d, rooted to the ground, every
nerve straining to catch a faint melodious sound that seemed to fill the
air. No music on Earth could equal it! Before me arose a vision of
beautiful flowers--flowers that had thoughts as beautiful as themselves,
and that through the genius of a man poured forth their souls in a
volume of melody, so beautiful as to beggar description.

As Almos was perfectly familiar with this remarkable invention, a
gradual comprehension of the wonderful genius of Sarraccus, its
inventor, came to me. Tall, calm, and of dignified bearing; a man of
great learning, but of few words; Sarraccus had won the love and
admiration of all by his discovery of the regenerating rays that had
given the people of Mars perpetual life and health. He it was who had
discovered super-radium, and this wonderful power had, in time, been
used by others until many important inventions had developed from it,
such as the virator, the radioscope, the radiphone, illumination without
expenditure of power or material, and several minor inventions, all of
which, however, contributed greatly to the comfort and advancement of
this great people.

The aerenoid, one of his most important inventions, had made it possible
to reach any part of the globe within an hour, and this, coming at the
time of the great change in the social conditions on Mars, had expedited
the movement to a wonderful extent by bringing the inhabitants of every
quarter of the globe into daily contact with one another. So easy and
rapid was this means of transit through the air, that cities and towns
were soon abolished, and in the process of time, Mars attained the
ideal, and became a World Beautiful--the magnificent estate of one large
family.

And now Sarraccus had given the flowers a voice to sing of their
beauty. In the mind of this great genius was conceived the idea that
inasmuch as there is ineffable beauty to the eye in the soft colors and
shades of a flower--beauty too rare for the hand of man to
reproduce--there must also be a corresponding sweetness of sound or
vibration, if it were possible to transform its beauty into sound.
Light-waves, he reasoned, varying according to the color and shade of
the object, might be changed into sound-waves, if an instrument were
made sensitive enough to vibrate in response to these extremely delicate
undulations of light. The vibrations would then vary in accordance with
the light-waves, and a harmony of sound, correspondi