For a moment no one spoke, and they gazed in silence at what was an evidence of former life on the moon. The man was huddled up, with the knees drawn toward the stomach and the arms bent around the body, as if the man had died in agony. The features were scarcely distinguishable.
"That man was never an inhabitant of Mars," spoke Professor Henderson, in a low voice. "He is much too large, and he has none of the characteristics of the Martians."
"I agree with you," came from Mr. Roumann.
"Then who is he?" asked Jack.
"I think," said the aged scientist, "that we are now gazing on all that was once mortal of one of the inhabitants of the moon."
"An inhabitant of the moon?" gasped Mark.
"Yes; why not?" went on Mr. Henderson. "I believe the moon was once a planet like our earth—perhaps even a part of it, and I think that it was inhabited. In time it cooled so that life could no longer be supported, or, at least, this side of the moon presents that indication. The people were killed—frozen to death, and by reason of the chemical action of the gases, or perhaps from the moon being covered with water in which was a large percentage of lime, they were turned to stone. That is what happened to this poor man."
"Such a thing is possible," admitted Professor Roumann gravely.
And, indeed, it is, as the writer can testify, for in the Metropolitan Museum in New York there are the remains of an ancient South American miner, whose body has been turned into solid copper. The corpse, of which the features are partly distinguishable, was found four hundred feet down in an old copper mine, where the dripping from hidden springs, the waters of which were rich in copper sulphate, had converted the man's body into a block of metal, retaining its natural shape. The body is drawn up in agony, and there is every indication that the man was killed by a cave-in of the mine. Some of his tools were found near him.
They remained gazing at the weird sight of the petrified man for some time.