t is meant
to destroy, throughout a distance almost indefinite; at least I put
it modestly when I say from 500 to 1000 miles. And their mathematical
science as applied to such purpose is so nicely accurate, that on
the report of some observer in an air-boat, any member of the vril
department can estimate unerringly the nature of intervening obstacles,
the height to which the projectile instrument should be raised, and the
extent to which it should be charged, so as to reduce to ashes within a
space of time too short for me to venture to specify it, a capital twice
as vast as London.

Certainly these Ana are wonderful mathematicians--wonderful for the
adaptation of the inventive faculty to practical uses.

I went with my host and his daughter Zee over the great public museum,
which occupies a wing in the College of Sages, and in which are hoarded,
as curious specimens of the ignorant and blundering experiments of
ancient times, many contrivances on which we pride ourselves as recent
achievements. In one department, carelessly thrown aside as obsolete
lumber, are tubes for destroying life by metallic balls and an
inflammable powder, on the principle of our cannons and catapults, and
even still more murderous than our latest improvements.

My host spoke of these with a smile of contempt, such as an artillery
officer might bestow on the bows and arrows of the Chinese. In another
department there were models of vehicles and vessels worked by steam,
and of an air-balloon which might have been constructed by Montgolfier.
"Such," said Zee, with an air of meditative wisdom--"such were the
feeble triflings with nature of our savage forefathers, ere they had
even a glimmering perception of the properties of vril!"

This young Gy was a magnificent specimen of the muscular force to which
the females of her country attain. Her features were beautiful, like
those of all her race: never in the upper world have I seen a face so
grand and so faultless, but her devotion to the severer studies had
given to her countenance an expression of abstract thought which
rendered it somewhat stern when in repose; and such a sternness became
formidable when observed in connection with her ample shoulders and
lofty stature. She was tall even for a Gy, and I saw her lift up a
cannon as easily as I could lift a pocket-pistol. Zee inspired me with a
profound terror--a terror which increased when we came into a department
of the museum appropriated to