Chapter 5

As the work progressed, stages were constructed at different heights on which buildings were erected, where the workmen and their families lived until the task was completed, the materials and electricities used, as well as provisions and necessaries, being raised to these stages by electric power. The principal material used is the hardest and most durable substance known in our world--an amalgamated material consisting of certain proportions of iron and marble fused into a solid compact mass by the action of fire and electricity.

HEAVY MATERIALS LIGHTENED BY ELECTRICITY.

The blocks used were of immense size, so huge, that even with our electrical and mechanical levers, many expedients were employed to raise them to their assigned places.

Electric science had greatly advanced in my reign, and electric powers had been discovered by which the heaviest masses could be lightened temporarily, so that their specific gravity, called by us the "tenacious electricity," and its tendency to seek the sympathetic electricity of the earth was temporarily diminished, if not entirely neutralized, without injury to the mass subjected to the operation.

Though the means and end are different, the principle is not unlike that by which you often lighten the specific gravity of bodies, and even change their nature by chemical combination, the action of fire, and other expedients, the bodies often resuming their specific gravity and original form. The means we employ for lightening bodies are far more rapid and effectual, and, at the same time, the materials acted upon are less abruptly or violently changed.

Notwithstanding all our knowledge of electric and mechanical powers, our thousands of artificers employed, and all the industry and energy exerted in obedience to my will, nine of our years[1]--more than thirty of yours--were spent in the completion of this stupendous work.

[Footnote 1: Our year is not calculated like yours. The year is marked by a peculiar appearance which the sun assumes at equidistant epochs.]

The tower of itself is an object of great grandeur and beauty, and is richly ornamented. The external walls of the plinth at the base of the tower are overlaid with gold and ravine[1] metal, inlaid with large transparent stones of varied colours. The ravine metal--a metal prized beyond gold--possesses beautiful veins of colour, which change with the temperature--veins of watery green, of purple, blue, and steel. When refined, it is most beautiful. The colours are sometimes so bright that it is dazzling to look at them.

[Footnote 1: So named from being found in the great ravine, the largest ravine in Montalluyah.]

On the tower are scrolls and images of peculiar meaning, and of large characters in gold and ravine metal, ornamented with transparent stones. The sun's rays playing on these stones, and particularly on a large yellow stone like an amethyst, illuminates the column with what may be called a supernatural light.

Alternating with the scrolls are designs representing episodes in my life and reign. These designs are in pure white marble in relief, and with the light of our world stand out prominently from the iron-marble, sufficiently large to be plainly seen at great distances from nearly all parts of the city. The proposal for thus recording the events of my reign came from the kings and people who loved me greatly.

As before observed, a person can be raised from the base to the top of the column, and through a shaft into the Upper city. The movement is rapid, and takes less than half an hour either way, whilst the journey by our external roads, by reason of the circuits to be taken, and the ascents and descents would, even to descend, occupy two days on a fleet horse. The passage through the Tower, however, is seldom used either for ascent or descent, except in cases of great emergency, because the great difference of the atmosphere above and below materially affects the health of the passenger.

The machinery, too, in the descent requires much care and calculation, for the weight of the descending body would otherwise increase to such an extent, that accidents would occur.

The difference of the atmosphere and the effect on the human frame between the Upper and Lower cities is remarkable; those accustomed to live in the Lower city have a disposition to spring from their feet when first arriving in the Upper city. I recollect a lady--rather weakly--who seemed mad, but was rational enough; only she could not for some time resist the impulse of springing upwards.

This mode of communication would perhaps have been more resorted to had we not possessed the telegraph. The electric telegraph is, in its rapidity, not unlike that used in your world, but is different in construction and mode of working. What is written at one station is reproduced in its exact size and form at another. Even a portrait designed at one end of the telegraph with the electric acid would be instantaneously reproduced at the other end, perhaps many hundred miles distant.

At different stages of the Tower the colour of the atmosphere sensibly changes. This phenomenon is caused by certain minute particles which contain animalcula, or their ova, and exist at different distances in layers, and which as they are developed and become heavier have a tendency to fall into lower regions of the atmosphere, till they awaken into life under the influence of the sun. Blights, called by us Viscotae, "infectious visitors," are often thus generated, falling from layer to layer till they settle on plants and trees.

These ova, moved by the winds, are sometimes mixed together, but when the winds subside the more advanced and heaviest tend to settle in the lower regions of the air just as the heaviest particles of a mixture have a tendency to sink and settle below.

All this has been shown beyond doubt by a quantity of air being collected when falling fast, and at different times and altitudes. Each portion of air being secured in a separate glass case, the ova were then viewed through our powerful microscopes, and subjected to various tests.

The Mountain Supporter, which can be seen from nearly every part of the Middle and Lower cities of Montalluyah, is an object of inconceivable grandeur and beauty, its appearance varying according to the point whence it is seen.

This great work often seems broken into numerous parts of varied length, by mountains, rocks, and ravine sides, raising their heads between it and the spectator. Often, particularly when the clouds have been high, and the sky has been clear, I have seen from a distance parts of the huge Mountain Supporter seemingly broken into vertical lines towards the middle and lower parts in a way that, in conjunction with the upper parts, has produced an effect like that of an immense flower raising its head towards the skies, supported by a long stalk resting on many elegant but slender tendrils.

The grandeur and beauty of the tower is, if possible, heightened by the Great Cataract, in conjunction with which it is almost invariably seen. The falling waters vie with the Mountain Supporter in breadth, and overtop it by the height from which they are hurled; the one firm, stately, and magnificent in its solidity and repose, the other vapoury and grand in its gracefulness and movement; both inconceivably beautiful; the Cataract, a work of all-powerful Providence, whose wise purposes no one can scan in their entirety; the Supporter symbolizing the inspired genius of man, who, with the beneficent purpose of saving innumerable lives from destruction, had, by the sweat of his brow, constructed a work more stable than the solid rock,--work whose head might be said to "reach unto Heaven."

XI.

ELECTRICITY

IN MONTALLUYAH.

"A spark of Heaven power."

In the construction of the Mountain Supporter you will have perceived that we were greatly aided by our extended knowledge of electricity.

Before my reign, although electricity was used for some purposes, the existence of varieties in electricity, and the manifold uses to which their wondrous powers could be applied, were unknown.

Electricity was not then utilised for locomotion either on land or sea, or for raising ponderous bodies to an immense height, or in the various products of manufacture and art, or, in short, for any of the almost innumerable purposes where the various electricities are now employed, either separately or in combination.

This could not well be otherwise; for beyond a contrivance like your Leyden jar, for collecting "air electricity," no means of collecting, still less concentrating, electricity of any kind then existed.

The belief once generally entertained was, that there were but two electricities, or rather two varieties of the same electricity, one repellent and the other attractive, answering in a measure to your terms of positive and negative. Some, indeed, thought that several different kinds existed; but the renowned electricians--truly great men, for they had opened the gates of science--proclaimed that all electricities were in reality one and the same, modified only by accidents.

They referred to certain phenomena always resembling each other in whatever way the electricity producing them might be generated; and they argued, with an appearance of truth, that the electricity which produced these similar phenomena must be one and the same: for, asked they, are not like causes indicated by like effects? The principle was right, but, as was subsequently shown, the application and the conclusion were wrong. The error had arisen from the fact that electricities of every kind possess certain properties in common: thus, air electricity enters into the composition of them all. These common properties produce phenomena varying only in degree, but so similar to each other that, in the absence of further knowledge, the electricians concluded that their theory was correct, and, in consequence, many valuable discoveries were retarded for centuries.

MANY KINDS OF ELECTRICITY.

In my reign, however, tangible and visible proofs established beyond doubt that every kind of body and substance, whether animate or inanimate, contains an electricity of its own.

Although all electricities contain air electricity, and are similar in some other respects, yet each differs from all others by reason of some properties peculiar to itself, the species being different, though the genus is the same. As in the case of the blood of animals, which is called by the common name of blood in spite of material differences, when the species is different, so we have a generic name for all electricities, a term signifying "A spark of Heaven power."

Some electricities are diffused and attenuated; some are concentrated; others are so tenacious of the body to which they belong that they are all but steadfast. Some are sympathetic; some antipathetic, attracting or repelling each other; some mingle gently; others, when brought into contact, cause violent explosions.

DRAWING OUT AND CONCENTRATING ELECTRICITIES FOR USE.

WE discovered the means of drawing out the various electricities from the body to which they are appetent, and of concentrating and preserving them for use.

Man, beasts, birds, insects, fish, reptiles, trees, plants, water, in short, all substances organic and inorganic, possess each its own peculiar electricity. In naming fish, I refer to each species, and not merely to those already known to you as electrical, and which have the power of emitting strong currents of their own peculiar electricity. A huge fish, well known on your earth, supplies us with the most powerful of all electricities--an electricity of immense value. Docks sufficiently large are built expressly where the sea monster is driven, there to be subjected to the process by which he is made to yield up the electricity contained in his huge frame.

The different kinds of electricity collected and concentrated are stored ready for use in a large building called "The Electric Store-house,"-- the electricities, secured in non-conducting pouches, being placed in separate compartments. This is the more necessary, since explosions arise when antagonistic electricities come into contact with each other, and the commingling of sympathetic electricities deteriorates their quality. For that reason care is taken to keep out light. By the electricity of light most other electricities are affected.

To the storehouse are attached extensive grounds for experiments and for exhibitions, which at the same time delight and instruct the people. I should observe that beautiful as well as humorous effects are produced by certain electrical combinations. By means of sympathetic action living bodies can be attracted and raised without removing their inherent electricity, as you attract light substances with the magnet or the electricity known to you.

WILD BIRDS CAUGHT BY ELECTRICITY.

The kind of electricity by which the body to be operated upon will be best attracted is well understood in Montalluyah. As a simple example, I will state that wild birds are caught by means of a sympathetic electricity. For this purpose a long, hollow metal tube is used, at the bottom of which is a globe containing a powerful acid. A receptacle at the top of the tube contains seeds much liked by the birds. They hover about these seeds, and, when they are within a certain distance, a slight pressure on a wooden spring causes a drop of the acid in the globe to escape into the tube, and so to set in movement a current of electricity, which, being very sympathetic to the bird, acts as an attractor so powerful, that it cannot get away. The tube is then gently lowered, and the birds are gradually drawn near to the earth, when a light net is thrown over the captives, and they are shaken into a cage-net at the bottom. Calmed by the electricity, they do not flutter or struggle when thus secured. It is very interesting to see the birds come nearer and nearer as the rod is lowered towards the ground.

For electrical purposes it is necessary to catch the birds alive. Those required for food are also caught in the same way, that they may be killed without pain, as, indeed, are all birds and animals used for food. Birds supply an electricity for lightening ponderous bodies; and by means of this, the immense blocks of iron-marble used for the construction of the Mountain Supporter were temporarily lightened, that they might be raised to their assigned places.

XII.

THE PAIN-LULLER.

VIVISECTION.

"Cause not pain, lest you yourselves be afflicted."

From a small pet-bird of pink and green plumage, called in our language the Nebo, is extracted an electricity known as the "Pain-luller."

The preparations previously used, though very serviceable, did not fulfil all requisites, and they so seriously suspended the vital action, that the patient often died in consequence. By means of the "pain-luller" vivisection and the most difficult surgical operations can be performed safely and painlessly, without any part of the system being affected by the action of the "pain-luller," with the exception of the nerves of sensation. We knew that the feeling of pain in animals depends on the action of a particular set of nerves. When this pain-lulling electricity is introduced into body, it is attracted to the nerves of sensation, and the sense of feeling remains suspended during several hours, whilst the other nerves and muscles--as, indeed, all the rest of the organization--continue to perform their functions as in their normal state.

VIVISECTION.

In vivisection the animal's eyes are bandaged, so that he does not even know what is going on, but is free from pain, whilst all the springs of action, with the one exception, remain in their normal state. This would not be the case if the animal suffered from acute pain and terror during the operation. The continued energy of the functions is thought essential to the complete success of the operation, whether on the human frame or in vivisection.

HOW DISCOVERED.

The efficacy of the "pain-luller" was discovered by an accident. A little girl carrying a pet Nebo was knocked down, and the wheel of a chariot passed over her legs. In a convulsive effort to save her pet, the child pressed it to her bosom with so much force that she broke, the bird's skin. When the people ran to her assistance, and lifted her up, they found that both her legs were broken. To the surprise of all, she did not cry, but only asked to be taken to her mother, and continued to press the bird to her breast. From kindness, those near wished to take away the bird, but the girl would not loose her hold.

The doctors were astonished; for the severity of the fractures would ordinarily have caused acute pain, more particularly during the setting of the bones. The child, however, though quite conscious of what was passing, did not suffer in the least, but continued to pet her little bird.

After many experiments, my scientific men found that this entire absence of pain was due to the Nebo's electricity, which had escaped by the breaking of its skin. This electricity, attracted by the nerves of sensation, had entered the child's body when she pressed the pet convulsively to her bosom, the seat of great sensibility. The electricity only suspended the sense of feeling, but did not affect any other part of the child's system.

XIII.

THE MICROSCOPE.

CONCENTRATED LIGHT--MUSIC--EXPERIMENT ON THE LIVING MAN.

"The same Almighty Power that governs the universe of worlds governs the minutest particles of creation....In both is shown His infinite power."

The properties of our Microscopes (as of other optical instruments) are wondrously increased by the aid of an electricity called "concentrated light." [1]

[Footnote 1: In Montalluyah light in the ordinary state is said to be a highly attenuated electricity.]

In our fields is found a little worm, whose body is surrounded by a beautiful and powerful light, visible by day and by night.

While meditating on the cause of this phenomenon, it occurred to me that the light was probably attracted and concentrated round the little creature by its own electricity. After many experiments, my great electricians found that this was the case, and many valuable discoveries were the result.

A machine, called the "Enticer," charged with electricity abstracted from this worm, is placed in a high open spot, and light is attracted and concentrated in a marvellous manner. When the pouch for receiving the concentrated light is fully charged, and secured against the action of other electricities, it is detached from the machine, and its contents are preserved for use. The appearance of concentrated light is that of a beautiful halo.

MUSIC.

The power of music, beyond that derived from its mere execution, is greatly influenced by the amount of electricity infused into the sounds by the performer; and in our planet the human voice has often been known to soothe, and sometimes to restore, a disordered brain, by awakening the powers of some dormant division, when the electricity accompanying the sounds is sympathetic with the light in the brain of the listener. The human voice, other things being equal, is more electrical than sounds from musical instruments; for in the one case the emanations of light come direct from the living singer, whilst in the latter instance the electricity coming from the executant passes by contact with the instrument, and is thus transmitted through an intermediate conductor. The beauty and effect of many of our musical instruments, and particularly of the harp, are greatly increased by the application of electricity.

A skilful executant on our harp can assuage the passions of a multitude,--nay, he can excite many of the aspirations and sensibilities ascribed in your legends to Orpheus and other mythical personages.

It is thought in Montalluyah,--though it was never demonstrated,--that a modification of concentrated light forms the point of union between the immortal soul and the perishable portions of man.

INTERNAL CONCENTRATED LIGHT.

There is concentrated light--the very essence of light--within ourselves, particularly in the brain, to which the light, having travelled about the body, is conveyed, through the instrumentality of the blood, to the nerves and other organs.

In speaking of the brain, we often use words belonging to vision. Until the discovery of "concentrated light," we did not know how truthful were these expressions, one of which in our language answers to the "mind's eye." The eye as well as the brain contains concentrated light, and physical impressions received through the visual organs are by this electricity immediately conveyed to the sympathetic "light" of the brain.

By the application of concentrated light we can even increase for a time the intellectual powers, or, rather, we can strengthen the instrument through which the intellectual powers are manifested.

EXPERIMENT ON THE LIVING MAN.

The possession of concentrated light led to the discovery of the exact mode in which the brain acts in the living man. By experiments on transparent fish of the zoophyte class, and on the eyes of animals, we discovered the means of making a living body for a time transparent. The skull was rendered transparent accordingly, and by the aid of concentrated light and of an instrument called an "electric viewer," the currents of electricity in the brain were made visible.

These currents include myriads of electrical lines--literally composed of electricity--lines the nearest approach to your definition of a mathematical line, that which hath length without breadth.

The filaments, as we may truly call them, are of different forms, straight, spiral, and otherwise curved, and of varied length and colours. They are set in motion by the impulsion of thought. When we talked to the patient on a particular subject, one series of lines would be set in motion with indescribable rapidity; other topics would call into play other series of straight or curved lines. They can also be set in motion under the influence of certain electricities.

Although the experiments on the living man proved very valuable, they could not be conducted with impunity, and were therefore not often repeated. The man operated upon was insensible for some time afterwards, and felt the effects for years. He was, however, cared for during the rest of his life, and was not expected to work. Moreover, every kind of comfort, luxury, and amusement was provided for him and for a certain number of relatives and friends whom he selected as companions. Still he was not allowed to marry, that being one of the principal conditions to which he subscribed on being chosen for the experiment from amongst a host of candidates to whom all the serious consequences attending the operation were made known.

XIV.

PHYSICIANS.

DISEASE GERMS.

"Cure all evils in their early germ, so shall ye be spared endless suffering."

Physicians take very high rank in Montalluyah; they are furnished with palaces and gardens; their revenue is great; they are wholly provided for by the State, since on their knowledge and efforts depend greatly the prolongation of life, the prevention of disease and suffering, the preservation of beauty, and of invaluable nerve and brain power. As in the moral, so in the physical constitution, the aim is to discover and crush evils in their germ, before they have taken proportions dangerous to the individual and to the community.