lyer could not pass. How accurate were his prognostications was soon
known to everyone. Hadley built and equipped his flyer and started off
on what he hoped would be an epoch making flight. It was one, but not in
the way which he had hoped. His ship took off readily enough, being
powered with four rocket motors working on Carpenter's principle, and
rose to a height of about fifty miles, gaining velocity rapidly. At that
point his velocity suddenly began to drop.

He was in constant radio communication with the earth and he reported
his difficulty. Carpenter advised him to turn back while he could, but
Hadley kept on. Slower and slower became his progress, and after he had
penetrated ten miles into the substance which hindered him, his ship
stuck fast. Instead of using his bow motors and trying to back out, he
had moved them to the rear, and with the combined force of his four
motors he had penetrated for another two miles. There he insanely tried
to force his motors to drive him on until his fuel was exhausted.

He had lived for over a year in his space flyer, but all of his efforts
did not serve to materially change his position. He had tried, of
course, to go out through his air locks and explore space, but his
strength, even although aided by powerful levers, could not open the
outer doors of the locks against the force which was holding them shut.
Careful observations were continuously made of the position of his
flyer and it was found that it was gradually returning toward the earth.
Its motion was very slight, not enough to give any hope for the
occupant. Starting from a motion so slow that it could hardly be
detected, the velocity of return gradually accelerated; and three years
after Hadley's death, the flyer was suddenly released from the force
which held it, and it plunged to the earth, to be reduced by the force
of its fall to a twisted, pitiful mass of unrecognizable junk.

* * * * *

The remains were examined, and the iron steel parts were found to be
highly magnetized. This fact was seized upon by the scientists of the
world and a theory was built up of a magnetic field of force surrounding
the earth through which nothing of a magnetic nature could pass. This
theory received almost universal acceptance, Jim Carpenter alone of the
more prominent men of learning refusing to admit the validity of it. He
gravely stated it as his belief that no magnetic field existed, but that