CHAPTER TEN

THE EPILOGUE

I cannot but regret, now that I am concluding my story, how little

I am able to contribute to the discussion of the many debatable

questions which are still unsettled. In one respect I shall certainly

provoke criticism. My particular province is speculative philosophy.

My knowledge of comparative physiology is confined to a book or two,

but it seems to me that Carver's suggestions as to the reason of the

rapid death of the Martians is so probable as to be regarded almost as

a proven conclusion. I have assumed that in the body of my narrative.

At any rate, in all the bodies of the Martians that were examined

after the war, no bacteria except those already known as terrestrial

species were found. That they did not bury any of their dead, and the

reckless slaughter they perpetrated, point also to an entire ignorance

of the putrefactive process. But probable as this seems, it is by no

means a proven conclusion.

Neither is the composition of the Black Smoke known, which the

Martians used with such deadly effect, and the generator of the

Heat-Rays remains a puzzle. The terrible disasters at the Ealing

and South Kensington laboratories have disinclined analysts for further

investigations upon the latter. Spectrum analysis of the black powder

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The War of the Worlds