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To the left, across the river, back from the long, slow rise of sand from the water's edge, rose five blunt heights like craters long extinct; while above these, arching across the heavens in spotless sheen, curved the turquoise dome of a southwestern midday sky, flooding the dust and dunes below in throbbing heat-rays.
Then the V was lost while the train wound around the range that formed one side of the basin's rim. The blaze of midday had passed before it entered the reaches of the best valley yet in the judgment of a connoisseur in valleys; and under the Eternal Painter's canopy a spot of green quivered in the heat-rays of the horizon. His Majesty was in a dreamy mood.
But now we abandoned that sector; our remaining towers all our flying forces came to this melting area where the vanishing city lay defenseless before us.... We hurled ourselves into it, using only our heat-rays. Everywhere we added to the boiling torrent; even the interference heat of the fighting was to our advantage.
The whole of the second volley flew wide of the Martian on the ground, and, simultaneously, both his companions brought their Heat-Rays to bear on the battery. The ammunition blew up, the pine trees all about the guns flashed into fire, and only one or two of the men who were already running over the crest of the hill escaped.
Their heat-rays boiled the water for hundreds of yards before them and their torpedoes were exploding against the Nevian defenses in one appallingly continuous concussion. But most potent of all was a weapon unknown to Triplanetary warfare. From a fortress there would shoot out, with the speed of a meteor, a long, jointed, telescopic rod, tipped with a tiny, brilliantly shining ball.
Five of the machines had been seen moving towards the Thames, and one, by a happy chance, had been destroyed. In the other cases the shells had missed, and the batteries had been at once annihilated by the Heat-Rays. Heavy losses of soldiers were mentioned, but the tone of the dispatch was optimistic. The Martians had been repulsed; they were not invulnerable.
They were extended to the heat-rays by Edwin B. Frost. Detailed inquiries made at Potsdam in 1892 went to show that, were the sun's atmosphere removed, his thermal power, as regards ourselves, would be increased 1·7 times. They established, too, the practical uniformity in radiation of all parts of his disc.
After much thoughtful work, we have reached a solution. "During the period of frost, from the first of December to the first of March, the weedy ground is thoroughly stirred several times. After each stirring, the ground is swept by a broad stream of concentrated heat-rays both light and dark. These rays are generated by a number of batteries of Solaris mirrors, or great sun glasses.
Even this may be blocked to a large extent, however, by leaving a trace of mercury vapor in the vacuum space, which will be deposited as a fine mirror on the inner surface of the chamber. This mirror serves as an admirable reflector of the heat-rays that traverse the vacuum, sending more than half of them back again.
The heat-rays in giant form one of the most deadly weapons on Earth were only slowly efficacious on the airless Moon. Striking an intensely cold surface, their warming radiations were slow to act. Even in a blasting heat beam a man in his Erentz helmet-suit could withstand the ray for several minutes. We were, however, well equipped with explosives.
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