they may be able to solve the few problems that have entirely baffled
me, and to explain, if they so choose, the secrets to which,
intentionally or through the destruction of its introductory portion,
the manuscript affords no clue.

I must add that these volumes contain only the first section of the
MS. record. The rest, relating the incidents of a second voyage and
describing another world, remains in my hands; and, should this part
of the work excite general attention, the conclusion will, by myself
or by my executors, be given to the public. Otherwise, on my death, it
will be placed in the library of some national or scientific
institution.



CHAPTER II - OUTWARD BOUND.

... For obvious reasons, those who possessed the secret of the
Apergy [1] had never dreamed of applying it in the manner I proposed.
It had seemed to them little more than a curious secret of nature,
perhaps hardly so much, since the existence of a repulsive force in
the atomic sphere had been long suspected and of late certainly
ascertained, and its preponderance is held to be the characteristic of
the gaseous as distinguished from the liquid or solid state of matter.
Till lately, no means of generating or collecting this force in large
quantity had been found. The progress of electrical science had solved
this difficulty; and when the secret was communicated to me, it
possessed a value which had never before belonged to it.

Ever since, in childhood, I learnt that the planets were worlds, a