Edison's Conquest of Mars

d circumstances having placed the facts at my disposal, I deem it a duty, both to posterity and to those who were witnesses of and participa

in consequence of disease, and the few survivors fled in one of their

terious E

nce, with whose aid they set their car in motion for Mars fro

had to give the car a velocity of more than seven miles per second in order

fallen a prey, and all the buildings yet standing in the

s, starting a tidal wave in the Hud

ds of V

, and the shock, transmitted through the rocky frame of the globe, was rec

here had been no protection for the great cities; no protection even for the open country. Everything had gone down before the savage onslaught of those merciless invaders from space. Savage ruins covered the sites of many formerly flourishing towns and villages, and the broken walls of great cities stared at the heavens like the ex

Yet De

the destroyer. The Martians had not had time to complete their work before they themselves

ty exceeded anything that the world had known. Differences of race and religion were swallowed up in the universal sympathy wh

f the frightful engines of war that they had imported for the conquest of the earth. All mankind was sunk deep in this universal despair, and it became tenfold blacker when the astronomers announced from their observatories that strange lights were visible, moving and flashing upon the red surface of the Plane

ing Anno

solated homes. In New York this feeling of hope and confidence, this determination to rise against disaster and to wipe out the evidences of its dreadful presence as quickly as possible, had especially manifested itself. Already a company had been formed and a

tians R

feeling flitted like the shadow of an eclipse over the earth. The scenes that followed were indescribable. Men lost their reason. The fa

ant; Herr Roentgen, the discoverer of the famous X ray, and especially Thomas A. Edison, the American genius of science. These men and a few others had examined with the utmost care the e

nly discovered the manner in which the invaders had been able to produce the mighty energies which t

terrupted. It was a proud day for America. Even while the Martians had been upon the earth, carrying everything before them, demonstrating to the confusion of the most optimistic that there was no possibility o

unced was impending. The effect was as wonderful and indescribable as that of the despondency which but a little while before had overspread the world. One could almost hear the

Ready fo

ready for them now. The Americans have solved the problem

at, after all, the inhabitants of the Earth were a match for those terrible men from Mars, despite al

tonished the inhabitants of the earth no less with their flying machines-which navigated our atmosphere as easily as they had that of their native planet-than with their more destructive inventions. These flying machines in themselves had given them

Flying

ers concerning what Mr. Edison had already accomplished with the aid of his model electrical balloon. His laboratory was carefully guarded against the invasion of the curious, because he rightly felt that a pr

t had streaked the east, and be seen settling down again within the walls that surrounded the laboratory of the great inventor. At length the rumor, gradually deepening into a conviction, spread that Edison himself, accompanied by a few scientific friends, had made an experimental trip

derful Inven

ons, hovering by night high above the Orange

to th

the great shadow of the globe, sped on to the moon. We had landed upon the scarred and desolate face of the earth's satellite, and but that there are greater an

son simply wished to demonstrate the practicability of his invention, and to convince, first of all, himself and his scientific friends th

Trip To

hip of Space on that night, when it silently left the earth, and

r. Edison in his invention had pitted electricity against gravitation. Nature, in fact, had done the same thing long before. Every astronomer knew it, but none had been able to imitate or to reproduce this miracle of nature. When a comet approaches the sun, the orbit in which it travels indicates that it is moving under the impulse of the sun's gravitation. It is in reality falling in a great parabolic or elliptical curve through space. But, while a comet approaches the sun it begins to display-stretching out for millions, and sometimes hundreds of millions of miles on the side away from the sun-an immense luminous train called its tail. This train extends back into that part of

ty Ov

ing some hundreds of pounds and capable of bearing some thousands of pounds with it in its flight. By producing, with the aid of the electrical generator contained in this car, an enormous charge of electricity,

mical apparatus, by means of which fresh supplies of oxygen and nitrogen might be obtained for our consumption during the flight through space, Mr. Edis

n so timed and prearranged, that the original

mphant

rical charge upon our car as nearly, but not quite, to counterbalance the effect of the moon's attraction in

but could journey through space and safely land upon the surface of another planet, Mr. Edison's immediate purpose was fulfilled, and we hastened back to the earth, employing in leaving th

phing t

what he had been doing from the world. The telegraph lines and the ocean cables labored with the messages that in endless su

ans fled from Athens before the advancing host of Xerxes, and like them, take refuge upo

ome genius struck out an

. We have the means. Let us beard the lion in his den. Let us ourselves turn conquerors and take possession of that detestable planet,

nd the Astro

him and Professor Serviss on the best means of repayi