could grasp the startling
change in things. The horror of the electronic disaster still filled
their minds to overflowing.

Carruthers recovered first. He stepped from the railed inclosure
marking the spot where the atomic beam had restored them after their
space flight, and guided the girl to a chair. Karl's face was drawn
and white as his eyes rested on the two pitiful figures that had
materialized out of the ether.

"Don't ask us any questions yet," spoke Carruthers in a tired voice.
"We've passed through too many horrors. What was the matter, Karl?
Couldn't you get the rays to work sooner?"

"Sooner?" Danzig's eyes were wide with wonder. He glanced at his
watch. "It was a little difficult to control both machines all alone,
but I switched off the ray from the inverse dimensional tubes and
turned on the other immediately. All in all it must have taken me
fifteen seconds."

"Fifteen seconds," repeated Carruthers, dazedly. "It's unbelievable."
He dropped wearily into a chair and rested his forehead in the palms
of his hands. "How long have we been gone, Nan?"

* * * * *

Nanette pulled the ragged remnants of a dress around her knees and
attempted a smile. "Almost four months, according to the passage of
time on the electron."

"Impossible!" whispered Danzig, shutting his eyes to the truth.

Aaron Carruthers pointed to his clothes, now ragged and torn. "Look,
Karl! Everything I have on is worn out completely. Observe my hair and
beard, and the soles of my shoes. Human reason to the contrary,
Nanette and I have lived like two animals for four months, and all in
the space of fifteen seconds earth time. How can you account for it?
We figured it out on paper. And we've proved it with our bodies. What
it will mean to future civilization I can't foretell. It's beyond
imagination."

And the laboratory became silent as a tomb as the three people tried
with all the strength of their minds to grasp the miracle of the
strange and unfathomable atomic rays.

* * * * *

PRODUCING HEAT BY ARCTIC COLD

Producing heat by means of Arctic cold is a fantastic but none the
less quite practicable idea evolved by Dr. H. Barjou of the French
Academy of Science. Dr. Barjou says the water under the ice in the
Arctic region is about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. While the air is many
degrees less, there may even be a difference of 50 degrees. The
unfrozen water could be pu