glass globe, four inches long, and an inch and a half in diameter, with a carbon loop which becomes incandescent when the electric current passes through. Each lamp is of sixteen candle power with no perceptible variation in intensity. The light is turned on or off with a thumb screw. Wires have already been put into forty buildings."

My father had anticipated the incandescent light in its fuller later development and had used, before it was announced by Prof. Avenarius of Austria, a method of dividing the electric current, by the insertion of a polariser in a secondary circuit connected with each lamp, a method, it need not be said to electricians, now utterly obsolete.

The rooms of our physical laboratory at Irvington were almost all lit by electric lamps constructed somewhat on the principle of Edison's, but using platinum wires, and the old residents of that village may recall the singular, lonely house half hidden in broad sycamores, sending out its electric radiance late at night while my father and frequently myself, then a boy of thirteen years, worked at experimental problems in physics.

My father gave my precocity for science a very successful impetus and left me at his death fully in possession of the ideas and projects he cherished. Amongst these projects, one partially realized, was the acceleration of plant growth by means of electric light, and heating by electricity.

Dr. Siemens of England, it may be recalled, had very ingeniously experimented upon the influence of the electric light upon vegetation. In a paper read by that distinguished man before the Society of Telegraph Engineers in June, 1880, he referred to his conclusion that "electric light produces the coloring matter, chlorophyll, in the leaves of plants, that it aids their growth, counteracts the effects of night frosts, and promotes the setting and ripening of fruit in the open air."

I find in an old note book of my father's, dated 1879, "chlorophyllous matter in leaves encouraged by electric energy, presumably by the blue rays." In heating and cooking by electricity my father had made some progress though he had not in 1880 employed his time in this direction.

Perhaps more remarkable than anything else presenting my father's great scientific ingenuity was his improvements of the dynamo and the invention of a new successful small traction engine.

In 1880 the complete distinction between alternating and direct currents had not been made, and the device of a successful converter, for the change of the former comparatively inert to the latter's dynamic condition, only dreamed of. Yet in my father's notebook I find this suggestive sentence: "It seems possible to devise an apparatus which would deliver from an alternating circuit a direct current to a direct current circuit."

I have dwelt somewhat upon my father's scientific acquirements and genius in order to impress upon the reader the strictly legitimate training I received in scientific procedure, and I have instanced somewhat the status of his scientific development in 1880, because it was at that time that he concluded to leave Irvington and locate his laboratory and observatory elsewhere. And for the sake of his astronomical interests he determined to find some place peculiarly well fitted, on account of its atmospheric advantages, for astronomical observations. It is necessary likewise to recall some of the facts then known to astronomers and my father's own theories, in order to weave into a logical sequence the incidents leading up to my positive demonstration of a future life for some of our race in the planet Mars.

Astronomy had a great charm for my mother. Her enthusiasm was soon communicated to my father who found his wealth was a requisite in establishing the observatory he had erected at Irvington and in its equipment. Telescopes are expensive playthings.

The Lick Observatory was begun in 1880 and my father through correspondence with the directors of the University of California had learned many of the details pertaining to this great project. Influenced by the splendid prospects of this undertaking my father determined if possible to surpass it. He wrote to Fiel of Paris and expected to be able to secure an objective of 4 feet diameter, exceeding that of the Lick Observatory by one foot, a hopeless and as it proved an utterly abortive design. He spent an entire year in New York after leaving Irvington examining the various possible locations for his new observatory. The requisites were nearness to the equator, an equable climate, elevation and a clear atmosphere. During this year my father heard that Prof. Hertz of Berlin had generated waves of magnetism and that it was hoped that these might ultimately prove efficacious as a means of direct communication between distant points without the introduction of wire conductors.

This thought of communicating with distant points without fixed conductors greatly impressed my father and led him along a line of speculation upon which finally rested my own success in securing the messages detailed in this book from the planet Mars.

I recall that one evening in the winter of 1881 while he was yet engaged in making preparations for his departure from the United States to New Zealand, which he finally chose for the erection of his laboratories, and especially his observatory, I heard him read with the greatest satisfaction of the attempt made in the siege of Paris to bring the besieged French into telegraphic communication with the Provinces by means of the River Seine.

It was proposed to send powerful currents into the River Seine from batteries near the German lines and to receive in Paris upon delicate galvanometers, such an amount of their current as had not leaked away in the earth. Profs. Desains, Jamin, and Berthelot were interested in these experiments, although the suggestion had been made by M. Bourbouze, and after some interruptions when the attempt was to be carried out, the armistice of Jan. 14, 1871, brought their preparations to a close.

How often my father spoke of these attempts, and half smilingly on one occasion as we watched the starry skies "thick inlaid with patterns of bright gold" said to me: "It seems to me within the reach of possibility to attain some sort of connection with these shining hosts. If we must assume that the disturbances on the Sun's surface effect magnetic storms on ours, it is quite evident that a fluid of translatory power or consistency exists between the earth and the sun, then also between all the planetary inhabitants of space, and I cannot see why we may not hope some day to realize a means of communication with these distant bodies. How inspiring is the thought that in some such way upon the basis of an absolutely perfect scientific deduction we might be brought into conversational alliance with these singular and orderly creations, and actually look upon their scenes and lives and history, and bring to ourselves in verbal pictures a presentation of their marvellous properties."

I think it was on this occasion that my father expressed his thought upon some form of interplanetary telegraphy in a manner that left it in my own mind a very impressive and majestic idea. He had read at some length the address of Sir William Armstrong before the British Association in 1863, when that distinguished observer speaks of the sympathy between forces operating in the sun, and magnetic forces in the earth and remarks the phenomenon seen by independent observers in September, 1859. The passage, easily verified by the reader, was to this effect:

"A sudden outburst of light, far exceeding the brightness of the sun's surface was seen to take place, and sweep like a drifting cloud over a portion of the solar surface. This was attended by magnetic disturbances of unusual intensity and with exhibitions of