CHAPTER II.

THE MARTIAN.


I returned to my rooms with a much clearer conception of the conditions
with which I had to cope, if the waves to which my apparatus responded
should prove to be Martian waves. My mind was fully made up to proceed
as if this were an established fact, as, in order to give my best
efforts to improving my apparatus, I felt that I must eliminate all
scepticism. I clearly appreciated the advantage of moving my instrument
outside, where I could command a view of Mars for a much longer time,
but the necessity of being in my laboratory while I was engaged in these
improvements, decided me against any immediate change.

Accordingly I proceeded the next morning to make the changes I deemed
necessary, being goaded into a fever of haste by a feeling of
suppressed excitement. The composition I had used in the form of a film
I now liquefied, having concluded that in the former condition, although
necessary in my original experiments, it now only retarded the vibration
of the wires.

That this composition was essential there could be no doubt, as it was
its elements that responded to the agent used on Mars to project the
waves. I therefore liquefied the film substance, being careful in so
doing not to alter its properties. I then procured wires, much thinner
than those I had previously used, and dipped them-into the liquid. After
they had become perfectly dry, I stretched them on the frame as close