there were savage men, and countries yet unexplored.

Now, in all the Western Hemisphere dwells no man who may not

find a school house within walking distance of his home, or

at least within flying distance.

The wildest beast that roams our waste places lairs in the

frozen north or the frozen south within a government

reserve, where the curious may view him and feed him bread

crusts from the hand with perfect impunity.

But beyond thirty! And I have gone there, and come back;

and now you may go there, for no longer is it high treason,

punishable by disgrace or death, to cross 30d or 175d.

My name is Jefferson Turck. I am a lieutenant in the navy--

in the great Pan-American navy, the only navy which now

exists in all the world.

I was born in Arizona, in the United States of North

America, in the year of our Lord 2116. Therefore, I am

twenty-one years old.

In early boyhood I tired of the teeming cities and

overcrowded rural districts of Arizona. Every generation of

Turcks for over two centuries has been represented in the

navy. The navy called to me, as did the free, wide,

unpeopled spaces of the mighty oceans. And so I joined the

navy, coming up from the ranks, as we all must, learning our

craft as we advance. My promotion was rapid, for my family

seems to inherit naval lore. We are born officers, and I

reserve to myself no special credit for an early advancement

in the service.

At twenty I found myself a lieutenant in command of the

aero-submarine Coldwater, of the SS-96 class. The Coldwater

was one of the first of the air and underwater craft which

have been so greatly improved since its launching, and was

possessed of innumerable weaknesses which, fortunately, have

been eliminated in more recent vessels of similar type.

Even when I took command, she was fit only for the junk

pile; but the world-old parsimony of government retained her

in active service, and sent two hundred men to sea in her,