the ray
might fail. They had those concrete balls stuck all around so that the
officers at least could escape, if it did. Their best technical men
must have been running the control room. They made sure to have that
specially strong. And the wave caused by the water pouring into the
hole swept me right over here, just where I started from."

Jim had both hands on my shoulders, was pushing me down. "Whoa, baby,
whoa. That's just as clear as a darkness-rayed area. Count up to ten,
and start all over again."

"'Ten-_shun_!"

The general himself strode into the room. And then I _had_ to tell my
story straight.

A BEE'S BREADTH

The breath of a bee, important because of its indication of the health
of the insect in winter and of the efficiency of the sweet-producing
hive in summer, was recently measured by Prof. G. H. Vansell of the
University of California. To do this he conducted the air coming from
the hive trough a tube into bulbs containing absorbent chemicals.
Allowing for the natural carbon dioxide and water of the outside air,
he weighed these bulbs, getting an analysis of the breath of the hive
by the amount of water vapor and carbon dioxide the chemicals in the
bulbs had picked up.

He found that in winter when the bees were inactive the average hourly
water loss from the entire hive was thirty six millionths of an ounce.
In summer when the insects were hard at work making honey and
gathering nectar the water loss was twenty five times as great. The
carbon dioxide output, however, did not even double in summer.

_A Meeting Place for Readers of_ Astounding Stories

[Illustration: The Readers' Corner]

_And That's That_

Dear Editor:

May I have just a little room in "The Readers' Corner" to
answer Mr. Meek's argument and defend myself from the charge
of hasty reading? You will remember that I did not write my
letter immediately after the publication of the first
Heaviside Layer story, but waited until the appearance of
the second, a "cooling-off" period of three months. In that
time I re-read the story and considered it at length. I
don't call that hasty reading. Besides, the flaw in the
story is so obvious that even a "hasty" reading should
suffice to find it.

I can't argue about the matter of meteors because Mr. Meek
has not given any figures concerning the density or
viscosity of his medium. But I can say that to my