energy is beginning to become evident to us, but the possibility of
whose utilization remains a dream, the fulfillment of which nobody
dares to predict.

Such, in very brief form, is the celebrated theory of Mars as an
inhabited world. It certainly captivates the imagination, and if we
believe it to represent the facts, we cannot but watch with the
deepest sympathy this gallant struggle of an intellectual race to
preserve its planet from the effects of advancing age and death. We
may, indeed, wonder whether our own humanity, confronted by such a
calamity, could be counted on to meet the emergency with equal
stoutness of heart and inexhaustibleness of resource. Up to the
present time we certainly have shown no capacity to confront Nature
toe to toe, and to seize her by the shoulders and turn her round when
she refuses to go our way. If we could get into wireless telephonic
communication with the Martians we might learn from their own lips the
secret of their more than ``Roman recovery.''

The Riddle of the Asteroids

Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter revolves the most remarkable
system of little bodies with which we are acquainted -- the Asteroids,
or Minor Planets. Some six hundred are now known, and they may
actually number thousands. They form virtually a ring about the sun.
The most striking general fact about them is that they occupy the
place in the sky which should be occupied, according to Bode's Law, by
a single large planet. This fact, as we shall see, has led to the
invention of one of the most extraordinary theories in astronomy --
viz., that of the explosion of a world!