in the fragments. Still, those glimmerings are but as
scattered rays of light in the horizon, which, in the belief of the
Editor, are mere precursors of other revelations at least equally
interesting. It may be said generally that by the fragments here given,
showing how the Narrator, uniting in his own person all the highest
qualities of a Legislator and a Ruler, occupied himself with the
discovery and application of means for the reduction of evils to their
smallest possible proportions, not only giving new laws of wondrous
grandeur and beauty, but eventually rendering compliance with them easy
and even delightful--that by these fragments a truly stupendous polity
is but partially revealed.

The Editor has reason to believe, though it cannot be stated with
confidence, that Montalluyah is the world known to us as the planet
Mars. Even in the following pages indications will be found of physical
features harmonizing with observations made here on that planet. On the
other hand, there is the seeming objection, that whereas Mars is more
distant than the Earth from the Sun, the Sun appears much smaller, and
its heat and light are less intense, on the Earth than in Montalluyah.
These facts would, in the first instance, seem to indicate, not a
longer, but a shorter distance of Montalluyah from the central luminary,
and to point rather to Venus or Mercury than to Mars. But, according to
the scientific theories of Montalluyah, the amount of light and heat
received from the Sun, and the aspect of that luminary, are governed,
not so much by proximity, as by the nature and electricity of the
recipient planet and its surrounding atmosphere. In illustration of this
point the fact is stated in one of the fragments, that in Montalluyah
the power of the telescope is regulated, not by the distance, but by the
attractive or repulsive electricity of the planet under observation, and
that more power is often required to view a nearer planet than one which
is far more distant.

The question as to which of the laws and customs of Montalluyah can be
beneficially imitated, wholly or partially, on our Earth, and which of
them merely pertain to physical accidents or to a peculiar state of
society, will afford matter for reflection. It must not be supposed
that, by relating the facts revealed to him, the Editor would recommend
all the laws which they suggest as capable of imitation here. Although
they are based on the principle of securing hap