Amazing Stories, Vol. 3, No. 2 — page 53: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BARON MUNCHHAUSEN’S SCIENTIFIC. ADVENTURES by Hugo Gernshack 7. Miinchhausen is Taught “Martian” P, M. the next evening, Miinchhausen’s dear old voice once more sounded in my re- ceivers. There was the usual preliminary talk, after which the Baron went on: “T am very much pleased, my dear Alier, that my Radiotomatic relay station on the Moon works so well. Up to last night neither Flitternix nor I were sure we could bridge the 60 million miles between Mars and the Moon by wireless, but by means of our wonder- ful ultra sensitive radio-active detector, we were en- abled to ‘listen in’ successfully. When I had finished talking last night, it was about 9 P. M., your terrestrial time. We got our receiving instruments ready at once and a little over five minutes after 11 P. M.* I could hear myself talking. The message which I had sent a few hours before had been faithfully recorded on the telegraphone wire of my Radiotomatic on the Moon, and as soon as the automatic clock released the sending machinery, the vibrations carrying my voice were hurled back to us over a distance of 60 million miles. Then we knew that you must have heard the message too, for you are only 238,000 miles distant from the Moon. While my ‘canned’ voice undoubtedly must aw UNCTUALLY, as always, at exactly 11 - I closed my eyes for a few seconds to test myself, the music as well as the picture flashes persisted; I knew then that I did not hear the music with my eats, for see the pictures with my eyes. I reasoned correctly that both had their origin within my brain. “Before I had time to puzzle it out, we had entered the structure at the heels of our host. We passed through a magnificent archway, constructed entirely of some transparent material, decorated in superb taste in green, white and gold. One thing struck us immedi- ately; the hallway appeared as light as day, but we could not see where the light originated. Later, we were to find out about this. “At the end of the hallway was a ponderous massive. panel with a door-like appearance. It must have been at least 125 feet high and 30 feet wide. It looked very much like cut glass with all its prisms and fancy cuts; we first thought it was glass, but when we came closer to it we changed our minds, for we saw that the huge thing was as flexible as a velvet portiére. When our host was but 10 feet away from it, it suddenly blazed forth in a brilliant golden light which seemed to come from nowhere. Simultaneously the huge door, for this is what it was, rose quickly up in the air just like a theater curtain. Our have sounded uncanny to you—excuse the pun—lI as- sure you that it gave me the creeps listening to my own voice, flung 60 million miles through the ether! “But to come back to where I broke off last night: I told you how several Martians had approached us and had placed a soft metallic cap on our heads. T also told.you how we then (Ge of the greatest pussles our astronomers and scien- tists had to contend with during the last decade was the problem of how water is moved in the Martian “Canals.” Nearly all scientists of note who have studied them do not ~ question their existence, but they are all at odds as to what agency moves such enormous quantities of water, It is singular that most of them suggest a form of pump to move the water in the canals, as our present-day knowledge of science and mechanics leaves them no other choice. But qwhat makes our rivers flow on earth? What agency con- denses billions of tons of ocean water and brings these. waters down in the form of rains, which keep our rivers _ from drying up? The Sun, of course. Why can’t the Sun move the water in the Martian Canals also? This install- ment contains a new idea as to how the Martians might ac- host now entered into a large circular salon-like room, followed reluctantly by us. “T say reluctantly ad- visedly. I have absolutely no words to do the thing justice. Our state of mind upon entering that room was probably the same as if you had brought back to life Julius Caesar of the followed the august Mar- complish it. year 50 B.C., and had sud- tian into the church-like structure. “While we walked over the hard metallic-appearing walk, which conducted us to the structure, we became conscious of strange flashes in our brains. We also caught distinct, though faint, bars of a soft music, which was followed by weird pictures flashing through our minds. All this took place within our heads, and as * As radio waves travel at the speed of light, te., 186,000 miles a second, it took over 5 minutes for the radio impulses to reach Mars. Muinchhausen therefore heard his talk 5 minutes later than Alier. 148 denly transplanted him some night to blazing Broadway in New York. His mind would have reeled at the—to him—marvelous sights. It would have taken him days and days of asking questions and explanations of all the impossible things he saw before him. “Exactly so with us. Only Caesar would have made a jump of only 1,978 years, whereas, we made a jump of over 200,000 years. We were merely uncompre- hending children, and our eyes and senses were ab- solutely inadequate to do justice at once to'the higher plane of civilization on which we had been thrown so conmiclooolkks. conn