Page:Life in a thousand worlds.djvu/92

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A GLIMPSE OF JUPITER.
87

manufacturing, and of the still greater views it promised to reveal.

Then I informed them of our system of science. They were astonished at the great civilization extant on Zo-ide, or our Earth. I told them that a subtile power lay dormant in the atoms and molecules of matter, which could be released and utilized, and that we in our world called it "electricity."

During the night I learned that the convolutions on the chin and forehead of a Jupiterite served the purpose of a new sense. By the aid of these convolutions any person of Jupiter can tell in daylight or darkness the nature of any surrounding substance, whether it be hard or soft, combustible or non-combustible, good for food or not. I confess that I was unable to grasp the idea intelligently. So the people on the Moon had the same difficulty in understanding the use of my nose.

Before morning dawned I informed my appreciative quartette that I would see them no more, that I had paused at Jupiter station long enough, and that I must be off on my vast excursion trip.