A Trip to Mars

Frank Aubrey

Fenton Ash

A Trip to Mars

PREFACE

In the case of my former book – my first written for young readers – I inserted a preface stating at some length my reasons for taking up the writing of stories of the kind. In it I pointed out that I had endeavoured to combine amusement with a little wholesome instruction; and that what might at first sight appear to be mere irresponsible flights of fanciful imagination had, in reality, in all cases some quasi-scientific foundation.

Doubtless such a preface is unusual in a work of fiction, and even more so in one intended chiefly for boys; but the result proved that its intention was understood and appreciated. I should show myself ungrateful indeed if I omitted, at the first opportunity, to record my deep sense of the kindly sympathy and approval with which that preface and the whole book were received by those reviewers – and they were many – who favoured my work with a notice.

In this, my second attempt in the same direction, I am conscious that I have set myself a difficult task, for it is not an easy matter to give verisimilitude to a story of a visit to another planet about which we necessarily know so little. Yet astronomy as a study is so fascinating, its mysteries and possibilities are so wonderful, so boundless, its influences so elevating and ennobling, that little apology is needed for any effort to attract the attention of youthful readers to it by making it the subject of a romance.

Amongst other difficulties the story-writer here meets with, by no means the least confronts him when he is called upon to decide which of various theories put forward by different scientists he shall adopt as a starting-point. Mars, for instance, may have an atmosphere which is like ours, or one that is either thinner or denser, or it may have no atmosphere at all. As to this nothing is known with certainty, and the most learned authorities differ one from another. In these circumstances, I have adopted the supposition which seems best suited to my story – namely, that the air there may be denser than it is on the surface of our globe; but I do not wish to be understood as asserting it as a fact. The same remark applies to the assumption that diamonds or other precious stones do not exist naturally in Mars. In regard to these two points, I have felt it may be allowable, as children say, to 'make believe' a little in forming a groundwork upon which to build up a story. As to the rest, I have refrained, in deference to the known prejudices of young people, from interjecting constant scientific explanations in the course of the narrative. Only sufficient has been introduced here and there to justify the hope that none will sit down to its perusal without getting up a little the wiser.

We are all of us, as Sir Isaac Newton so aptly yet reverently expressed it, 'only as children picking up pebbles on the seashore while the great ocean of knowledge lies stretched out before us.'

I shall be well satisfied if, in addition to affording pleasure to youthful readers, I enable them to pick up incidentally even so much as a few grains of the sand which lies beside the pebbles upon that wondrous, glorious shore.

THE AUTHOR.

CHAPTER I

THE FALL OF THE GREAT METEORITE

'What a magnificent night! What a scene! Jack, old man, I think you will have to go in to supper without me and leave me to myself. It seems a sort of sacrilege to go indoors – to exchange the moon's beautiful light for the miserable glimmer of a little oil-lamp, and this invigorating air off the sea for the smell of paraffin oil. Ugh!'

'You're a queer chap, Gerald; as dreamy, at times, as any girl, I declare! You amuse me vastly when you take on these sudden sentimental fits. When you are in this mood no stranger would ever imagine you were the same go-ahead, muscular young Christian you can prove yourself to be at other times.'

'Yes, I suppose I'm a bit of a dreamer, Jack. I 've been told it so many times that I fancy there must be somethin