Argosy, Volume XXIII — Index Page, 1897 — page 181: what you’re looking at

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

A MONTH IN THE MOON. 751 not wonder if the specimen before us had been so treated. I, by my impru- dence, have destroyed what even the centuries respected.’’ The doctor was about to descend, when he noticed a roll of paper in the skeleton’s hands. ‘Taking it from its silent possessor, he found it was in- scribed all over with strange characters, ‘Here is the greatest marvel of all,’ he said, leaping down with his prize. He was in such haste to examine it at ease, that he proposed an imme- diate return, They retraced their steps, therefore, conversing as long as they had air. . “The air that we have just left,’’ said N orbert, ‘‘ was at one time in the past hermetically sealed in that confined place ; it shows that at that period the atmosphere in the moon must have been like our own. Perhaps it has only lost its oxygen in the course of the ages, and hence has become unfit to sustain life. What remains must, in my opinion, be pure nitrogen, more or less. It would be easy to ascertain the fact, and also exceedingly useful to us now.’’ On returning to the observatory, the doctor made haste to study his papyrus. But after some hours of vain effort he was obliged to own that he had failed. Noticing his discomfiture, Kaddour asked and received permission to try | his skill on the selenic document. At the end of a quarter of an hour he gave it thus: Sun, the Son of the Northern Star, slept the last sleep on the fourth day of the ninth year year of the thirty second cycle.’’ This translation was received with some little incredulity at first, but Kaddour held to his point with so much vigor that the doctor was at last convinced, and could not but admire the sagacity of the little man. On which the dwarf observed with some show of reason that the papyrus was a good instance of writing being used to represent not words, but ideas, that were independent of languages, and could be understood by all men alike, CHAPTER XXXIX.—PREPARATIONS FOR THE RETURN. NoRBERT, at this moment returning from the chemical laboratory, where he had been shut up for some time alone, inquired what was the subject they were discussing. ‘I should be very much disposed, for my part,’’ he said at once, ‘‘ to admit Kaddour’s theory. It hasa tendency to prove that the Selenites were accustomed to take the names of stars, which is appropriate to a race that possessed such exceptional opportunities of knowing the science of the heav- ens. The cycle here mentioned is probably a great astronomical cycle, which is a comfirmation of our first impression, concerning the very great antiquity of the papyrus. I myself, moreover,’’ continued Norbert, ‘‘ have made the important discovery that the lunar atmosphere is composed of nitrogen, mingled with some traces of oxygen. EComichbooks a2) (EC)