CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY


Other worlds and their inhabitants are remarkably popular subjects of
speculation at the present time. Every day we hear people asking one
another if it is true that we shall soon be able to communicate with
some of the far-off globes, such as Mars, that circle in company with
our earth about the sun. One of the masters of practical electrical
science in our time has suggested that the principle of wireless
telegraphy may be extended to the transmission of messages across space
from planet to planet. The existence of intelligent inhabitants in some
of the other planets has become, with many, a matter of conviction, and
for everybody it presents a question of fascinating interest, which has
deeply stirred the popular imagination.

The importance of this subject as an intellectual phenomenon of the
opening century is clearly indicated by the extent to which it has
entered into recent literature. Poets feel its inspiration, and
novelists and romancers freely select other planets as the scenes of
their stories. One tells us of a visit paid by men to the moon, and of
the wonderful things seen, and adventures had, there. Lucian, it is
true, did the same thing eighteen hundred years ago, but he had not the
aid of hints from modern science to guide his speculations and lend
verisimilitude to his narrative.

Another startles us from our sense of planetary security with a
realistic account of the invasion of the earth by the terrible sons of
warlike Mars, seeking to extend their empire by the conquest of foreign