The herald., 1898-02-06
vented for the approaching war with

t Mars.
n A most impressive public exhibition
~ Tho nowers of the little dislntegra
tor was given amid the ruins of New
, Yorl On lower Broadway part o
q the walls of one of the gigantic build
. ings which had been destroyed by th'
NJart;ans. impended in such "a mamnel
tbat n threatened at any moment W
+, toll unon the heads of the passers-by
rrhe E,lre Department did not dare K
= to,cb II To blow 1t up seemed dan
eerous expedient, because aireauy ne"
budldinrs had been erected In its neigh
horhood. and their safety would be I'M
, perilled by the flying fragments. ihe
fact happened to come 10 my
knowledge. 4,
Here is an opportunity" 1 SAID uc
Mr.. Edison, ito try the powers OF your
machine on a large scale a.,
; Capital" he instantly replied
shall go at once"
For the work now in hand II was
necessary to employ battery OF ols-
integrators. since THE field OF destruc.
tion covered by each was compara'Ve-
ly limited. All of the impending Por-
tions of the wall must be destroyed AZ
once and together. for otherwise the
danger would rather be accentuateo
than annihilated. The disirtegrators
were placed upon the roof of a neign-
boring building, so adjusted that their
fields of destruction overlaTped one
another upon the wall. Their indexes
were all set to correspond with the VI
bration period of the peculiar kind OF
brick OF which the wall consisted. Then
the energy was turned on, and a shout
of wonder arose from the multitudes
which had assembled at a safe distance
to witness the experiment.
The wall did not fall; it did not break
| asunder; no fragments shot this way
| and that and high in the air; there
was no explosion; no shock or noise
disturbed the still atmosphere-onlya a
soft whirri that seemed to pervade
everything and to tlngle in the nerves
of the spectators; and-what had been
was not! The wall was gone! but high
above and all around the place where
it had hung over the street with it's
threat of death there appeared. swift
ly billowing outward in every direction
n faint. blush cloud. 1t was the
scattered atoms of the destroyed wall
No further demonstration was need
ed. The enthusiasm that had been ex-
cited by the success of the airships was
fairly cast into the shade by the out
bursts of joyous anticipations which
greeted THE success of Mr.. Edsor's in
vention for the destruction OF the
Martians.
And now the cry "On to Mars!" was
heard from all sides. But for such an
enterprise funds We're needed-millions
upon millions. Yet some of the fair
est and richest portions of the earth
had been impoverished by the frightful
ravages of those enemies who had
dropped down upon them from the
skies. Still. the money must be had.
The salvation of the planet. as every
body was now convinced. depended
upon the successful negotiation OF n
gigantic war fund. in comparison with
which all the expenditures in all the
wars that had been waged by the ma
tions for 1000 years would be insignifi-
cant. The electrical ships and the vi
bration engines must be constructed bv
scores and thousands. Only Mr.. Edi-
sons imr:ense resources and unriyalled
equipment had enabled him to make
the models whose powers had been so
satisfactorily shown. But to multi
PiS uIpii u W SCsiIS was NOT
only beyond the resources of any indi
vidual-hardly nation on the globe
in the period OF its greatest prosperity
could have undertaken such a work.
All the nations, then. must now con-
join. They must unite their resources.
and. IL necessary, exhaust all their
boards, in order to raise the needed
sum.
Negotiations We're at once begun.
The United States naturally took the
lead. and their leadership was never
for moment questioned abroad.
Washington was selected as the place
of meeting for a great congfess of the
nations. Washington. luckily, had
had been one of the places which had
not been touched by the Martians. But
If Washington had been a city COM
posed of hotels alone. and every hotel
SO great as to be a little city in itself.
it would have been utterly insufficient
for the accommodation of the innumer
able throngs which now fiocked to the
banks of the Potomac. But when was
American enterprise ~requal to
crisis? The necessary hotels, lodging
houses and restaurants We're construct
ed with astounding rapidity. One
could see the city growing and expand
ing day by day and week after week.
1t flowed over Georgetown Heights: il
leaped the Potomac; it spread east and
west, south and north; square mile
after square mile of territory was
buried under the advancing buildings.
until the gigantic city which had thus
grown up like mushroom in a night.
was fully capable of accommodating all
its expected guests.
At first it had not been intended that
the heads of the various governments
should in person attend the universal
congress, but as the enterprise went
on, as the enthusiasm spread as the
necessity for haste became more ap-
parent through the warning notes
which were constantly sounded from
the observatories where the astrono-
mers were nightly beholding new evil
dences of threatening preparations in
Mars. the kings and queens of the old
world felt that they could not remain
at home; that their proper place was
at the new focus and centre Of the
whole world-the city of Washington.
Without concerted action, without in
terchange of suggestion, this impulse
seemed to seize all the old world mon
archs at once. Suddenly cablegrams
flashed to the Government at Washing
ton, announcing that Queen Victoria,
the Emperor William, the Gar Mich
olas, Alphonso of Spain, with his moth