AND FIND A DIARY IN A DEAD MAN'S POCKET


~1~

When I was twenty-four years old, my uncle was killed in a laboratory
explosion. He had been a scientist of renown and a chemical inventor who
had devoted his life to the unravelling of the secrets of the synthetic
foods of Germany. For some years I had been his trusted assistant. In
our Chicago laboratory were carefully preserved food samples that had
been taken from the captured submarines in years gone by; and what to me
was even more fascinating, a collection of German books of like origin,
which I had read with avidity. With the exception of those relating to
submarine navigation, I found them stupidly childish and decided that
they had been prepared to hide the truth and not reveal it.

My uncle had bequeathed me both his work and his fortune, but despairing
of my ability worthily to continue his own brilliant researches on
synthetic food, I turned my attention to the potash problem, in which I
had long been interested. My reading of early chemical works had given
me a particular interest in the reclamation of the abandoned potash
mines of Stassfurt. These mines, as any student of chemical history will
know, were one of the richest properties of the old German state in the
days before the endless war began and Germany became isolated from the
rest of the world. The mines were captured by the World in the year
2020, and were profitably operated for a couple of decades. Meanwhile
the German lines were forced many miles to the rear before the
impregnable barrier of the Ray had halted the progress of the
World Armies.