They did not look through or into the
telescopes. The lens was turned upon the object, and this was thrown,
enormously magnified, upon screens of what looked something like ground
glass some fifty feet square. It was thus that they saw, not only the
whole visible surface of Jupiter as he revolved above them and they
about him, but also their native Earth, sometimes a pale silver disc or
crescent close to the edge of the Sun, visible only in the morning and
the evening of Jupiter, and at other times like a little black spot
crossing the glowing surface.
But there was another development of the science of the Crystal Cities
which interested them far more than this--for after all they could not
only see the Worlds of Space for themselves, but circumnavigate them if
they chose.
During their stay they were shown on these same screens the pictorial
history of the world whose guests they were. These pictures, which they
recognised as an immeasurable development of what is called the
cinematograph process on Earth, extended through the whole gamut of the
satellite's life. They formed, in fact, the means by which the children
of Ganymede were taught the history of their world.
It was, of course, inevitable that the _Astronef_ should prove an object
of intense interest to their hosts. They had solved the problem of the
Resolution of Forces, as Professor Rennick had done, and, as they were
shown pictorially, a vessel had been made which embodied the principles
of attraction and repulsion.
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