of Stazza, notwithstanding all efforts at prevention.

The cities have no continuous streets or lanes. The principal travel is
in the water over the city. The main entrance to the home is on the
housetop. In the center of large buildings there is a shaft running up
and down, through which the people go with greater ease than we can
climb or descend our stairways. It must not be forgotten that water to
them is the same as air to us, and in their domestic life the people
are annoyed by cloudy and muddy currents of water just as we are by
clouds of dust in the air, on the streets, or in our homes.

The wear and tear caused by the chemical action of water on houses and
furniture is not as great as the injury in our world caused by the
chemical action of air, heat and moisture.

The educational systems of Stazza are quite as perfect for that world as
our own systems are for ours. They have an alphabet, covering their
needs in language, consisting of a series of strokes, curves and angles,
somewhat resembling our shorthand systems. This language is identical in
print or script, and is superior to our method of expresssing thought by
handwriting.

The experts of Stazza have learned the art of slicing metallic blocks
into sheets of any desired thickness. These sheets serve the same
purpose for them as paper does for us, and are furnished at an
insignificant cost of labor. We have the very elements in our Earth to
produce these metallic blocks if we knew the combination, which might be
easily found if we had as much need for them as the people of this
water world.

The metallic blocks are used for a great variety of purposes. There are
some high class artists who have immortalized themselves by their
master-pieces, one of which I saw on a five-cornered metallic sheet
measuring about eight feet in diameter.

Perhaps the most surprising feature of the educational advancement of
these water spirits is their knowledge of astronomy. To them, under the
water, the stars have always looked beautiful, and from an early date in
their history a study of them has engaged the attention of their
scholars. No one could tell the style of their telescopes if he should
go to guessing for a week. Let me give you a brief description of one.

They build a metallic pipe about ten feet in diameter and from a point
some two hundred feet below the surface of the water. The pipe is built
until it extends a few feet above water. Inside of this pipe