with
their languages and circumstances and avocations.
"The keeping, indexing, compiling, illustration, of these extraordinary
records is a difficult and inexhaustible task.
"The results are often reproduced to the Martians in lectures,
bulletins, or in sections of the great newspaper Dia.
"The young men approached us as we entered the room, and after saluting
my guide and also Chapman with the Martian cry, Tintotita, led me to a
chair, and giving me one of the black wafers, whose acidity had a short
time before so vigorously renewed my consciousness, began their inquiry.
"The photograph of each visitor is taken, and a process quite like our
collodion or wet process is used. The portraits are more permanent than
with the perishable dry plates. It is a curious thing to learn that for
100 years these records and pictures have been taken, and that there
are on Mars hosts of unidentified spirits, who entered its wondrous
precincts before that time.
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