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Rh to me by a friend that this part of my "fairytale" is like Lord Lytton's "Coming Race." If so, the resemblance is accidental, or rather Bulwer and I have, from observation and induction, come to the same conclusion.

The nomenclature of Martian lands I have used is the French system of M. Flammarion.

The question among astronomers now is whether life can exist on the largest of the planets. Most regard Mars and Venus as probably peopled (it may be with higher intelligences than earth); but the recent discoveries, which tend to show the great heat of Jupiter, are urged against the largest of the worlds around us being peopled. It is almost manifest that this huge world and Saturn cannot be peopled by beings like men, or our higher land mammalia; but this, I contend, does not hinder the existence in those huge oceans of Jupiter of beings like the monsters of the deep, somewhat similar to the cetiosauri or ichthyosauri of our ancient seas, or the whales and dolphins of our own times. On earth the two main conditions of abundant life are heat and moisture; on Jupiter and Saturn both of these appear to be in excess. If life can exist on these heated oceans, it must be somewhat as M. Flammarion and I have supposed. If such a life as I suggest is not there, then there either is none, or beings of a totally distinct nature to what we can conceive.

As to Saturn, the conception of an invertebrate being of intelligence is one that seems monstrous at first; but, as Brewster says, "Is it necessary that an immortal soul should be united to a skeleton of bone, or imprisoned in a cage of cartilage and of skin? Must it see with two eyes