"Otis Adelbert Kline - Man from the Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kline Otis Adelbert)

Man from the Moon
By Otis Adelbert Kline
LOOKING forward is always an interesting occupation, for the imagination can be given
absolute free play and so many seemingly fantastic pictures may be called into being. But
equally absorbing can be the process of looking backward, though it must be done with
considerably less freedom of imagination. What was the origin of races? Did all of us тАУ
Yellow, Black and White тАУ start our generations in similar manner? How far afield of the
truth are anthropologists? Otis Adelbert Kline has pondered on these questions and, being
a writer of no mean ability, it naturally follows that his story is well worth serious
consideration. Therefore me recommend it heartily, knowing that you will agree with us.



W
E stood on the eastern rim of Crater тАЬWhat single, if weak, leg supports your
Mound тАУ my friend Professor theory that the craters of the moon were caused by
Thompson, the noted selenographer, meteorites?тАЭ I asked.
and I. Dusky shadows lengthened and тАЬYou are standing on it,тАЭ replied the
grew more intense in the great, deep basin before professor. Then, seeing me look around in
us, as the Sun, his face reddened as if from his perplexity, he added: тАЬCrater Mound is the only
dayтАЩs exertions, sank slowly beyond the western known Terrestrial formation that exactly resembles
rim. in shape the great ring mountains of the moon. If
Behind us, Alamo Edwards, the dude Crater Mound was caused by the impact of a
wrangler who had brought us out from Canyon gigantic meteorite with the earth, there is a strong
Diabolo two weeks before, was dividing his time probability that the numerous ringed craters of the
between the chuck wagon and our outdoor moon were created in a like manner.тАЭ
cookstove in the preparation of our evening meal, тАЬBut was it?тАЭ I asked.
while our hobbled horses wandered about near-by, тАЬThat is something I can neither prove nor
searching out clumps of edible vegetation. disprove,тАЭ he replied. тАЬThe evidence I have thus
тАЬHow is the story progressing, Jim?тАЭ asked far discovered leads me to believe that many
the professor, referring to a half finished novel I relatively small meteoric fragments have fallen
had brought out with me to occupy my time with, here. But they could not have fallen singly, or by
while my friend puttered among the stones and twos and threes to make this dent three-quarters of
rubble in the vicinity. a mile in diameter and more than four hundred feet
тАЬIтАЩve reached an impasse тАУтАЭ I began. below the surrounding earth level, to say nothing
тАЬAnd so have I,тАЭ rejoined my friend of throwing up the ring on which we now stand to
dejectedly, тАЬbut of the two, mine is far the worst, a mean height of a hundred and fifty feet above the
for yours is in an imaginary situation, while mine plain.тАЭ
is real. You will eventually solve your problem by тАЬThen how could they have fallen?тАЭ
using your imagination, which has no fixed тАЬIf this great earthen bowl was caused by
limitations. I can only solve mine by using my them, they must have struck this plain in an
reason, which is limited to deductions from facts. immense cluster at least a third of a mile in
If I do not find sufficient facts either to prove or diameter, probably more.тАЭ
disprove my theory, what have I? A hypothesis, тАЬIn that case, what has become of the
ludicrously wobbling on one puny leg, neither able cluster?тАЭ
to stand erect among established scientific truths тАЬPart of it is probably buried beneath the soil.
nor to fall to dissolution among the mistaken ideas Part of it, exposed to the air, would have been
of the past.тАЭ burned to a fine ash, having generated a terrific
heat in its passage through the atmosphere and still