Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1908-12-05

| perintendent, who had possessed him.
| self of the dead mans manuscript,
sent 1t at once to professor of Ian
| guages for translation. When the
English version was returned, he read
It, he read 1t and kept his counsel.
Then, the time of his annual vacation
approaching, he left New York and
told no one where he was going.
First of all he went to Santa Fe,
n. Nj. Thence, by horseback, he trav-
ersed the mountain trails OF the north
western corner of the territory until
he arrived at the "Lago de los De-
monios"-the Lake Of Demons. The
water bearing this uncanny name lies
In a round, cup-shaped valley, which
| 20 years ago was green and empty.
Few persons ever passed, but one day
a band Of trappers found the valley
two-thirds filled with blue water. and
bordered with dangerous-looking blue
mud. Their ponies snorted and held
back from entering this mud, which
was thereupsn deemed bottomless. 1t
was not surprising that a cloudburst
or a defected river should have filed
the valley, but it was observed that,
however the wind might blow, no
wave ever ruffied the surface Of the
laHe. 1t remained smooth and placid
as II 1t had been block OF solid
glass. Game deserted the neighboring
hills and horses manifested the ut
most reluctance to approach the
strange water, 50 that 1t Is not re-
markable that the superstitious Mex
leans should have come to believe in
the evil influences of the place.
But about the middle of January,
1899, a passing traveller found the wa
tiers Of the lake much lowered. with no
Quicksands In sight. More than that,
fresh breeze drove the blue water
breaking upon the shore, and his horse
manifested no reluctance to drink
freely Grouse drummed in the thickets,
deer fed in the chaparral, and 1t was
as il an evil spell had suddenly been
lifted from the place. The traveller
told of these things in Taos, and his
report was speedily corroborated, but
the lake. continued to be known by its
ill-omened name.
The superintendent rode around this
mysterious sheet of water, explored
the hills near by and .meditated deep
ly for some hours. Then he returned
to Santa Fe and to New York, with
the air of a man who has accomplished
his mission. His first act after re-
turning was to re-read the dead mans
statement:
my real name is Paul Zphanoff," 1t
ran. "and I am of Polish birth. My
father was killed in the Polish insur-
rection of 1876; one of my brothers
was accused of the distribution OF So
cialistic literature, and died In the
mercury mines; my other brother dis
appeared in the fortress Of st. Peter
and st. Paul on a similar charge, and
his fate was never known. My mother
died soon after this. 1t is not wonder
full, then, that I should have grown
up with the fever of revolution in my
veins.
I'm 1872 l fed from Russia to
France, where / began my scientific
studies at the University of Paris.
Very soon l ran short of money, and
continued so for many years, living
among the poor, for all my funds
were expended in apparatus and ex-
periments. But shall never cease to
be thankful for those years, for l grew
to know the poor. l saw the hideous
industrial despotism as the slaves see
it, only one degree less than that OF
the car. and that which had made
me a nihilist in Russia made me
socialist In Paris.
-Four years later came my arrest,
on an absurd charge, but leading to a
years Imprisonment. I shall not
dwell upon this outrage, for 1T has
been amply avenged. 1t was the one
thing needed to precipitate my reso-
luton, and when l was released l
Joined hands with the committee of
the red terror.
Then, in 1876, made my grand dis
covery-the discovery which has re-
suited in making me the most powerful
and irresponsible ruler that the century
has seen. The police will remember,
IL no one else does, the sudden disap-
pearance from half a dozen capitals of
a hundred of the most dangerous and
most suspected labor agitators and So
cialists of Europe. They had departed
with me, and we had gone to realize
the ideal of centuries Of dreamers-an
industrial and ungoverned community.
But for its success we had conditions
of isolation impossible heretofore.
THAT was due entirely to my in
vention. Briefly speaking, it was
based on an extension of the wave
theory of force. Every one knows that
matter in a comparatively low rate of
molecular vibration produces sound,
running up the gamut, till, after an
interval of silence, heat and light rays
are produced. Beyond the violet of
the spectrum lie the Roentgen rays,
and beyond this nothing has been