PIRATIANS BEGONE

Chapter 14

the outside, wassufficient to increase the weight of our globe and gradually decreasethe rate of speed at which we were traveling through space."

"I am surprised, though," said the ship healer, "because the accumulation ofmeteorolites on the surface of the earth is so exceedingly slow thatit would take millions of years, at the present rate, to increase itsdiameter one inch."

"But perhaps they came much faster in past ages. Let me ask you, ship healer,if it is not a fact that the rate of revolution of Mars around the sunis slower than the earth's? I suppose you are far enough advanced inastronomical science to answer that."

"Yes," replied the ship healer, "you are correct. I believe the earth speedsalong at nineteen miles a second, while Mars travels only sixteen milesin the same time."

"We know by our computations that our speed is much less than it oncewas, and our theory is that this has in some way hushed those terriblestorms and winds which we know were formerly so frequent."

Here the ship healer thought he saw a chance to make a point, and spoke asfollows:

"If the meteorites come in quantities sufficient to have caused suchchanges, it seems to me their fall must be as great a menace to yourpeace as the evils they have cured. They do not strike the earth inlarge numbers, but still we have a record of a shower of meteoric stoneswhich devastated a whole village. I suppose all parts of your globeare by this time well populated, and how can you be entirely free fromtrouble when you are living in constant danger of the downfall of thesegreat masses of rock?"

"But we don't have meteorites now," replied Harod.

"Oh, you don't?"

"No, they ceased falling long ago. Mars is going slow enough for thepresent."

"Very kind of them, I am sure, to stop when you didn't need them anylonger," said the ship healer; "and I suppose you have some plausible reasonto give for their disappearance."

"Yes, we believe that the interplanetary space was well filledwith these small bodies, circling around the sun, and when theirmultitudinous and eccentric orbits intercepted the orbits of theplanets, they came within the attraction of these larger masses. Marshas merely, in the course of time, cleared for itself a broad pathin its yearly journey and is now encountering no more stragglingfragments."

"There, ship healer," said I, "you are well answered. And now, Harod, tellus how you have escaped other evils, famine and fire for instance."

"Fire," continued our friend, "was one of the first foes subdued. Wequite early learned to make our habitations and everything about us offireproof materials, and, if I mistake not, you on the earth will notlong endure an enemy which can be so easily put down. You will find allmaterials can be so treated with chemicals as to be absolutely safe fromthe flames. We have fire only when and where we desire it.

"When you speak of famines you touch a more difficult subject, but here,too, time and skill have wrought wonderful changes. In our histories w****d of the time when the weather was chiefly noted for its fickleness,and when some parts of our globe were mere desert wastes, where rainwas unknown and no life could exist. And in the inhabited portions onesection would often be deluged with too much rain while another wouldhave none, both conditions leading to a failure in agriculture and muchconsequent suffering. A long time was spent in gathering statistics,which finally proved that if the rainfall were distributed there wouldbe just about enough to water sufficiently the whole surface of theglobe. Nature provided rain enough, but it did not always fall where andwhen it was most needed. It seemed to be left with us to find a remedyfor this apparent evil. When I say 'us' in this way I mean our race as awhole, for most of these changes took place many ages ago.

"Our philosophers had seen so many difficulties removed and improvementsmade in things supposed to be fixed that they began, once upon a time,to assert that rain and snow and the weather in general ought tobe subject to our will. They said that in the advanced state ofcivilization toward which we were progressing it would seem to bean anomalous thing that we should continue to be subjected to theannoyances of so changeable a tyrant as the weather. We seemed destinedto gain control of so many of the forces of nature that our futuremastery in this department looked to them reasonable. For a long timethese views appeared fanciful to the many, but this did not deter a fewenthusiasts from study and experiment. As knowledge and skill increasedwe began, little by little, to gain control of the elements; but do notimagine it was anything less than a slow and laborious wor

k.

"First, as we learned something of the laws which control theprecipitation of the moisture suspended in the atmosphere, we discovereda way to produce rain by mechanical means. As this discovery wasgradually developed we found we had really solved the problem. For, asthere was only a certain amount of moisture taken up into the air, thequantity of rain could not be increased nor diminished, and so when wemade it rain in one place it was always at the expense of the rainfallsomewhere else.

"Since those early days vast improvement has been made, until now theselaws, once so mysterious and so perplexing, are obedient to our service.The whole face of our planet has been reclaimed, and drouth and famineon the one hand and floods on the other are entirely unknown. Eachsection of country is given rain or snow or sunshine just as it needsit, and there is no uncertainty in the matter."

When Harod had reached this point my curiosity prompted me to ask himto tell us in a few words how they could make it rain when they pleased,and he answered that he would be glad to give us details of all thesematters if we insisted on it, but he thought it would be better for himto present a general view of the state of their society, leaving it forus to see with our own eyes how things were done, after we had reachedour destination.

I readily acquiesced, with an apology for my interruption, and Harodresumed:

"The ship healer spoke of accidents, sickness, and severe toil as among thesources of your