MANY millions of centuries ago, when the celestial globe on which we live and struggle started to emerge from the hot-air habit and commenced to cool down and come to its senses, a huge mass of syrup-like material sagged down toward the lower end of the cooling ball and, upon further cooling, formed a high promontory at what we to-day call the South Pole. As a consequence we now find there a plateau of an elevation far exceeding in height the highest mountains found elsewhere on our venerable globe.
You may imagine if you can how cold it must be there. The North Pole is supposed to be cool enough for anybody who hates to go to sleep in an overheated bedroom; but it has been shown to be a depression in the earth’s crust filled with ice, and it therefore does not mount far above sea level, while the South Pole, aside from lacking the sun’s comforting perpendicular rays, reaches besides so high up in the atmospheric layers as to preclude all possibility of the prevalence of hot birds. Cold bottles are about the only means of enjoyment which the tourists, thirsting for amusement, find there at their disposal.
Professor FANSEE of the Dreemo University was a courageous man. He may have been afflicted with a creepy feeling in the still, mysterious shadows of the night; he may have had a constant fear of spooks and all sorts of ferocious beasts; he may have stood in perpetual awe of his innocent-looking wife; but it must be said to his everlasting glory that he was not at all afraid of the cold. It is being whispered that after many years of married life his affectionate spouse had at last succeeded in more or less accustoming him to frigidity.
Professor FANSEE, moreover, was an expert in astronomy, chemistry and electricity. With a smile of derision he had watched for years the futile efforts on the part of certain scientists to communicate with the planet Mars. Long ago an idea had ripened in his fertile brain that he knew would ultimately lead to the desired end. The highest plateau on earth having been shown to be located at the South Pole, he decided to direct his Zee-rays from this cool and calm promontory. For this purpose he caused an enormous hollow globe to be built of non-conducting material, so arranged that the inner chambers would retain an upright position while the ball would be merrily rolling along. By means of powerful storage batteries within this potent structure the apparatus was made self-propelling. With this rolling vehicle at his beck and call, he needed no ships to cross the Antarctic ocean, no derricks to hoist his globular observatory to the highest peak; and without notifying the press, unostentatiously as befits a serious-minded scientist, he arrived one fine morning at the highest point of that celestial conveyance which we call the earth.
From this elevation he industriously worked his ingenious device. For six months he shot his Zee-rays day and night at the unsuspecting Martians. For six months his endeavors seemed utterly fruitless. Then, of a sudden, in the middle of the night, a faint wail was heard in the Professor’s receiving apparatus; a manifestation of the first indication that his brain-child had actually come into healthful being. For two weeks, at intervals of twenty minutes, Professor FANSEE cautiously manipulated his quivering wires. Then, at last, to his unbounded joy and satisfaction, the first communication from Mars became intelligible. From that moment on, it took but a few days to come to an understanding with the mystic inhabitants of our misty neighbor; and an interesting narrative was thus obtained of conditions prevailing on the presumably canal-infested planet.
Professor FANSEE unfortunately breathed his last before returning to his native land. But I had had the honor of acting as his assistant and confidant. And although to my keen disappointment the globe in which we traveled was wrecked on the rocks while making a landing on the shores of New Zealand, I had the good fortune of safely swimming ashore and of saving the papers containing the interesting revelations. So, with due credit to Professor FANSEE, and with fond recollections of his erudite personality, I believe myself justified in revealing the Martian episode to my terrestrial fellowmen.
The marked similarity with events on our own celestial empire may strike my readers as a singular coincidence. But according to prehistoric astrologers, all events are controlled by the position of the stars. And, if they do control the course of events on our earth, it seems but natural that they should similarly affect some of the other members of our solar system.
First of all, as Professor FANSEE had always been profoundly interested in questions of religion, and as his first inquiries consequently dealt with this highly important subject, it should be stated that for eighteen centuries and a half the ruling religion on the planet Mars had been the religion of NAZARRO. Nazarro was a God who, according to the Martians, materialized in human form on the planet Mars. This God preached a gospel of peace, of the curbing of passions, and of equal division of wealth. So the Roamani and the Heebrons, among whom he dwelt, sought to punish His revolutionary agitations by hanging Him on the gallows. Thus the sign of the gallows became a sign of sanctity revered by NAZARRO’S followers, and the emblem of a new faith. The members of the religious sect so created and which for fifteen centuries continued to grow in power were known as the Nazarranos.
About the end of the fifteenth century E.N. (the Era of NAZARRO) the trend of civilization commenced to take a somewhat different direction. If the Nazarranos had limited themselves to spreading the precepts of NAZARRO unchanged, our Martian informer thought, all of the inhabitants of Mars would unswervingly have recognized their excellence. But only a few among the Martians were mentally as lofty as had been the Great Nazarrano Teacher. Consequently, when the Nazarranos organized a Nazarrano corporation under the personal direction of certain lower and higher functionaries, these functionaries, supposedly for the honor of NAZARRO, often resorted to methods of which NAZARRO Himself would never have approved. The unavoidable result was that certain Martians seriously began to doubt the superiority of the whole Nazarrano faith.
Meanwhile, from remote antiquity down to this interesting era, the minds of the Martians had gradually developed to ever greater efficiency; and it so happened that at this time they commenced to investigate the phenomena of Nature far more systematically than they had ever done before. In connection with the Nazarrano faith a mystic story had been preached of the creation of the Universe, gathered from the Heebron manuscripts, and which made the Martians believe that Mars was a flat slice of land floating on water, around which the remainder of the Universe majestically rotated. So when a Martian by the name of GALELIAH discovered that Mars was a globe, and that Mars rotated round the Sun, and not the Sun around Mars, the Nazarrano corporation officials strenuously objected, for they saw in his suggestion the first signs of disbelief. Notwithstanding the opposition of the Nazarrano officials, various sciences began to develop in other directions, until the Nazarranos were forced, little by little, to change their views of creation. In every instance the Nazarrano dignitaries registered their objections in vain with greater or lesser vehemence. At last, in the year 1859 E.N., a new prophet arose, bearing the euphonic name of DARVINO. In the country of the Frank-Aulians, otherwise known as the Fringe, a book had previously been published by LAMARCKEESO, suggesting that the development of the Universe was due to a process of evolution; and the intrepid DARVINO rigged a ship to search for proofs, and published these proofs convincingly in the said memorable year 1859 E.N.