Life in a Thousand Worlds. W. S. Harris
is not sustained by breathing a gaseous air as we do, so that the sense of smell is performed by the protruded upper lip. At the voluntary effort to catch scent the upper lip noticeably rolls upward into a partial scroll.
I was anxious to learn how the life of these Moonites is sustained without breathing and, to my astonishment, I learned that they eat solid air at intervals of about six hours. This is not taken in connection with the regular food, but is eaten alone and carried into a separate stomach wherein it is disintegrated by the chemical action of the stomachic acids. The gases thus formed serve the same purpose as the air we breathe into our lungs.
According to the conjectures of some earthly astronomers I was expecting to see a race of immense giants. On the contrary, I found that these Moonites grow to only about one-fourth our height, but possess fully three-fourths as much circumference of body. Notwithstanding that they are so short and rotund, they are healthy and exceedingly quick in all their bodily movements.
No doubt I shall be chided for saying that these Moon-inhabitants are a handsome people, but I was enabled to judge them by a universal standard of beauty, and I looked upon them as a product of the same infinite Creator who fashioned our mortal bodies with such marvelous adaptation of means to end.
One thing is sure, were a person from the Moon to set foot upon our planet, he would estimate us to be as far out of harmony with his standards of beauty as we should consider him to be out of harmony with ours.
As might be expected, these people are very peculiar in their habits. There is a small percentage of the population who are bright stars intellectually, while others are extremely indolent. When a person wins a record for laziness, it is said of him: "He is too lazy to eat his air."
The large city to which I had come was indeed a novel sight. Its buildings average in height one-third of ours, although they occupy nearly as much ground space. They are composed almost totally of non-combustible materials.
The window panes are not made of a brittle substance like glass, but resemble mica, except that they are more tough and durable. These Moonites are wiser than we in roofing their houses. They have discovered a mineral composition which in its plastic state is daubed over the roof. This, upon hardening, is proof against all conditions of weather and never needs replacing.
There are many striking features in their architecture. In general, it may be said that they are quite far advanced in constructive ability. Some of their larger buildings look like soldiers' forts, others resemble immense bee hives, while still others appear like odd-shaped synagogues.
We are their superiors in almost every line, especially in our knowledge and use of electricity and photography, and also in our manufacturing and scientific skill. However, they have decidedly surpassed us in imitative and creative art.
Their paintings express so accurately the emotions of the heart that I found myself in tears as I saw their masterpieces. For a time I forgot that I was on the Moon, so lost was I in elevated reflections all suggested by their art creations. How I wished that I could have taken some of these specimens with me!
From the Moon our Earth looks like a large wagon-wheel hanging in the heavens. It is amusing to learn of the various opinions and superstitions that are held regarding this wagon-wheel world. Some of the Moonites declare that it is a huge lantern, hung solely for their benefit, and scoff at the idea that it might be a world inhabited by civilized beings. More intelligent Moonites venture the theory that human life could exist on the great wagon-wheel, but declare that this is quite improbable, as the whole planet is enveloped by some thick, smoky substance in which they believe it would be impossible for human life to exist. Some look upon the Earth as the mother of the Moon, and regard the Sun as the father. This sex idea runs through most of their heathen religion, and there are more who worship the Earth and the Sun than there are who worship the God who created these heavenly bodies.
I prolonged my investigations without becoming visible, taking note of numberless facts of interest which will ever be a source of pleasure and value to me. At length, however, I concluded to take advantage of a privilege and power I possessed and, becoming visible, I entered a quiet room in the presence of a very distinguished man. He was by far the most highly educated person on the Moon.
I was more surprised than he, for I expected that he would be greatly agitated at my unaccountable appearance. Imagine my surprise when he sat motionless, gazing firmly into my face which to him was out of harmony with all ideas of correct form.
I was the first to speak, and although he had manifested outwardly such self possession, I soon learned that it was a mere show of stoicism in the presence of one whom he thought to be a spirit. In an incredibly short time we were on easy speaking terms and I was gaining the object of my visit.
Among the many things of interest that I learned from this famous character were facts concerning the history of the Moon. According to the information he gave me, I figured that human life had existed on the Moon thousands of years before its appearance on the Earth. Scientifically I could not account for this on any other ground than that the Moon, being a much smaller orb, cooled off sufficiently to sustain life on its surface long before any form of life could exist on our Earth.
The Moonities of the old era were a prosperous and progressive people, far outshining their successors who now occupy the sphere. After making history for several thousand years, the human race had grown to one hundred million in numbers, and civilization had reached a surprising degree of perfection.
In those long-ago ages the Moon was a much more fertile garden than now. Luxury and refinement were enjoyed by the favored sons of that period, and no one dreamed of the horrible fate that was to sweep practically the whole race into the regions of death. My intelligent informer used excessive language in trying to picture the unequaled catastrophe that put an end to the old era.
My interest was unbounded, and with awed breath I continued listening as he described the cause of this great and terrible cataclysm.
"It all occurred about five thousand years ago," he said. "The Moon was shaken by subterraneous rumblings, followed by fiery ejections, covering a period of nearly one and one-half wagon-wheel revolutions. Whole cities were ruined, fertile valleys covered and human life was almost annihilated."
I knew what my informant meant by "one and one-half wagon-wheel revolutions." This would be a period of about forty days and nights of earthly time. Do you wonder that my mind flew back to the forty days and nights of rain that destroyed, at one time, on our Earth, the whole human family, except the few who were saved in the ark?
"What are the evidences of this horrible world-ending?" I asked.
"They are on every hand. Have you not yet seen the vast craters, the mountains of barren cinder, the stumps of immense pillars, partly excavated? All this, and very much more, silently unfolds a tale of horror that can be faintly pictured only by the imagination. Think of a holocaust so terrible that one hundred million human creatures are thereby swept into death in the narrow compass of forty days! The records that have been brought down to us by the few survivors indicate the continual wails of horror rending the sky while the volcanic disturbances continued. Thousands and millions ran from place to place to find shelter from the storm of fire. At one place the surface would open and at another the lava would run. Fate, with a merciless hand, was dragging each one into one or another of the inevitable pits."
"How many were saved?" I asked with deepening interest.
"Parts of only eight families aggregating nineteen human beings."
"And how many people are on the Moon now?"
"Almost forty million."
"How do you account for this slow growth?" I asked after I had explained that on our globe a much larger number of inhabitants sprang from a smaller number than nineteen in a shorter period of time.
This allusion cost me much explanation, and, after I had selfishly brushed his rising questions aside, I learned that large companies of the Moonites had been swept into death by frequent volcanic outbursts all along the line of the centuries.
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