THE GREEN MACHINE. By F. A. Ridley. (Noel Douglas. 7s.
6d. net.)—The great scientist and explorer, Jinks, travels to Mars on an unspecified kind of machine—at any rate, there are not details enough for anyone to hope to repeat the journey ; and there he finds that evolution has gone on much as it did on earth. One vast difference, how- ever, is that the lords of creation on Mars are a giant species of ants. They have great intellectual powers—it seems that we ourselves are babies in comparison—but individually they have no initiative : indeed, there is no trace of individualism anywhere ; they have not even a word for "I.". Their government, therefore is rigorously and ruthlesslyi socialistic ; the anVmen never think of objecting to the elimination of the unfit, Or to the sacrifice- of their own lives for the community. Jinks they regard as one of the lower animals, with a slight glimmering of reason ; and are so disgusted with his misuse of that reason that they decide he should be put out of the way. There is great verve and imagination in the story ; but Mr. Ridley is not wholly convincing in his science. It seems stRinge, for example, that Jinks should be in many ways better adapted for life on Mars than the inhabitants them- selves. Owing to the red glare of the atmosphere, for instance, the eyes of the Martian animals are of no use during the daytime. It seems something of a blunder-in the process
of evolution, that they should have developed such inefficient . _ Organs-. . .
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