Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World

by James Cowan

To this the doctor replied: “If my friend here has really finished talking for a while I will say, Thorwald, that the theories already spoken of seem to be disproved by the discovery that these stones enter the earth’s atmosphere with a planetary velocity. A body falling from an infinite distance—that is, impelled only by the attraction of gravitation—would strike the earth with a velocity of only six or seven miles a second, while the meteorites come at the rate of twenty to thirty miles a second, the earth’s rate of revolution being nineteen miles in the same time. It is found that a necessary consequence of these velocities is that the meteors move about the sun, and not the earth, as the controlling body. Our latest study points to the conclusion that they are of cometary origin, and, as comets have been known to divide, some scientists believe the meteorites are fragments of exploded comets. At any rate, they are found in the company of these mysterious bodies, and appear to have similarly eccentric orbits.”

“Your studies are leading you in the right direction,” said Thorwald. “The meteorites do indeed come from the regions of space, and if they have any story to tell it is a story of those distant parts of the universe about which any testimony is valuable. Let us look again at the fragment we are supposed to hold in our hand. Can we tell of what it is composed, or is its substance something entirely new? I am sure you must have analyzed it down to its minutest particle, and if so you have found it contains nothing foreign to the earth. There is not a single element in the meteorite that does not exist also in the crust of the earth. Tell me, Doctor, how many elements have you discovered in them?”

“Nearly thirty,” answered the doctor. “And one interesting fact is, that the three elements most common in the earth—iron, silicon, and oxygen—are also found most widely distributed among the meteorites.”

“That is an exceedingly significant fact,” said Thorwald; “and now do you not see how strongly the meteorites confirm the story of the spectrum, and how everything tells us the universe is one in its physical structure? By these two widely different sources of information you find that beyond doubt other heavenly bodies are made of like materials with the earth. Is it not time now to give your imagination just a moment’s play and look upon some of those distant orbs as the probable abode of life?”

“There I cannot follow you,” responded the doctor. “I am wanting in imagination; probably born so, as some people are born without an ear for music. Let us stick to facts. Among the recent discoveries in the field of which we have been talking was the finding of some small diamonds in a meteoric mass. Upon this some enthusiastic writer, whose imaginative soul would be your delight, Thorwald, built this argument: ‘Diamonds being pure carbon, their existence necessitates a previous vegetable growth. Hence vegetable life in other worlds is proven, and if vegetable life, it is fair to presume the existence of animal life also. Of course, then, there must be intelligent life, and therefore the stars, or the planets that revolve around the stars, are all filled with men.’ This I call not reasoning, but guessing.”

“And still,” quickly responded Thorwald, “the discovery of diamonds in meteorites was a valuable link in the chain of evidence which you are putting together. Keep on with your investigations. Some time positive knowledge will come to you as it has come to us. But let me appeal once more to your reason. At an earlier stage of development your race no doubt believed the earth was the center of the universe, around which all the heavenly bodies swept in magnificent circles. You have learned that the earth itself, which was formerly thought to be so important an object, is only one of those heavenly bodies flying through space. You find the earth resembles its nearest companions in being subject to the same laws of motion which govern them, but you have yet to learn that they resemble the earth in the main purpose of their creation. You go into the forest and see thousands of trees. You can find no two alike, and yet all are alike in every material respect. Even the myriads of leaves are all different, and yet all alike. So why may not the millions of stars that fill the sky be like our own sun and like each other, differing in such immaterial things as size and brilliancy, color and constitution, but alike in the chief object of their being, the giving of light and heat, as vivifying forces to dark bodies surrounding them? And why may not these planets resemble the earth in being, at some stage of their existence, the theater of God’s great designs?

“Let me try to excite your imagination in another way, Doctor. Suppose you should by and by awake and find this visit to Mars only a dream, and then suppose it should be revealed to you in some superhuman way that man was indeed the only race of intelligent beings in the whole universe; that the other planets and all the stars were of no real use; that not one world from that vast region of the milky way and far distant nebulae would ever send forth a note of praise to its Creator, and that the tiny earth was, after all, the center and sum of the universe—tell me, would you not feel lonesome?”

“When you put it in that way, Thorwald,” replied the doctor, “I begin to see how unreasonable my position must appear to you. But, however pleasant the idea, I do not see how I can believe that other worlds are inhabited without more evidence than we now possess. This is speaking, of course, without the knowledge we have gained since coming here. But I do not mind saying that your talk has made me wish I could believe it.”

I was glad for several reasons that the doctor acknowledged as much as this. First, for Thorwald’s sake; for I had been thinking the doctor’s obduracy was proving a poor reward for our friend’s great kindness to us. I rejoiced, too, that my companion was beginning to show our new acquaintance that, although he had little imagination, he was possessed of a good heart. And, finally, I was myself so much in sympathy with Thorwald’s views that I was glad to see his arguments begin to make some impression on the doctor’s mind.

But now it seemed to me that Thorwald had much to tell us from his own experience. He had talked so far on this subject from the standpoint of our earthly knowledge, but had hinted more than once that the inhabitants of Mars had more positive evidence than we had ever dreamed could be possible. So I said: