reasonable to suppose that some vast treasures
are there, which the Earth will some day be in pressing need of? That it
is a great warehouse of earthly necessities, which will be discovered
just as they are being exhausted here? And who knows but _we_ may be the
discoverers ourselves? If the satellite is uninhabited, it will belong
to the first explorers. Its treasures may be ours! We shall at least
have a monopoly on the only known method of getting there and bringing
them away."

"Ah! now you tempt me to go with you," I said, in a mild excitement.
"Now I see myself, erect on the rudder, a new Count of Monte Cristo,
waving the long punt-pole majestically, and exclaiming, '_The Moon is
mine!_'"

CHAPTER IV

What is on Mars?

"I only wish you _would_ come along with me," replied the doctor. "I
have no idea what intelligent, educated person I can persuade to
accompany me, unless he is given an interest in the discoveries. You are
the person most interested in the enterprise, and you should go. If it
is money-making that detains you here, you may rest assured that we
shall find fortunes for both of us somewhere."

"I am a slave to the excitement of my business," I answered. "I could
not possibly spend two or three months in a lonely cell, flying through
space, without a ticker or a quotation of the market. Besides, there are
people on the earth I should not care to leave, unless I was certain of
getting back soon."

"You may be sure of excitement enough, and of a continuously novel kind.
Besides, of what interest are the people of this earth, who are all
alike, and whom we have known all our lives, compared with the rapture
of finding a new and different race, of investigating another
civilization, and exploring an entire new world?"

"I shall have to warn my friends about you and have myself watched, lest
you persuade me and run away with me when the time comes. If your
adventures are half as exciting and varied as your theories, I should
hate to miss them. But tell me why you have chosen Mars for a first
visit."

"Because of all the planets he is the one which most resembles the Earth
in all the essential conditions of life. He is the Earth's little
brother, situated next farther out in the path from the Sun. He has the
same seasons, day and night of the same length, and zones of about the
same extent. He possesses air, water, and sufficient heat to make
habitation by us quite possible. Moreover, his