As Almos was perfectly familiar with this remarkable invention, a gradual comprehension of the wonderful genius of Sarraccus, its inventor, came to me.  Tall, calm, and of dignified bearing; a man of great learning, but of few words; Sarraccus had won the love and admiration of all by his discovery of the regenerating rays that had given the people of Mars perpetual life and health.  He it was who had discovered super-radium, and this wonderful power had, in time, been used by others until many important inventions had developed from it, such as the virator, the radioscope, the radiphone, illumination without expenditure of power or material, and several minor inventions, all of which, however, contributed greatly to the comfort and advancement of this great people.

The aerenoid, one of his most important inventions, had made it possible to reach any part of the globe within an hour, and this, coming at the time of the great change in the social conditions on Mars, had expedited the movement to a wonderful extent by bringing the inhabitants of every quarter of the globe into daily contact with one another.  So easy and rapid was this means of transit through the air, that cities and towns were soon abolished, and in the process of time, Mars attained the ideal, and became a World Beautiful—­the magnificent estate of one large family.

And now Sarraccus had given the flowers a voice to sing of their beauty.  In the mind of this great genius was conceived the idea that inasmuch as there is ineffable beauty to the eye in the soft colors and shades of a flower—­beauty too rare for the hand of man to reproduce—­there must also be a corresponding sweetness of sound or vibration, if it were possible to transform its beauty into sound.  Light-waves, he reasoned, varying according to the color and shade of the object, might be changed into sound-waves, if an instrument were made sensitive enough to vibrate in response to these extremely delicate undulations of light.  The vibrations would then vary in accordance with the light-waves, and a harmony of sound, corresponding in sweetness to the beauty of the flower, would result.

After many unsuccessful trials, Sarraccus found a material that, in the form of a fine wire, twenty or thirty feet in length, vibrated in response to light of a certain color, as a wire in a piano or harp will often be attuned sympathetically to a certain note in the human voice, and will vibrate whenever that note is reached.  The vibrations of this wire in response to light, however, were almost imperceptible, and it was only upon testing with a highly sensitive instrument that they were discovered.  Several wires were then made of different thickness, and each was found to have a sympathetic vibration to a light of a certain color.  The quantity of wires was then increased to represent every possible shade of color, and when these were stretched between two large drums, a faint sound was detected.  The drums were then enclosed in chambers that led into large horns, and thus the sounds caused by the delicate vibrations of the wires, though as soft as the sighing of the wind, were diffused and augmented so as to reach into every corner of the large building.  Enclosed in a dark room, the wires occupied the position of a plate in a camera, a large lens being adjusted in the wall opposite them.