t slender streams of oxygen. You will learn by and
by what use the Saturnians make of this dangerous gas, which, as you
recollect, constitutes about one fifth of your own atmosphere. Saturn
has large lead mines, but no other metal is found on this planet.
The inhabitants have nothing else to make tools of, except stones and
shells. The mechanical arts have therefore made no great progress among
them. Chopping down a tree with a leaden axe is necessarily a slow
process.

So far as the Saturnians can be said to have any pride in anything, it
is in the absolute level which characterizes their political and social
order. They profess to be the only true republicans in the solar system.
The fundamental articles of their Constitution are these:

All Saturnians are born equal, live equal, and die equal.

All Saturnians are born free,--free, that is, to obey the rules laid
down for the regulation of their conduct, pursuits, and opinions, free
to be married to the person selected for them by the physiological
section of the government, and free to die at such proper period of life
as may best suit the convenience and general welfare of the community.

The one great industrial product of Saturn is the bread-root. The
Saturnians find this wholesome and palatable enough; and it is well they
do, as they have no other vegetable. It is what I should call a most
uninteresting kind of eatable, but it serves as food and drink, having
juice enough, so that they get along without water. They have a
tough, dry grass, which, matted together, furnishes them with clothes
sufficiently warm for their cold-blooded constitutions, and more than
sufficiently ugly.

A piece of ground large enough to furnish bread-root for ten persons
is allotted to each head of a household, allowance being made for the
possible increase of families. This, however, is not a very important
consideration, as the Saturnians are not a prolific race. The great
object of life being the product of the largest possible quantity
of bread-roots, and women not being so capable in the fields as the
stronger sex, females are considered an undesirable addition to society.
The one thing the Saturnians dread and abhor is inequality. The whole
object of their laws and customs is to maintain the strictest equality
in everything,--social relations, property, so far as they can be said
to have anything which can be so called, mode of living, dress, and all
other matters. It is their