"Yes, indeed, what an elephant you have become," said Mr. Edison.
Lord Kelvin screwed his eyegla.s.s in his eye, and carefully inspected the balance.
"It"s quite right," he said. "You do indeed weigh five ounces and a quarter. Too much; altogether too much," he added. "You shouldn"t do it, you know."
"Perhaps the fault is in the asteroid," suggested Professor Sylva.n.u.s P.
Thompson.
"Quite so," exclaimed Lord Kelvin, a look of sudden comprehension overspreading his features. "No doubt it is the internal const.i.tution of the asteroid which is the cause of the anomaly. We must look into that.
Let me see? This gentleman"s weight is three and one-half times as great as it ought to be. What element is there whose density exceeds the mean density of the earth in about that proportion?"
"Gold," exclaimed one of the party.
For a moment we were startled beyond expression. The truth had flashed upon us.
This must be a golden planet this little asteroid. If it were not composed internally of gold it could never have made me weight three times more than I ought to weight.
"But where is the gold?" cried one.
"Covered up, of course," said Lord Kelvin. "Buried in Stardust. This asteroid could not have continued to travel for millions of years through legions of s.p.a.ce strewn with meteoric particles without becoming covered with the inevitable dust and grime of such a journey. We must dig now, and then doubtless we shall find the metal."
This hint was instantly acted upon. Something that would serve as a spade was seized by one of the men, and in a few minutes a hole had been dug in the comparatively light soil of the asteroid.
I shall never forget the sight, nor the exclamations of wonder that broke forth from all of us standing around, when the yellow gleam of the precious metal appeared under the "star dust." Collected in huge ma.s.ses it reflected the light of the sun from its hiding place.
Evidently the planet was not a solid ball of gold, formed like a bullet run in a mold, but was composed of nuggets of various sizes, which had come together here under the influence of their mutual gravitation, and formed a little metallic planet.
Judging by the test of weight which we had already tried, and which had led to the discovery of the gold, the composition of the asteroid must be the same to its very center.
In an a.s.semblage of famous scientific men such as this the discovery of course, immediately led to questions as to the origin of this incredible phenomenon.
How did these ma.s.ses of gold come together? How did it chance that, with the exception of the thin crust of the asteroid nearly all its substance was composed of the precious metal?
One a.s.serted that it was quite impossible that there should be so much gold at so great a distance from the sun.
"It is the general law," he said, "that the planets increase in density towards the sun. There is every reason to think that the inner planets possess the greater amount of dense elements, while the outer ones are comparatively light."
But another referred to the old theory that there was once in this part of the solar system a planet which had been burst in pieces by some mysterious explosion, the fragments forming what we know as the asteroids. In his opinion, this planet might have contained, a large quant.i.ty of gold, and in the course of ages the gold, having, in consequence of its superior atomic weight, not being so widely scattered by the explosion as some of the other elements of the planet, had collected itself together in this body.
But I observed that Lord Kelvin and the other more distinguished men of science said nothing during this discussion. The truly learned man is the truly wise man. They were not going to set up the theories without sufficient facts to substain them. The one fact that the gold was here was all they had at present. Until they could learn more they were not prepared to theorize as to how the gold got there.
And in truth, it must be confessed, the greater number of us really cared less for the explanation of the wonderful fact than we did for the fact itself.
Gold is a thing which may make its appearance anywhere and at any time without offering any excuses or explanations.
"Phew! Won"t we be rich?" exclaimed a voice.
"How are we going to dig it and get it back to earth?" asked another.
"Carry it in your pockets," said one.
"No need of staking claims here," remarked another. "There is enough for everybody."
Mr. Edison suddenly turned the current of talk.
"What do you suppose those Martians were doing here?"
"Why, they were wrecked here."
"Not a bit of it," said Mr. Edison. "According to your own showing they could not have been wrecked here. This planet hasn"t gravitation enough to wreck them by a fall, and besides I have been looking at their machines and I know there has been a fight."
"A fight?" exclaimed several, p.r.i.c.king up their ears.
"Yes," said Mr. Edison. "Those machines bear the marks of the lightning of the Martians. They have been disabled, but they are made of some metal or some alloy of metals unknown to me, and consequently they have withstood the destructive force applied to them, as our electric ships were unable to withstand it. It is perfectly plain to me that they have been disabled in a battle. The Martians must have been fighting among themselves."
"About the gold!" exclaimed one.
"Of course. What else was there to fight about?"
At this instant one of our men came running from a considerable distance, waving his arms excitedly, but unable to give voice to his story, in the inappreciable atmosphere of the asteroid, until he had come up and made telephonic connection with us.
"There are a lot of dead Martians over there," he said. "They"ve been cleaning one another out."
"That"s it," said Mr. Edison. "I knew it when I saw the condition of those machines."
"Then this is not a wrecked expedition, directed against the earth?"
"Not at all."
"This must be the great gold mine of Mars," said the president of an Australian mining company, opening both his eyes and his mouth as he spoke.
"Yes, evidently that"s it. Here"s where they come to get their wealth."
"And this," I said, "must be their harvest time. You notice that this asteroid, being several million miles nearer to the sun than Mars is, must have an appreciably shorter period of revolution. When it is in conjunction with Mars, or nearly so, as it is at present, the distance between the two is not very great, whereas when it is in the opposite part of its...o...b..t they are separated by an enormous gap in s.p.a.ce and the sun is between them.
"Manifestly in the latter case it would be perilous if not entirely impossible for the Martians to visit the golden asteroid, but when it is near Mars, as it is at present, and as it must be periodically for several years at a time, then is their opportunity.
"With their projectile cars sent forth with the aid of the mysterious explosives which they possess, it is easy for them under such circ.u.mstances, to make visits to the asteroid.
"Having obtained all the gold they need or all that they can carry, a comparatively slight impulse given to their car, the direction of which is carefully calculated, will carry them back again to Mars."
"If that"s so," exclaimed a voice, "we had better look out for ourselves! We have got into a very hornet"s nest! If this is the place where the Martians come to dig gold, and if this is the height of their season, as you say, they are not likely to leave us here long undisturbed."
"These fellows must have been pirates that they had the fight with,"
said another.
"But what"s become of the regulars, then?"
"Gone back to Mars for help, probably, and they"ll be here again pretty quick, I am afraid!"