To Mars via the Moon. By Mark Wicks. (Seeley and
Co. 5s.) —Edgar Poe tells a wonderful story of an aerial voyage in his "Strange Adventure which Befell Hans Pfaal." It is remarkably vivid, and one might almost say credible till the author gets tired, as it were, and ends it with a farce. Poe is content with the moon ; Mr. Wicks takes us to Mars, where his hero finds just the sort of world which Professor Lowell has imagined. The "canals" are exactly what the eminent American astronomer would have us think, channels of water, never very broad, with great belts of vegetation on either side. As for the Martians, they are all that could be desired. None of the vice and unhappiness of the earth exists. In morals and in intellect, in stature even, the Martians are far beyond us. One of the hero's companions falls in love with a Martian maiden, but the affair is discouraged because a bride of seven feet and a half would be too startling. The book is perhaps a little overloaded with detail ; still, it is quite read- able ; we can easily believe that it will insinuate some astro- nomical knowledge iuto heads where it would scarcely have found its way by more regular means.
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