parachutes are, I gather, of the operative class. 'Machine hands,' indeed,

some of these are in actual nature--it is not figure of speech, the

single tentacle of the mooncalf herd is profoundly modified for clawing,

lifting, guiding, the rest of them no more than necessary subordinate

appendages to these important mechanisms, have enormously developed

auditory organs; some whose work lies in delicate chemical operations

project a vast olfactory organ; others again have flat feet for

treadles with anchylosed joints; and others--who I have been told are

glassblowers--seem mere lung-bellows. But every one of these common

Selenites I have seen at work is exquisitely adapted to the social need

it meets. Fine work is done by fined-down workers, amazingly dwarfed

and neat. Some I could hold on the palm of my hand. There is even a

sort of turnspit Selenite, very common, whose duty and only delight it

is to apply the motive power for various small appliances. And to rule

over these things and order any erring tendency there might be in some

aberrant natures are the most muscular beings I have seen in the moon,

a sort of lunar police, who must have been trained from their earliest

years to give a perfect respect and obedience to the swollen heads.

The making of these various sorts of operative must be a very curious and

interesting process. I am very much in the dark about it, but quite

recently I came upon a number of young Selenites confined in jars from

which only the fore-limbs protruded, who were being compressed to become

machine-minders of a special sort. The extended 'hand' in this highly

developed system of technical education is stimulated by irritants and

nourished by injection, while the rest of the body is starved. Phi-oo,

275

The First Men In The Moon