that the latter, when once the barriers were broken, rushed into
depressions that yawned to receive it.

Waiting for the Flood.

The point where we had dealt our blow was far removed from the great
capital of Mars, around the Lake of the Sun, and we knew that we should
have to wait for the floods to reach that point before the desired effect
could be produced. By the nearest way, the water had at least 5,000
miles to travel. We estimated that its speed where we hung above it was
as much as a hundred miles an hour. Even if that speed were maintained,
more than two days and nights would be required for the floods to reach
the Lake of the Sun.

But as the water rushed on it would break the banks of all the canals
intersecting the country, and these, being also elevated above the
surface, would add the impetus of their escaping waters to hasten the
advance of the flood. We calculated, therefore, that about two days
would suffice to place the planet at our mercy.

Half way from the Syrtis Major to the Lake of the Sun another great
connecting link between the Southern and Northern ocean basins, called
on our maps of Mars the Indus, existed, and through this channel we
knew that another great current must be setting from the south toward
the north. The flood that we had started would reach and break the banks
of the Indus within one day.

Flooding Hundreds of Canals.

The flood travelling in the other direction, towards the east, would
have considerably further to go before reaching the neighborhood of
the Lake of the Sun. It, too, would involve hundreds of great canals
as it advanced and would come plunging upon the Lake of the Sun and its
surrounding forts and cities, probably about half a day later than the
arrival of the deluge that travelled towards the west.

Now that we had let the awful destroyer loose we almost shrank from the
thought of the consequences which we had produced. How many millions
would perish as the result of our deed we could not even guess. Many
of the victims, so far as we knew, might be entirely innocent of enmity
toward us, or of the evil which had been done to our native planet. But
this was a case in which the good--if they existed--must suffer with
the bad on account of the wicked deeds of the latter.

I have already remarked that the continents of Mars were higher on their
northern and southern borders where they faced the great oceans. These
natural barriers bore to the main mass