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physical properties? It would still remain a huge rock and would still weigh fifty tons, even if; to the eye of the observer through the wrong end of the telescope, as you put it, it appeared an insignificant pebble? You might as well suggest that the stones were really small and after being cut and placed were treated by some sort of magic which caused them to expand and remain enlarged, or that these gold beads were cut and made and chased when a foot or two in diameter, and were then—by some occult means—reduced to. their present size. No, no, Ramon, I admit the possibility, though not the probability, of a lens having been used—though it was probably a crude, accidentally-made flake: of quartz: crystal—but I cannot admit, even for the sake of argument, that the prehistoric Americans possessed the power of altering the proportions of non-organic matter."

Professor Amador merely smiled. "Ten, twenty, fifty years ago, that might have been conceded," he replied: thoughtfully. “But today we know of a ceratinty that non-organic: matter——and organic as well—is not the fixed, solid unalterable material our ancestors assumed it to be. All matter, as you are well-aware; everything, ourselves included, is composed of protons and electrons; independent bodies, movable, transferable, changeable. Certain combinations or groupings of protons and electrons produce certain effects. Such groupings may remain unchanged indefinitely or they may change constantly. A rock may remain unaltered: for countless centuries or, under other conditions, it may completely vanish as a rock in a short time. Why? You say by erosion, by weathering, by some one cause or another. Very true. But it is the alteration of the electronic grouping that causes the rock to vanish even though the weather or the elements may produce or incite the electronic alterations. A seed sprouts and grows into a tree. Why? Because the atoms which its molecules contain, alter their arrangement and numbers; air, water and sun and their own vitality cause them to change. We can take a huge mass of wood, of leather, of metal, and reduce it to a fraction of its former size and it will remain reduced, merely because we have forced its component atoms to assume a different combination. If we wish, we can increase material in the same manner. It all depends upon the groupings of electrons and upon vibratory waves. What happens when the tobacco in the pipe you are smoking is burned? Do you, a scientist, mean to tell me that the tobacco has actually been destroyed, that by puffing at your pipe you have eliminated a portion of the matter of the universe? No; you have merely altered an electronic combination. Your tobacco still exists though in changed form, You have produced ash, gases, smoke, liquids, solids; by forcing, through the medium of fire and air, the protons and electrons of the original tobacco to assume new combinations and forms. Even the human body and the bodies of animals of all kinds are in the same sense indestructible. Upon death the electronic combinations. and. vibratory waves, which give us our living bodies, become altered. By degrees they take on new and unrecognizable forms. Some become gases, others solids, others liquids, and in time these change still more. They become loam, plants, vegetables. Again they alter and become component parts of new creatures, even of other men and women. For all we know, even our mentality, our. spirits or souls, are merely forms of electronic or vibratory wave energy; for all we know these same forms of energy may, either rarely or commonly, reassume their former combinations and produce reincarnated beings having the same thoughts, the same ideals, the same reactions, the same loves and hates as those who died hundreds or thousands of years ago. In the light of present-day science, nothing is impossible, amigo mio. What seems impossible: or at least highly improbable today may be commonplace tomorrow. Is it any more remarkable to imagine a small pebble increased to a gigantic monolith; or to think of a life-sized statue reduced to miniature, than to conceive of the human voice—the living, speaking image of a human being being transmitted through the empty air for hundreds, thousands of miles? Mind you, I do not say positively that these pre-historic people possessed some power unknown to us, of permanently altering the proportions of objects. But we must admit, or else discredit the testimony of our five senses, that they possessed some knowledge of which we are woefully ignorant. And I should not be at all surprised if, when we hit upon the secret, we will find that it was along the lines I have suggested."

"Whew!" I exclaimed. "No wonder you hold the reputation of being the most forceful lecturer on physics in the world. Yes, I admit all that you say is incontrovertible truth as admitted by science. In fact, I might add quite a few facts and examples in proof of it. But it doesn't prove anything, and until you can either discover this lost wizardry or can work out a theory which can be proved by repeating the magic, you are no nearer a solution of the puzzle. And," I added, as I rose to start my peons at their digging, "I suppose you suggest that the copper objects were plated with gold by the Manabis' ability to transform a portion of the copper to gold by some unknown and lost power that would have made the ancient alchemists green with envy."

It was only a few days later that we came upon a great find, the find that Professor Amador had hoped for and had foreseen, and which was the direct cause of all the truly amazing and incredible events that followed, and which culminated with the disappearance of my friend.

The "find" itself seemed insignificant. Merely a number of fragments of the same transparent greenish mineral, such as Professor Amador had found in the bed of the stream weeks before. But to him the bits of green material—scarcely one of which was half an inch in diameter—were far more precious than emeralds. The instant the first piece was revealed, he leaped into the pit, shooed away the amused peons, and on hands and knees, began searching for fragments. Not until every shovelfull of earth had been carefully sifted and no more pieces of the mineral could be found, did he cease. The result-of his labors was a handful of the