To

My Pupils

Whose Appreciative Sympathy

Has Made of Our Schoolroom Days

a Delightful Experience

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE.

The author of this Narrative made no pretentious to a literary career. His life work was in the school room teaching young men and young women, in whose hearts his sympathy and kindness inspired respect and love.

Many of his pupils are now filling positions of usefulness and honor and attribute their success in no small measure to the time spent under his instruction. Some, indeed, say they owe all that they are to him.

It was for his pupils especially that he wrote this “Narrative of Blended Science and Adventure,” and to them he dedicated the book. One of his last expressed wishes was that his only memorial might be, “a sand stone at the head of his grave and one of his books in the home of each of his pupils.”

This story is different from anything ever written on the subject. It is not the result of a wild, unbridled imagination, relating things contrary to reason and utterly incapable of scientific adjustment as have been some books on trips to the moon. On the contrary its incidents are so constructed as to seem not only reasonable but probable and its scientific statements are reliable and recent.

Any one disposed to criticize this work should remember that the author died before his book went to the press, and did not have the opportunity of reading the proof sheets and making such corrections as he might have deemed essential. But, with whatever faults it may possess, the publishers feel that it will provide entertainment and instruction to multitudes of people, old as well as young, besides the thousands of his former pupils.

H. W. D.