“The terrific speed with which you travel or fall, as we might say, from one planet to another, I should think would overpower you—take your breath away.”
“We have to guard against this, while we traverse the atmosphere, both at this and at the other end of the journey, but once clear of the atmosphere we fall through empty space without the slightest sensation of motion and realize that we are going only by the rapid decrease in the apparent size of the globe we are leaving and increase of the one we approach. It is impossible to conceive a more thrilling experience than is conveyed by the perception of the growth in a few hours of your earth from a ball six feet in diameter as it appears to us at the start, to the vast and illimitable expanse of variegated beauty it gets to be before we reach it.
“On the journey, it is necessary to guard against the blistering heat of the sun’s rays upon the side on which they fall, and the intense cold which we encounter on the shady side; and we must look out that neither ourselves nor any of the loose articles we carry in the car such as our flasks of compressed air, our food etc. are repelled from the car and allowed to fall to earth or moon by their ordinary gravity, for the change to repulsion only applies to the iron part of the car and not other things. It cannot be applied to wood or to animal or vegetable tissue etc. We guard against all these contingencies by having a stout cover over our car, supported by steel hoops, when we are on an intermundane trip. When we travel on the ground, this is folded up and not used.”
“Then I suppose the wheels of your car come into use when you travel on the ground, for I can see no use for them in your “intermundane” journeys.”
“That is true. This car I have with me is my ordinary carriage at home. It is a railroad car as you see by the flanges on the wheels. Railroads with us are public free highways, built and maintained by the state. They have from four to twelve tracks. Every person who is qualified by his education and training to manage a car is furnished with one by the state. The propelling power is nothing but gravity either in attraction or repulsion, the former being used on down grades and the latter on up grades, the car having rollers that hook under a flange at the top of the rail to prevent the car from rising bodily from the track.