by a closer view of those protracted pangs of celestial parturition into which the nebulous matrix had fallen. Those who were willing for the vast journey would bring back the description to those who were not, or who could not afford the time or the money.
There was quite a mania for this trip, and considerable numbers from Venus, and a sprinkling even from Mercury and Vulcan were tempted to join. They mostly preferred coming to us of the earth, so as to be under old White's approved leadership. There were still, even after this further thousand years, as I dreamt, many Lower Solars lingering along the Solar Equator, and not a few of these, as they confessed, might have joined us also, but for the inconvenience they felt, and the heavy counter-energy cost they were continuously put to, on quitting the accustomed enormous gravity of the sun's surface. Their squat room-taking figures, too, rendered them somewhat ungenial fellow-travellers. But again, our company, upon the celestial ground of destination, was not to be limited, by any means, to our own small solar system; for many systems around us were fired by the same ambitious object, and simultaneous expeditions from each system had been agreed to. We could sufficiently trust our latest universe charts, so as to meet one another at appointed stations in space, and it was quite expected that spectators and their vehicles, in form of a vast amphitheatre, would more or less surround the agitated expanse of the nebula.
And lastly, as to the question of speed. White, with his usual and well-practised daring, would hardly condescend to put limits to his powers, short of electric-light message speed itself. Give him the open
