Amazing Stories, Vol. 3, No. 2 — page 59: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

154 from a solid transparent tos rod, about %4 inch thick and almost 8 feet righ, At-each end of this rod there is a coil which looks like a big terrestrial magnet coil. Tt has, however, about 14 distinct and separate windings. The ends of these windings go to a sort of switchboard which has a triple keyboard like an organ, and both coils are connected to this organ-like instrument. By de- pressing a key, a certain pulsating current is sent through one of the coils. This in turn sets up Eddy cur- rents in the tos rod, which, of course, is conductive. These stresses in the rod set up vibrations and cause the rod to swing hke a piano string—sound is the result. By using different frequencies, different sounds are produced. When both coils are operated at the same time, interferences take place within the rod, causing the sound to change in its quality. Thus by operating the two coils while changing the current mtensity and by using different amplitudes, almost every tmaginable as well as unimaginable sound can be obtained. It is thus easy to imitate a cornet or ‘a xylophone in their true musical values, Nor is this all, for the rod can be made to sing and trill, and it can be made to actually speak words; a good player is able to imitate the spoken or the singing voice of any living Martian equally as well as a lifeless, black phonograph dise on earth can be made to sing the most difficult aria. “Nor does the wonder stop here. By using a suf- ficient amount of power, the sounds can be intensified to such a degree that music emanating from a tos rod can be ‘heard plainly over a distance of 10 miles. Indeed, all outdoor concerts on Mars are given by means of a single tos rod. operated simultaneously. The effect in this instance was ovetwhelming ; it was like listening to a thousand- man orchestra and to a dozen tenors, all going at one time.* “But this is not all. You know that if a rod is vibrated at a sufficient frequency, it will sound a certam note. The faster it vibrates the higher the note will be. If we keep on increasing the speed or vibration we fin- ally arrive at a stage where the note is so high that the human ear is no longer capable of hearing it. If we keep on increasing the frequency, a stage is finally reached in which the rod sends out waves that have the velocity of light and eléctricity—"186,000 miles a sec- ond. This, of course, is well known to your physicists on earth. “The Martians make use of just this principle m supplying the music loving people of Mars with wire- less concerts. The operation is simple indeed. “Not far from the equator of the planet, a central — music plant is operated by a single Martian, who, of course, is a musical gentus. He operates one of the organ-like instruments of which I ‘spoke before. Be- sides the instrument, the ‘plant’ comprises fos rods, each 20 feet high. These rods work exactly like the — ones just described, except that they are operated at an enormous frequency. I have stood in front of them while they were ‘operating So close. in fact, ee coul : * When this was written, radio loud peal were not ‘enown, : Recently radio loud speakers have been dnyented which can throw. music and the human voice over a distance of several — ~ miles. —4athor, In only one case have I seen two rods At first blush one would think that the ea: lutely essentia tor ‘bearing, but ms is not "your ears ‘as tightly as. possible with cotton will not hear a sound from outside. deai—and T trust mA are not—all the better for th AMAZING STORIES have touched both rods with my hands. However, my ears detected not the slightest sound. Incredible as it seems, millions of Martians, at that minute, were listen- - ing to the wonderful music produced by these same rods, but not with their ears. They were listening with their brains! “T told you a few days ago, how, when we first sanded on Mars, we had been amazed to ‘hear’ snatches of a wonderful music inside of our heads. What we had been hearing was the radio music originating from these two tos rods some 2,000 miles distant! Of course, radio music is nothing new; the sounds of voices and music have been waited over thousands of miles on earth already, but your scientists still require huge aerials with which to catch the waves. And these waves are not yet themselves audible to our ears. You are still using a variety of coils, detectors, telephone re- ceivers and what not in order to translate these radio waves into sound waves in order that your ear may hear them. “Not so on Mars. Every Martian is required, for reasons which you will understand presently, to weat a peculiar soft metallic cap. From the back of the cap, a thin metallic cable runs down the Martian’s back and ~ is fastened there to his metallic coat. Al Martian clothing, as well as footgear, is invariably of metallic weave. Now, since all pavements and all flooring, car- pets and rugs are metallic on Mars, for reasons which will also be apparent to you later, a metallic connection with the “earth’ or ‘ground’ is always effected. “The metallic cable of which I just spoke does not make contact with the cap itself, but it is insulated therefrom. It comnects, however, with a small reddish metallic plate about the size of an American silver dol- lar. This plate in turn, by means of a flat spring, presses against the temple of the wearer; the cap holds the plate in place. A similar plate presses against the other temple, but this plate, unlike the other, is con- nected metallicly to the cap itself: From this descrip- tion you will gather that the metallic cap performs the function of a fadio aerial, while the metallic clothing forms the ground. The two reddish plates pressing against the bare temples are made of two metals un- known on earth, and the metals are distributed over the surface of the plate in honeycomb fashion without touching each other. Now if the two plates are pressed against the temples and when wireless waves are pass- ing through them, the waves are translated into vibra- tions of a certain frequency. It has been found that if these vibrations reach the conscious sense of hearing which is located in the temporal lobe of the brain, | sounds can be impressed upon the brain without re- quiring the ear and its auditory nerve. In other words, the sound is “heard” directly within the brain without the agency of the ear’s mechanism. : she “Tf this should be somewhat hazy to you, a | (though inaccurate) illustration will not be amis If you :