[Illustration: THE SOLUTION STILL ESCAPED HIM.]
"Good comparison, friend Ardan;" observed M'Nicholl. "Lava, slag, volcanic eminences, vitreous matter glistening like ice, piles of scoria, pitch black shadows, dazzling streaks, like rivers of light breaking over jagged rocks--these are now beneath my eye--these alone I can detect--not a man--not an animal--not a tree. The great American Desert is a land of milk and honey in comparison with the joyless orb over which we are now moving. However, even yet we can predicate nothing positive. The atmosphere may have taken refuge in the depths of the chasms, in the interior of the craters, or even on the opposite side of the Moon, for all we know!"
"Still we must remember," observed Barbican, "that even the sharpest eye cannot detect a man at a
