Issue 1.2, May 1926

Thank You! editorial by Hugo Gernsback

A Trip to the Center of the Earth, chapters 1-15, by Jules Verne

Mesmeric Revelation, by Edgar Allan Poe

The Crystal Egg, by H.G. Wells

The Infinite Vision, by Charles C. Winn

The Man From the Atom, part 2, by G. Peyton Wertenbaker

Off on a Comet—or Hector Servadac, book 2, by Jules Verne

OUR COVER illustrates this month’s story, “The Crystal Egg”, by H.G. Wells. This is a supposed view of the planet Mars, as viewed by Mr. Cave through the Crystal Egg, from the earth.

Thank You!

by Hugo Gernsback, F.R.S.
May 1926 (1.2) p. 99.

The first issue of Amazing Stories has been on the newsstands only about a week, as we go to press with this, the second issue of the magazine; yet, even this short time, we have been deluged with an avalanche of letters of approval and constructive criticism from practically every section of the country, except the West—as we have not yet had time to hear from it.

We hereby take this medium to thank all our friends for their kind wishes and willingness to cooperate with us. We sincerely regret that we cannot answer each and every letter individually. There are simply too many letters—and we feel that our readers would rather we utilize our efforts in the improvement of the magazine.

After all, it is your paper, and we are striving hard to please you. Judging from the various comments, the first issue of Amazing Stories was just about right—the stories pleased and the length of the shorter stories and the division of the long ones seemed satisfactory.

And it was with a feeling of gratification that we noted the almost unanimous condemnation of the so-called “sex-appeal” type of story that seems so much in vogue in this country now. Most of our correspondents seemed to heave a great sigh of relief in at last finding a literature that appeals to the imagination, rather than carrying a sensational appeal to the emotions. It is that which justifies our new venture—our expenditure of time and money.

The letters, extracts from which are printed below, seem to best express the general trend of opinion.

A Trip to the Center of the Earth, 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 1-15

by Jules Verne
Published in French as Voyage au centre de la Terre, 1864
Published in Amazing Stories, May 1926, pp. 100-123, 135.

INTRODUCTION. Having won the attention of the public with Five Weeks in a Balloon, Jules Verne wrote in rapid succession several truly masterly tales. Of these remarkable inventions of the human mind, A Trip to the Center of the Earth was the first to be completed in its present form. It was published in 1864, in a series of books by Verne, denominated “Voyages Extraordinaires.” This series, started in that year by the publisher Hetzel, has been continued to recent times.

This particular “Voyage” has sometimes been declared our author’s masterpiece. In it he for the first time gives free rein to that bold yet scientifically exact imagination whereby he has constructed for us in fancy the entire universe. There is nothing in all the daring visions of this tale which, even today our scientists would declare impossible. The interior of the earth is still unknown; and there may well be rifts, passages, descending from extinct volcanoes and penetrating far within. There may well be huge cavities, bubbles left in the cooling mass, vast enough to harbor inland seas, and shelter many of the ancient forms of life now extinct upon earth’s surface.

The main scientific objection to this, as indeed to most of the more fanciful of Verne’s tales, lies in the extravagant means he employs to bring his explorers home again from their reckless ventures. But, as romance obviously demands their return somehow, science discreetly accepts in silence the astonishing accidents and coincidences whereby they escape the doom they have invited.

In his immortal story, A Trip to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne has quite outdone himself. Not only was Jules Verne a master of the imaginative type of fiction, but he was a scientist of high caliber. Besides this, his intimate knowledge of geography, the customs and peculiarities of the various races, made it possible for him to write with authority on any of these subjects. So when he takes us to the center of the earth, via the route through Iceland, we get the feeling that, somehow, the story is real, and this, after all, is the test of any good story.

Instead of boring a hole into the bowels of the earth, Jules Verne was probably the first to think of taking the reader to unexplored depths through the orifice of an extinct volcano. He argues, correctly, that a dead crater would prove not only the safest, but perhaps the best route for such exploration. No one has as yet explored the very center of the earth, for at no time have we descended deeper than about a mile below the surface of the planet. Who knows, therefore, but that there may be tremendous discoveries ahead of the human race, once we penetrate into the great depths of the globe?

We have no right to assume that life in the interior of the earth is an impossibility. When our deep sea expeditions come home with specimens of fish that live at the bottom of the ocean, and under what appear to be unendurable pressures, where logic would assume there could be no life, we should not judge harshly that there can be no life in the depths of the earth. If there is an entrance to a great unexplored cavity within our planet, you are free to believe that some form of life exists there. Living beings can get along without light, and it is possible that some sort of light of the phosphorescent order can be found there. And, besides, nature has a trick all its own of circumventing impossibilities, as is well witnessed in many deep sea fish, in depths where no light ever penetrates, where many of them are equipped with luminous eyes and other light-giving organs.

1. My Uncle Makes a Great Discovery

Looking back to all that has occurred to me since that eventful day, I am scarcely able to believe in the reality of my adventures. They were truly so wonderful that even now I am bewildered when I think of them.

My uncle was a German, though I am English, he having married my mother’s sister. Being very much attached to his fatherless nephew, he invited me to study under him in his home in the fatherland. This home was in a large town, and my uncle a professor of philosophy, chemistry, geology, mineralogy, and many other ologies.

One day, after passing some hours in the laboratory—my uncle being absent at the time—I suddenly felt the necessity of renovating the tissues—i.e., I was hungry, and was about to rouse up our old French cook, when my uncle, Professor Von Hardwigg, suddenly opened the street door, and came rushing upstairs.

Now Professor Hardwigg, my worthy uncle, is by no means a bad sort of man; he is, however, choleric and original. To bear with him means to obey; and scarcely had his heavy feet resounded within our joint domicile than he shouted for me to attend upon him.

“Harry—Harry—Harry—”

Mesmeric Revelation

by Edgar Allan Poe
First published in Columbian Magazine, August 1844
Published in Amazing Stories, May 1926, pp. 124-127.

INTRODUCTION. In the last century mesmerism excited a great deal of attention and that quite famous lady Harriet Martmeau, a very celebrated writer in her day and one of the severest critics early America ever had, figured as one of its believers, and here Edgar Allan Poe uses it for a framework to surround some of his views on spiritual matter and the hereafter. It is a great mistake to take this favorite author as only an agreeable fiction writer, and it is impossible not to feel that had his life been different, had he not been overshadowed by poverty, and had he not led so troubled an existence, he would have figured as an enlightened philosopher, and as one whose views are far removed from the disagreeable pessimism so prevalent of the present day.

Whatever doubt may still envelop the rationale of mesmerism, its startling facts are now almost universally admitted. Of these latter, those who doubt, are your mere doubters by profession—an unprofitable and disreputable tribe. There can be no more absolute waste of time than the attempt to prove, at the present day, that man, by mere exercise of will, can so impress his fellow, as to cast him into an abnormal condition, of which the phenomena resemble very closely those of death, or at least resemble them more nearly than they do the phenomena of any other normal condition within our cognizance; that, while in this state, the person so impressed employs only with effort, and then feebly, the external organs of sense, yet perceives, with keenly refined perception, and through channels supposed unknown, matters beyond the scope of the physical organs; that, moreover, his intellectual faculties are wonderfully exalted and invigorated; that his sympathies with the person so impressing him are profound; and, finally, that his susceptibility to the impression increases with its frequency, while, in the same proportion, the peculiar phenomena elicited are more extended and more pronounced.

I say that these—which are the laws of mesmerism in its general features—it would be supererogation to demonstrate; nor shall I inflict upon my readers so needless a demonstration today. My purpose at present is a very different one indeed. I am impelled, even in the teeth of a world of prejudice, to detail without comment the very remarkable substance of a colloquy, occurring between a sleep-waker and myself.

The Crystal Egg

by H.G. Wells
First published in The New Review, May 1897
Published in Amazing Stories, May 1926, pp. 128-134.

INTRODUCTION. Here is a tremendous story by one of the greatest living scientifiction writers. Here is a story that will keep you guessing to the end—a story which will recur to your mind many years hence. Mr. Wells’ imagination is not running loose—he knows his science—and while the story at first glance may seem entirely too fantastic, no one knows but that it may, 5,000 years from now be quite tame and of everyday occurrence.

If a civilization on another world were sometime to communicate with us, there might be thousands of methods, to us undreamt of, by which this could be achieved. The crystal egg method which Mr. Wells uses in this story may be one of them. We who are accustomed to radio and who can bring voices out of the thin air with a pocket radio receptor, will not think that the crystal egg is impossible of fulfillment at some future date.

We recommend this amazing story to you.

There was, until a year ago, a little and very grimy-looking shop near Seven Dials, over which, in weather-worn yellow lettering, the name of “C. Cave, Naturalist and Dealer in Antiquities,” was inscribed. The contents of its window were curiously variegated. They comprised some elephant tusks and an imperfect set of chessmen, beads and weapons, a box of eyes, two skulls of tigers and one human, several moth-eaten stuffed monkeys (one holding a lamp), an old-fashioned cabinet, a flyblown ostrich egg or so, some fishing tackle, and an extraordinarily dirty, empty glass fishtank. There was also, at the moment the story begins, a mass of crystal, worked into the shape of an egg and brilliantly polished. And at that two people, who stood outside the window, were looking, one of them a tall, thin clergyman, the other a black-bearded young man of dusky complexion and unobtrusive costume. The dusky young man spoke with eager gesticulation, and seemed anxious for his companion to purchase the article.

While they were there, Mr. Cave came into his shop, his beard still wagging with the bread and butter of his tea. When he saw these men and the object of their regard, his countenance fell. He glanced guiltily over his shoulder, and softly shut the door. He was a little old man, with pale face and peculiar watery blue eyes; his hair was a dirty grey, and he wore a shabby blue frock coat, an ancient silk hat, and carpet slippers very much down at heel. He remained watching the two men as they talked. The clergyman went deep into his trouser pocket, examined a handful of money, and showed his teeth in an agreeable smile. Mr. Cave seemed still more depressed when they came into the shop.

The Infinite Vision

by Charles C. Winn
First published in Science and Invention, May 1924

Published in Amazing Stories, May 1926, pp. 136–39, 147.

INTRODUCTION. At the opposite extremes of the investigations of scientists are the studies of the electron and nucleus and quantum which have crowned such scientists as Milligan and Bohr and Rutherford tail with reputations which will never die. But on the other end of things we are surrounded by the stellar universe where miles are too small to be taken into account, and where the light year, which is an inconceivable number of miles for the ordinary mind, is the unit of distance, and into this great stellar universe the observers of the International Astronomical Society are striving to penetrate with their gigantic telescope mounted on the great observatory on the summit of the Andes Mountains. What did they see? What secrets were revealed to them? We have no more to say. Read the story.

“I tell you, gentlemen, this is a pretty pass of affairs. Here all the other branches of science are open to practically an unlimited development, while Astronomy is nearly strapped because of one thing—that we have apparently reached the limit of development of the telescope, as evidenced by these plates here. Something must be done. Can’t any of you suggest anything?” and the speaker paused and glared around the table.

It was a meeting of the International Astronomical Society, gathered to discuss the results of the trial of the giant 40 foot mercury reflector telescope which had recently been completed in the great Holton Observatory, situated high up among the South American Andes.

Evidently the results had been none too satisfactory, as evidenced by the grave and thoughtful expressions of the company. Holton, the chairman, with his none too good ordinary humor, was fast working up to a literal tirade of rage.

“Possibly zee mercury reflector might be satisfactorily eemproved,” mildly suggested Flambeau, the noted Frenchman, in response to Holton’s heated demand.

That individual gave a snort of disgust, and his wiry red hair fairly bristled, as he spat out his withering reply.

The Man From the Atom, 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 2

by G. Peyton Wertenbaker
First published in Science and Invention, August 1923
Published in Amazing Stories, May 1926, pp. 140-147.

INTRODUCTION. In this installment we find the hero a prisoner on the unknown planet, the inhabitants of which are very much advanced and far superior to the people of the Earth—in intellect and science. His life among these people is not a happy one. Through the interception of a beautiful young girl, some of the best scientists there evolve a method whereby our hero can return to Earth. They figure on the basis of Einstein’s theory of the curvature of time—if one goes on far enough, he will eventually return to where he started from—or in other words “the world having lived and died will live again and die again.” It takes millions of years to complete a cycle, but because of the many times’ increased speed with which our hero travels, because of his enormous size, they are able to figure his return to a time very nearly corresponding the year in which he left the Earth. Read this imaginative sequel and see how he succeeds, and how he likes the Earth after he comes back.

WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE. Professor Martyn was an inventor of genius, and Kirby—one of the very few friends he had—was always a willing test object for many of his inventions. Somewhat even to his own surprise, Professor Martyn invents a machine whereby anyone can at will, either increase or diminish in size, and Kirby agrees—with foreboding in his heart—to test the machine. It is put into operation by merely pressing the middle button on this little machine, which is attached with straps, over his chest. He is fitted with an elastic suit, specially made for the purpose of keeping out intense cold or heat and retaining an even degree of temperature. He begins to increase in size and soon is so large that he just naturally slips away from the Earth and goes off into ultra-planetary space. After the first rush of excitement, Kirby becomes alarmed about it all and decides to come back to Earth. He presses the right button and immediately begins to diminish in size. But he has traveled so fast and is so far away that he becomes panic-stricken and decides to press the “stop” button. The velocity of his motion is so great that he travels for hundreds of miles more before he can stop. Then he suddenly finds himself coming up out of water—floating. He swims ashore, but he is so exhausted, he falls right off to sleep. When he awakes, he gets into a state of utter despair, for instead of being on the Earth, he finds himself on some unknown planet. He rages and fumes around for some time and finally decides to decrease to a size small enough to enable him to go back to Earth and forthwith sets out to find the same nebula through which he originally left the Earth. He cannot find it and does not reach the Earth, but lands instead on a strange planet, with strange inhabitants, so far advanced in intellect that he feels like a savage among them. He does not understand their language and cannot understand their customs. He is there alone in utter desolation and despair, ever pining for those he left behind, whom he can never hope to see again.

Part 2: The Return

I never hoped—never dreamed, when I wrote the tale you have read, that I should ever see the earth again. Who in the universe could have hoped against all the knowledge of insuperable fate which had come to me? Who could hope to overcome Time and Space, to recapture that which was gone forever? Yet it is just this that I have done—or something very like it. And it is a story a thousand times more fantastic, more impossible, than the story of my journey. And like that it is true.

When I last wrote, I was living in a state of awful quiescence upon a planet of the star Delni—I do not know yet what it would be called here, or whether it is even existent now for us. Perhaps I exaggerated a little my position, but that was before I had met Vinda. Vinda—shall I ever see her again? I leave tomorrow—but will she be there?

Off on a Comet, 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 2

by Jules Verne
Published in French as Hector Servadac, 1877
Published in Amazing Stories, May 1926, pp. 143–192.

INTRODUCTION. In the first book, Jules Verne told us what happened to one specific part of the Earth, and gave hypothetical reasons for these astounding conclusions and their natural consequences. But into this book, the author brings the astronomer—a scientific genius in his particular field. It is he who explains scientifically (though temperamentally, to be sure) just what happened, how it happened, and why it happened. By exact calculation, he predicts with correctness, the very minute in which their return to Earth could be effected. Though this story is the product of a fantastic imagination, it is not without the realms of possibility that similar calculations may sometime be made for actual, practical purposes.

WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE. The story opens in Africa, in Algeria, near the capital. An officer in the French army, Captain Servadac, and a Russian nobleman, Count Timascheff, are preparing to fight a duel about a lady. Servadac occupies part of the time before the encounter in an attempt to write a poem to the lady. Just when he was getting to an end of his attempt, a sudden convulsion occurred and a great change in the universe was noted. The sun rose in the west, the day was one-half its former duration, gravity was reduced so that they could jump to a height of 30 or 40 feet with hardly any effort. There was a change in the contour of the Country and an atmosphere of utter mystery prevailed. The line of the shore was changed. Everything was altered. The hero, Servadac, is alone in his explorations with his servant, Ben Zoof. An unknown satellite is seen in the sky. The heat is extreme.

The Russian nobleman owned a yacht, the Dobryna. And now Captain Servadac and his servant see this on the distant ocean. She reaches the shore and finds a safe harbor. Her owner leaves her and meets Captain Servadac. The duel under these strange circumstances is forgotten. The Dobryna is put to work to explore the surroundings and to try to find France. A light is seen and on a little island is discovered the tomb of Louis IX. On taking soundings, a strange mineral is always brought up by the grease-cup on the bottom of the lead. Nothing else can be found as forming the ocean bed. Some English officers are found on an isolated spot, which was supposed to be all that was left of the Rock of Gibraltar. Presently a sealed tube is found floating on the water—an old leather telescope case—with a message from some student of astronomy. Now apprehensions rise that the temperature, which has been very high, may fall to that of interstellar space. Later, in the midst of these fears, some more inhabitants are found—one a charming little girl. Then another message from the supposed astronomer is found floating on the ocean—this time in a meat-can. The next arrival is a trading Jew in his “Tartan,” as this Mediterranean craft is called. As the weather gets colder and colder, they betake themselves to a cave in the side of a volcano, where the temperature is kept warm by a lava flow. Next, a carrier pigeon brings them a third message from the astronomer. The ocean now is frozen over. They put metal sleigh=runners under the boat and go off with almost iceboat speed, and find an island on which there is a monument—a surveyor’s pylon—and there they also find a man, apparently dead, but who proves to have some vestige of life in him still. Thirty-six hours later, the iceboat brings them all back to their volcano-home.

Book 2
1. The Astronomer

By the return of the expedition, conveying its contribution from Formentera, the known population of Gallia was raised to a total of 36.

On learning the details of his friends’ discoveries, Count Timascheff did not hesitate in believing that the exhausted individual who was lying before him was the author alike of the two unsigned documents picked up at sea, and of the third statement so recently brought to hand by the carrier pigeon. Manifestly, he had arrived at some knowledge of Gallia’s movements: he had estimated her distance from the sun; he had calculated the diminution of her tangential speed; but there was nothing to show that he had arrived at the conclusions which were of the most paramount interest to them all. Had he ascertained the true character of her orbit?—had he established any data from which it would be possible to reckon what time must elapse before she would again approach the earth?

The only intelligible words which the astronomer had uttered had been, “My comet!”

Issue 1.1, April 1926

A New Sort of Magazine editorial by Hugo Gernsback

Off on a Comet—or Hector Servadac, book 1, by Jules Verne

The New Accelerator by H.G. Wells

The Man From the Atom, part 1, by G. Peyton Wertenbaker

The Thing from—“Outside” by George Allen England

The Man Who Saved the Earth by Austin Hall

The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe

OUR COVER depicts an interesting scene from “Off on a Comet” in this issue. Saturn and its rings in a close-up view, are silhouetted against the sky.

A New Sort of Magazine

by Hugo Gernsback, F.R.S.
April 1926 (1.1) p. 3.

Another fiction magazine!

At first thought it does seem impossible that there could be room for another fiction magazine in this country. The reader may well wonder, “Aren’t there enough already, with the several hundreds now being published?” True. But this is not “another fiction magazine,” Amazing Stories is a new kind of fiction magazine! It is entirely new—entirely different—something that has never been done before in this country. Therefore, Amazing Stories deserves your attention and interest.

There is the usual fiction magazine, the love story and the sex-appeal type of magazine, the adventure type, and so on, but a magazine of “Scientifiction” is a pioneer in its field in America.

By “scientifiction” I mean the Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe type of story—a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision. For many years stories of this nature were published in the sister magazines of Amazing Stories—Science and Invention and Radio News.

But with the ever increasing demands on us for this sort of story, and more of it, there was only one thing to do—publish a magazine in which the scientific fiction type of story will hold forth exclusively. Toward that end we have laid elaborate plans, sparing neither time nor money.

Edgar Allan Poe may well be called the father of “scientifiction.” It was he who really originated the romance, cleverly weaving into and around the story, a scientific thread. Jules Verne, with his amazing romances, also cleverly interwoven with a scientific thread, came next. A little later came H.G. Wells, whose scientifiction stories, like those of his forerunners, have become famous and immortal.

Off on a Comet, 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 1

by Jules Verne
Published in French as Hector Servadac, 1877
Published in Amazing Stories, April 1926, pp. 4–56.

INTRODUCTION. Among so many effective and artistic tales of our author, it is difficult to give a preference to one over all the rest. Yet, certainly, even amid Verne’s most remarkable works, his Off on a Comet must be given high rank. Perhaps this story will be remembered when some of his greatest efforts have been obliterated by centuries of time. At least, of the many books since written upon the same theme as Verne’s, no one has yet equaled or even approached it.

In one way Off on a Comet shows a marked contrast to Verne's earlier books. Not only does it invade a region of remotest space, but the author here abandons his usual scrupulously scientific attitude and gives his fancy freer rein. In order that he may escort us through the depths of immeasurable space, to show us what astronomy really knows of conditions there and upon the other planets, Verne asks us to accept a situation which is in a sense self-contradictory. The earth and a comet are brought twice into collision without mankind in general, or even our astronomers, becoming conscious of the fact. Moreover several people from widely scattered places are carried off by the comet and returned uninjured. Yet further, the comet snatches and carries away with it for the convenience of its travelers, both air and water. Little, useful tracts of earth are picked up and, as it were, turned over and clapped down right side up again upon the comet’s surface. Even ships pass uninjured through this remarkable somersault. These events all belong to the realm of fairyland.

If the situation were reproduced in actuality, if ever a comet should come into collision with the earth, we can conceive two scientifically possible results. If the comet were of such attenuation, such almost infinitesimal mass as some of these celestial wanderers seem to be, we can imagine our earth self-protective and possibly unharmed. If, on the other hand, the comet had even a hundredth part of the size and solidity and weight which Verne confers upon his monster so as to give his travelers a home—in that case the collision would be unspeakably disastrous—especially to the unlucky individuals who occupied the exact point of contact.

But once granted the initial and the closing extravagance, the departure and return of his characters, the alpha and omega of his tale, how closely the author clings to facts between! How closely he follows, and imparts to his readers, the scientific probabilities of the universe beyond our earth, the actual knowledge so hard won by our astronomers! Other authors who, since Verne, have told of trips through the planetary and stellar universe have given free rein to fancy, to dreams of what might be found. Verne has endeavored to impart only what is known to exist.

In the same year with Off on a Comet, 1877, was published also the tale variously named and translated as The Black Indies, The Underground City, and The Child of the Cavern, This story, Round the World in Eighty Days was first issued in “feuilleton” by the noted Paris newspaper Le Temps. Its success did not equal that of its predecessor in this style. Some critics indeed have pointed to this work as marking the beginning of a decline in the author’s power of awaking interest. Many of his best works were, however, still to follow.

THE EDITORS.

1. A Challenge

“Nothing, sir, can induce me to surrender my claim.”

“I am sorry, Count, but in such a matter your views cannot modify mine.”

“But allow me to point out that my seniority unquestionably gives me a prior right.”

“Mere seniority, I assert, in an affair of this kind, cannot possibly entitle you to any prior claim whatever.”

“Then, Captain, no alternative is left but for me to compel you to yield at the sword’s point.”

“As you please, Count; but neither sword nor pistol can force me to forego my pretensions. Here is my card.”

“And mine.”

This rapid altercation was thus brought to an end by the formal interchange of the names of the disputants. On one of the cards was inscribed:

Captain Hector Servadac

Staff Officer, Mostaganem.

On the other was the title:

Count Wassili Timascheff,

On board the Schooner Dobryna.

It did not take long to arrange that seconds should be appointed, who would meet in Mostaganem at 2 o’clock that day; and the Captain and the Count were on the point of parting from each other, with a salute of punctilious courtesy, when Timascheff, as if struck by a sudden thought, said abruptly: “Perhaps it would be better, Captain, not to allow the real cause of this to transpire.”

“Far better,” replied Servadac; “it is undesirable in every way for any names to be mentioned.”

“In that case, however,” continued the Count, “it will be necessary to assign an ostensible pretext of some kind. Shall we allege a musical dispute—a contention in which I feel bound to defend Wagner, while you are the zealous champion of Rossini?”

“I am quite content,” answered Servadac, with a smile; and with another low bow they parted.

The scene as here depicted, took place upon the extremity of a little cape on the Algerian coast, between Mostaganem and Tenes, about two miles from the mouth of the Shelif. The headland rose more than 60 feet above the sea-level, and the azure waters of the Mediterranean, as they softly kissed the strand, were tinged with the reddish hue of the ferriferous rocks that formed its base. It was the 31st of December. The noontide sun, which usually illuminated the various projections of the coast with a dazzling brightness, was hidden by a dense mass of cloud, and the fog, which for some unaccountable cause, had hung for the last two months over nearly every region in the world, causing serious interruption to traffic between continent and continent, spread its dreary veil across land and sea.

After taking leave of the staff officer, Count Wassili Timascheff wended his way down to a small creek, and took his seat in the stern of a light four-oar that had been awaiting his return; this was immediately pushed off from shore, and was soon alongside a pleasure yacht that was lying to, not many cable lengths away.

The New Accelerator

by H.G. Wells
First published in The Strand, December 1901
Published in Amazing Stories, April 1926, pp. 57–61, 96.

INTRODUCTION. It is enough to say in commendation of this very exciting story that it is worthy of the author. H.G. Wells has achieved a wonderful reputation in the field of serious writing as well as of fiction. Here for the entertainment of the reader we present a scientific story by him, the hero of which story is a physiologist and chemist. And now we deal with the science of the human system and are told the story of a wonderful achievement which must be read in detail to be appreciated. Mr. Wells’ matter is not only vivid and even valuable, but there is a picturesqueness about his language which attracts, as it is distinctively the English of the mother country.

Certainly, if ever a man found a guinea when he was looking for a pin it is my good friend Professor Gibberne. I have heard before of investigators overshooting the mark, but never quite to the extent that he has done. He has really, this time at any rate, without any touch of exaggeration in the phrase, found something to revolutionize human life. And that when he was simply seeking an all-round nervous stimulant to bring languid people up to the stresses of these pushful days. I have tasted the stuff now several times, and I cannot do better than describe the effect the thing had on me. That there are astonishing experiences in store for all in search of new sensations will become apparent enough.

The Man from the Atom, 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 1

by G. Peyton Wertenbaker
First published in Science and Invention, August 1923
Published in Amazing Stories, April 1926, pp. 62–66.

INTRODUCTION. In Alice in the Looking Glass the beautiful play of fancy which gave immortal fame to a logician and mathematician we read of the mysterious change in size of the heroine, the charming little Alice. It tells how she grew large and small according to what she ate. But here we have increase in size and pushed to its utmost limit. Here we have treated the growth of a man to cosmic dimensions. And we are told of his strange sensation and are led up to a sudden startling and impressive conclusion, and are taken through the picture of his emotions and despair.

1.

I am a lost soul, and I am homesick. Yes, homesick. Yet how vain is homesickness when one is without a home! I can but be sick for a home that has gone. For my home departed millions of years ago, and there is now not even a trace of its former existence. Millions of years ago, I say, in all truth and earnestness. But I must tell the tale—though there is no man left to understand it.

I well remember that morning when my friend, Professor Martyn, called me to him on a matter of the greatest importance. I may explain that the Professor was one of those mysterious outcasts, geniuses whom Science would not recognize because they scorned the pettiness of the men who represented Science. Martyn was first of all a scientist, but almost as equally he was a man of intense imagination, and where the ordinary man crept along from detail to detail and required a complete model before being able to visualize the results of his work, Professor Martyn first grasped the great results of his contemplated work, the vast, far-reaching effects, and then built with the end in view.

The Thing from—“Outside”

by George Allen England
First published in Science and Invention, April 1923
Published in Amazing Stories, April 1926, pp. 67–73, 91.

INTRODUCTION. Here is an extraordinary story by the well-known magazine writer, George Allan England. This story should be read quite carefully, and it is necessary to use one’s imagination in reading it.

The theme of Mr. England’s story is unusual and extraordinary. If we can take insects and put them upon the dissecting table in order to study their anatomy, is there a good reason why some super-intelligence cannot do the same thing with us humans?

It may be taken as a certainty that intelligence, as we understand it, is not only of our earth. It is also not necessary to presume that intelligence may have its setting only in a body of flesh and blood.

There is no reason for disbelieving that a super-intelligence might not reside in gases or invisible structures, something which we of today cannot even imagine.

They sat about their campfire, that little party of Americans retreating southward from Hudson Bay before the oncoming menace of the great cold. Sat there, stolid under the awe of the north, under the uneasiness that the day’s trek had laid upon their souls. The three men smoked. The two women huddled close to each other. Fireglow picked their faces from the gloom of night among the dwarf firs. A splashing murmur told of the Albany River’s haste to escape from the wilderness, and reach the Bay.

“I don’t see what there was in a mere circular print on a rock-ledge to make our guides desert,” said Professor Thorburn. His voice was as dry as his whole personality. “Most extraordinary.”

“They knew what it was, all right,” answered Jandron, geologist of the party. “So do I.” He rubbed his cropped mustache. His eyes glinted grayly. I’ve seen prints like that before. That was on the Labrador. And I’ve seen things happen, where they were.”

“Something surely happened to our guides, before they’d got a mile into the bush,” put in the Professor’s wife; while Vivian, her sister, gazed into the fire that revealed her as a beauty, not to be spoiled even by a tam and a rough-knit sweater. “Men don’t shoot wildly, and scream like that, unless—”

“They’re all three dead now, anyhow,” put in Jandron. “So they’re out of harm’s way. While we—well, we’re 250 wicked miles from the C.P.R. rails.”

“Forget it, Jandy!” said Marr, the journalist. “We’re just suffering from an attack of nerves, that’s all. Give me a fill of ’baccy. Thanks. We’ll all be better in the morning. Ho-hum! Now, speaking of spooks and such—”

He launched into an account of how he had once exposed a fraudulent spiritualist, thus proving—to his own satisfaction—that nothing existed beyond the scope of mankind’s everyday life. But nobody gave him much heed. And silence fell upon the little night-encampment in the wilds; a silence that was ominous.

Pale, cold stars watched down from spaces infinitely far beyond man’s trivial world.

The Man Who Saved the Earth

by Austin Hall
First published in The Strand, December 1901
Published in Amazing Stories, April 1926, pp. 74–91.

INTRODUCTION. We read of the days when the powers of radium were yet unknown. It is told us that burns were produced by incautiously carrying a tube of radium salts in the pocket. And here in this story we are told of a different power, opalescence, due to another element. It can destroy mountains, excavate cavities of immeasurable depths and kill human beings and animals in multitude. The story opens with a poor little boy experimenting with a burning-glass. Then he becomes the hero of the story—he studies and eventually finds himself able to destroy the earth. He exceeds Archimedes in his power. And he suddenly finds that he has unlocked a power that threatens this very destruction. And the story depicts his horror at the Frankenstein which he had unloosed, and tells of his wild efforts to save humanity, and of the loss of the cosmic discoveries of the little newsboy grown up to be a great scientist.

1. The Beginning

Even the beginning. From the start the whole thing has the precision of machine work. Fate and its working—and the wonderful Providence which watches over Man and his future. The whole thing unerring: the incident, the work, the calamity, and the martyr. In the retrospect of disaster we may all of us grow strong in wisdom. Let us go into history.

A hot July day. A sun of scant pity, and a staggering street; panting thousands dragging along, hatless; fans and parasols; the sultry vengeance of a real day of summer. A day of bursting tires; hot pavements, and wrecked endeavor, heartaches for the seashore, for leafy bowers beside rippling water, a day of broken hopes and listless ambition.

Perhaps Fate chose the day because of its heat and because of its natural benefit on fecundity. We have no way of knowing. But we do know this: the date, the time, the meeting; the boy with the burning-glass and the old doctor. So commonplace, so trivial and hidden in obscurity! Who would have guessed it? Yet it is—after the creation—one of the most important dates in the world’s history.

This is saying a whole lot. Let us go into it and see what it amounts to. Let us trace the thing out in history, weigh it up and balance it with sequence.

Of Charley Huyck we know nothing up to this day. It is a thing which, for some reason, he has always kept hidden. Recent investigation as to his previous life and antecedents have availed us nothing. Perhaps he could have told us; but as he has gone down as the world’s great martyr, there is no hope of gaining from his lips what we would so like to know.

The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar

by Edgar Allan Poe
First published in The American Review and Broadway Journal, December 1845
Published in Amazing Stories, April 1926, pp. 92–96.

INTRODUCTION. Mesmerism in this gruesome story by Edgar Allan Poe has again been used as a vehicle for telling us his views about the higher philosophy and the future world. Mesmerism in another of Poe’s stories, “Mesmeric Revelations,” is made an agreeable setting for some of his philosophy, which he is willing to tell about without forcing it upon us in the too prevalent modern system. But here we find the same author in a somewhat different character. It is again mesmerism which he employs, it is again a bit of philosophy to be told us, but the story leads up gradually and most skillfully to a denouement, the most horrifying and terrible in all modern storytelling. This very short story in its horror is unique.

Of course I shall not pretend to consider it any matter for wonder, that the extraordinary case of M. Valdemar has excited discussion. It would have been a miracle had it not—especially under the circumstances. Through the desire of all parties concerned, to keep the affair from the public, at least for the present, or until we had farther opportunities for investigation—through our endeavors to effect this—a garbled or exaggerated account made its way into society, and became the source of many unpleasant misrepresentations, and, very naturally, of a great deal of disbelief.

It is now rendered necessary that I give the facts—as far as I comprehend them myself. They are, succinctly, these:

My attention, for the last three years, had been repeatedly drawn to the subject of Mesmerism; and, about nine months ago it occurred to me, quite suddenly, that in the series of experiments made hitherto, there had been a very remarkable and most unaccountable omission: no person had as yet been mesmerized in articulo mortis. It remained to be seen, first, whether, in such condition, there existed in the patient any susceptibility to the magnetic influence; secondly, whether, if any existed, it was impaired or increased by the condition; thirdly, to what extent, or for how long a period, the encroachments of Death might be arrested by the process. There were other points to be ascertained, but these most excited my curiosity—the last in especial, from the immensely important character of its consequences.