"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.