rd Observatory at Arequipa,
in Peru, and from the Royal Observatory, at Potsdam.

When the telegram from this last-named place was read the Emperor William
turned to his Chancellor and said:

"I want to go home. If I am to die I prefer to leave my bones among those
of my Imperial ancestors, and not in this vulgar country, where no king
has ever ruled. I don't like this atmosphere. It makes me feel limp."

And now, whipped on by the lash of alternate hope and fear, the earth
sprang to its work of preparation.

Chapter IV.

It is not necessary for me to describe the manner in which Mr. Edison
performed his tremendous task. He was as good as his word, and within six
months from the first stroke of the hammer, a hundred electrical ships,
each provided with a full battery of disintegrators, were floating in
the air above the harbor and the partially rebuilt city of New York.

It was a wonderful scene. The polished sides of the huge floating cars
sparkled in the sunlight, and, as they slowly rose and fell, and swung
this way and that, upon the tides of the air, as if held by invisible
cables, the brilliant pennons streaming from their peaks waved up and
down like the wings of an assemblage of gigantic humming birds.

Not knowing whether the atmosphere of Mars would prove suitable to be
breathed by inhabitants of the earth, Mr. Edison had made provision, by
means of an abundance of glass-protected openings, to permit the inmates
of the electrical ships to survey their surroundings without quitting the
interior. It was possible by properly selecting the rate of undulation,
to pass the vibratory impulse from the disintegrators through the glass
windows of a car, without damage to the glass itself. The windows were so
arranged that the disintegrators could sweep around the car on all sides,
and could also be directed above or below, as necessity might dictate.

To overcome the destructive forces employed by the Martians no
satisfactory plan had yet been devised, because there was no means to
experiment with them. The production of those forces was still the secret
of our enemies. But Mr. Edison had no doubt that if we could not resist
their effects we might at least be able to avoid them by the rapidity of
our motions. As he pointed out, the war machines which the Martians had
employed in their invasion of the earth, were really very awkward and
unmanageable affairs. Mr. Edison's electrical ships, on the other hand