,
were marvels of speed and of manageability. They could dart about, turn,
reverse their course, rise, fall, with the quickness and ease of a fish
in the water. Mr. Edison calculated that even if mysterious bolts should
fall upon our ships we could diminish their power to cause injury by
our rapid evolutions.

We might be deceived in our expectations, and might have overestimated
our powers, but at any rate we must take our chances and try.

Watching the Martians.

A multitude, exceeding even that which had assembled during the great
congress at Washington, now thronged New York and its neighborhood
to witness the mustering and the departure of the ships bound for
Mars. Nothing further had been heard of the mysterious phenomenon
reported from the observatories six months before, and which at the time
was believed to indicate the departure of another expedition from Mars
for the invasion of the earth. If the Martians had set out to attack
us they had evidently gone astray; or, perhaps, it was some other world
that they were aiming at this time.

The expedition had, of course, profoundly stirred the interest of the
scientific world, and representatives of every branch of science,
from all the civilized nations, urged their claims to places in
the ships. Mr. Edison was compelled, from lack of room, to refuse
transportation to more than one in a thousand of those who now, on the
plea that they might be able to bring back something of advantage to
science, wished to embark for Mars.

As the Great Napoleon Did.

On the model of the celebrated corps of literary and scientific men
which Napoleon carried with him in his invasion of Egypt, Mr. Edison
selected a company of the foremost astronomers, archaeologists,
anthropologists, botanists, bacteriologists, chemists, physicists,
mathematicians, mechanicians, meteorologists and experts in mining,
metallurgy and every other branch of practical science, as well as
artists and photographers. It was but reasonable to believe that in
another world, and a world so much older than the earth as Mars was,
these men would be able to gather materials in comparison with which
the discoveries made among the ruins of ancient empires in Egypt and
Babylonia would be insignificant indeed.

To Conquer Another World.

It was a wonderful undertaking and a strange spectacle. There was a
feeling of uncertainty which awed the vast multitude whose eyes were
upturned to the ships. The exp