Page:Life in a thousand worlds.djvu/90

 I spent another hour examining the ponderous machinery that was required to swing this mammoth instrument and to adjust it when scanning the heavens.

By this time my four companions were convinced that I was not an idiot, and I could see by their strange manner that they were regarding me as a spirit.

I gave my directions to the astronomer, and beheld the cylinder, two-hundred feet in length and twenty feet in diameter, swing around until it pointed toward a little flickering light that shone like a distant star.

I looked into the eye-piece, managed to get the tube pointed accurately, and then requested the astronomer to focus the lenses so as to bear upon the planetary light in range.

He knew at once the planet I had singled out. He called it Zo-ide. After the focusing was completed, I looked and, behold, I could readily discern many of the physical features of my own world.

"That is my homeland," I cried triumphantly. "I live on Zo-ide, or Earth, as we call it."