The hall or room and its furnishings, they noted, were very much like those of the earth. While this was indeed strange, Carl reasoned that there was no good reason why two worlds of people, although separated by untold miles, should not conceive things along the same lines.
Having eaten, Carl and Sana were informed that they could come and go as they pleased among the people of Mars. Whatever they wished was theirs for the asking—as was the case with all Martians.
This promise of freedom proved well founded. Together Carl and Sana studied and explored without interference, although they soon realized that their every move was witnessed by some Martian or other.
Life on Mars, they found to be Utopian in the fullest sense of the word, compared to which the democracies of the earth were naught but the greatest farces. Mars, of course, was a much older world compared with the earth, so far as human life was concerned and naturally greater things could have been accomplished.
Here on Mars each individual was accountable to his neighbor for a certain amount of work; every man, woman and child had some one thing to do, and did it willingly.
They had long realized that upon the proper application of scientific knowledge depended the welfare of their civilization. Science was their God, and they worshiped it as we do our Creator!
Most marvelous of the many wonderful things the two earth people encountered on every hand was the application of wireless to many walks of life. Every Martian carried a small and delicate receiving set with him. No matter where he was he was always equipped and ready for whatever message might be sent him. Numerous stations were continually broadcasting the news of the day. No papers were needed; in fact the written language had been discarded long ago as an obsolete thing. There were no schools, churches, or meeting halls such as we have on earth. The people sat in their homes and were informed of all there was to know.
Transportation, too, differed greatly from that of the earth. All the railways were underground, and instead of tracks and wheeled cars, such as we have, cylindrical tubes were shot forward like pistons in a cylinder, or rather these cylinder-like cars were sucked from one station to another, at a terrific speed, by means of great solenoids, the electrical current for which was secured from the numerous hydro-electric generating stations that dotted the banks of the canals, which served the Martians a double purpose. They furnished the water needed to irrigate the fields and at the same time ran the generating plants.
Carl was forcibly struck by the ingenuity displayed in the utilizing of these canal waters. The waters used at one station, after being discharged, were carried along for a short distance, until, through a series of steps it fell to a lower level, to again be used by a generating station. It was only after it had served its purpose of generating power that the water was finally pumped over the fields. The fields ran along both sides of the canals for thousands of miles and averaged perhaps fifteen miles in width. He saw, too, that while most of the canals ran parallel with each other, there were some that crossed each other at different elevations.
Very little labor was performed by hand. Practically all the work on Mars was done by electrical machinery, devised by the inhabitants of that strange world.