s for a much longer time,
but the necessity of being in my laboratory while I was engaged in these
improvements, decided me against any immediate change.

Accordingly I proceeded the next morning to make the changes I deemed
necessary, being goaded into a fever of haste by a feeling of
suppressed excitement. The composition I had used in the form of a film
I now liquefied, having concluded that in the former condition, although
necessary in my original experiments, it now only retarded the vibration
of the wires.

That this composition was essential there could be no doubt, as it was
its elements that responded to the agent used on Mars to project the
waves. I therefore liquefied the film substance, being careful in so
doing not to alter its properties. I then procured wires, much thinner
than those I had previously used, and dipped them-into the liquid. After
they had become perfectly dry, I stretched them on the frame as close
together as I could without their coming into contact with one another.
As light-waves are received in hundreds of different vibrations
simultaneously, according to the light or shade of the object projected,
I concluded that each wire should be capable of individual vibration.
The device now resembled a large piece of mosquito netting with the
cross wires removed, the coating of composition on each wire being so
thin that it was hardly discernible. The batteries and coils I
connected as before, taking great care not to change their arrangement.

My preparations were now completed, and before me stood an instrument as
delicate and sensitive to wave vibrations as I could make it. Raising
one side of the frame a foot higher than the other, in order that the
surface of wires would be squarely facing the star when it appeared
above the casement, I waited impatiently for the moment which should
prove the truth or falsity of my surmises.

The day had closed, and I spent the remaining time speculating upon the
results of my labors. But even the wildest flights of my imagination did
not picture, in the smallest degree, the wonderful transformation which
my new instrument would make in what had appeared before as a shadow on
the film. Little did I imagine to what an extent the unknown was to be
revealed to me.

As I stood by the side of the frame all in readiness, Mars appeared, but
it still had a little farther to climb before it would be visible from
the level of the wires. Nevertheless, I turned