Life in a Thousand Worlds/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV.
A World of Highest Invention.
FTER my profitable stay in this immense solar system in the Milky Way, I crossed the vast dome of the heavens and lighted on Sirius, the brightest star in all the canopy of night. Here I found the fire life of Alpha Centaurus repeated, but I did not pause to study the odd phases presented to my view.
Onward I moved to survey the remarkable systems of worlds that revolve around Sirius. It is a veritable medley of planets, large and small, inhabited and barren, sinless, sinful and millennial. A little universe packed in a nutshell, figuratively speaking.
The orb of this group that first held my attention is very notable indeed. I have labeled it "High Invention," and it is still entitled to that distinction. It revolves around Sirius at a distance of seven million miles and is thirty-three times as large as our world, with physical features and climate quite dissimilar.
Here, in this world of ours, we are proud of the wonderful genius displayed by our inventors, and is not this conceit pardonable?
If this world should stand and inventive genius continue at its present compound rate of progress, what may we expect to see a hundred or a thousand years hence? Now imagine yourself looking down upon a world where the highest inventive skill is found. Such was my privilege at this time in the course of my universal journey.
This surprising world is inhabited by a persevering race of human beings, among whom are a large number of illustrious characters who walk in the light of ten thousand years of human achievements.
It need not be said that I was intensely interested in the study of this phenomenal world which I will call Ploid. I went from one portion of the planet to another, continually remaining invisible. After I had witnessed the unequaled sights, I paused to complete my memoranda and now, as I review my jottings, I am at a loss to know what few things I should select to try to make intelligible to my fellow-men who live on this infinitesimal speck which is our world. First, let me call attention to:
Their Triumphs in the Vegetable Kingdom.
The people of Ploid have in their possession a remarkable line of fertilizers, not in the form of ground bones, but acidulous juices. These juices were improved for three thousand years until there was a particular liquid suited to each separate class of vegetables.
As used at the present time, a certain amount of the growth-acid is poured directly about the seed at the time of planting. This acid has a magical effect upon the soil and it is possible, by repeated fertilizing, to raise in two weeks a crop of zoftas, a vegetable similar to our potatoes. For raising a crop in two weeks the fertilizer costs one-half the value of the zoftas, and for maturing a crop in four weeks the fertilizer costs about three-eighths of the value of the zoftas.
Thus it is possible to raise six of these crops in one of our years. This law obtains throughout the whole vegetable creation. However, in ordinary circumstances, the stimulating acid is used in very light quantities. The people have learned by experience that vegetables have a better flavor when they have been brought to maturity by the slower processes.
These wonderful fertilizers are a blessed boon in the time of "crop failures," for then the same crop can be grown anew from the seed and hurried to maturity before the close of the season.
The curse of the vegetable worms has been reduced to a minimum on this world of Ploid. The chemists have labored patiently for one thousand years to produce a substance that will not destroy vegetable seed and at the same time kill all forms of parasites. The results have been gratifying, and with considerable pleasure I viewed a garden of the various odd-shaped vegetables that are grown, without being repulsed at the sight of such crawling specimens as tomato and cabbage worms.
The happiest result of this worm-killing substance is seen in the work it accomplishes on fruit and nut trees. There is triple the variety of nuts on Ploid, and they are used for food more generally than in our world. There is no such an animal as a hog and no lard is used. The substitute is found in four varieties of nut oil, the result of a sweet and clean vegetable growth. Nuts are raised in great abundance, for they also supply the base for a spread just as appetizing and more economical than butter.
Their Modes of Travel.
The Ploidites have been traveling in the air for twenty-five hundred years, but they cannot control their air-ships sufficiently in all kinds of weather. The atmosphere of Ploid is relatively lighter than ours, which has made aerial travel more difficult to perfect than it would be in our world.
The main traffic, both passenger and freight, is carried on by the Tube Line, a wonderful system perfected through thousands of years of painstaking labor.
Two immense tubes, lying side by side, each ten feet in diameter, made of a substance more durable than steel, form the road bed of this lightning system of travel. The cigar-shaped cars have hard rubber-wheels and fit over raised bars all around on the inside of the immense Tube.
The motor power is called Sky-rallic, and is communicated throughout the whole Tube Line by Brosis, a porous metal running in thin narrow bands.
This Tube Line runs without a curve from one division of the road to another, except in rare cases where a bend is absolutely necessary. In a mountainous region I noticed a stretch of Tube Line without a bend running sixty miles, according to our measurement. On prairies, the unbroken stretches are much longer.
The cars in this Tube Line travel with fearful rapidity. It requires two or three miles to reach dashing speed, after which a run of fifty miles is made in eight or ten minutes. No precaution need be taken by the motorman as nothing can get into the tube and only one train is allowed in a section at one time. Certain hours are given to passenger traffic and others to freight traffic. An immense amount of freight can thus be carried in one hour. It is possible to send a through freight car two thousand miles in ten or twelve hours. Express cars are never connected with passengers cars. They are run on their own schedule and sometimes attached to freight cars.
This immense Tube Line was built by the government at great expense, but it is proving very satisfactory. No storms or floods interfere. No grade-crossings and no flying dust are known in this Tube Line which has brought the ends of Ploid together. Think of a person crossing a vast continent in a day, for the cars in this Tube Line run with frightful speed across the long stretches of level. They make as high as a three-hundred mile run in forty minutes, without stopping.
The signal and telegraph stations are fifty miles apart, sometimes more. In these long runs the motorman stops only when a signal is turned against him or if by accident he discerns a train in the Tube ahead of him.
The Tube Line is lighted by oval transparencies, in size and shape resembling an egg, soldered in specially prepared holes of the Tube. The cars are not supplied with air from the tube. Fresh air is obtained from the evaporation of a semi-solid.
On the top of this Tube line there is a double railroad used for local travel, both passenger and freight
Their Storage Batteries.
Compared with our world, the fuel of Ploid is very scarce, but less is required to supply the industries. Nearly all power is obtained from the winds, running water and the sun's energy.
The winds are harnessed so that they blow not in vain. Almost every home of ordinary intelligence owns one of the many kinds of storage batteries used in this world. These batteries are usually located beneath the lowest floor of the house, and they constitute the reservoir whence is obtained the necessary power for lighting, heating and cooling the apartments of the home.
People who live along streams of water utilize these streams for similar purposes. It is now conceded in Ploid that the storage batteries of the home can be supplied as economically and effectively by winds and the sun's heat as by running streams; hence it is a common sight to see residences throwing out the old water machinery and introducing the latest design of wind-employers or sun-harnessers.
There are certain emergencies when the storage batteries fail to work or when the power is exhausted; this happens when there is a very slight wind for several days or a heavy drain of power. In such cases fuel is used for heating and lighting.
Palaces of Ploid.
The Reward of Inventors.
Patents are not issued in Ploid. The government gives liberal rewards to each inventor or discoverer. The applicant appears personally before the District Committee on Inventions. If this Committee considers the invention worthy of a reward, the applicant is recommended to one of the Central Committees at the seat of the government.
This Central Committee carefully considers the invention or discovery, places on it an estimate as to its local or governmental value, and fills out papers in accordance with its findings. This paper must be signed by the Chief Inventor, and the applicant at once receives his first installment which is continued, in some instances, during natural life. In the case of some extraordinary invention, the immediate relatives of the inventor are pensioned for five or ten years in his honor.
Naturally, under this system, the government owns all inventions, and reaps a heavy return from them, enough to pay all the installments to the inventors and the officers employed to carry on this branch of the government work. Some Particular Inventions.
One of the most convenient inventions I saw on this planet of Ploid was the carrying of a photograph or image along a wire. The people of Ploid cannot only talk to one another many miles apart, but they can also see each other while they are talking.
This wonderful attachment to their telephones, by which the human face is also carried over the wire, was perfected over one thousand years ago. I herewith give a few uses to which this invention is applied.
1. Office men have photograph wires connected with their homes, and they can thus talk to and see any one of the family at their pleasure.
2. It can be so arranged that the wife in the home can, by touching a little knob, see into her husband's office with which the wire is connected, or the husband in the office can see into the room of the house with which the connection is made. At either end of the wire, the vision can be obstructed by drawing a curtain over the sensitive plate.
3. The foreman of an industrial work shop can see from his home the men under his charge.
4. The superintendent of any large works can, at his will, peer into any apartment he wishes from his head office. The advantages of this arrangement can be easily seen.
5. A minister can see from his study the nature of his audience before he leaves home.
6. Farmers can watch their cattle and their fruits without leaving the house or barn, according to where the connections are made.
7. Persons can be in bed at night, and if they imagine they hear a robber in any room they can first turn on the photograph current and then the light flash. In this way one can look, without leaving his bed, into each room of the house.
Having given a few illustrations of this marvelous invention, the reader can readily see the variety of uses which it will serve.
Their latest discovery in light is a decided improvement over our electric light. I know of no sensible name to give it, but the name that comes nearest to describing it, cording to our terms, would be Phosphorous Light. It gives a mild but yet positive radiance, and closely resembles diffused sunlight.
The Ages of Ploid.
One of the strangest theories of the whole universe I found on this cultured world of Ploid. They divide time into three general periods of ages:
1. Age of Fire.
2. Temperate Age.
3. Age of Ice.
The people teach that there was a race of human beings who inhabited their world when it was yet in a molten state and that, as their earth cooled off, the race became extinct.
This age, they claim, was followed by the Temperate Age, or the age in which they are now living.
It is also claimed that, when their earth cools and the frigid blasts freeze out the world, there will gradually commence the Age of Ice, or the age in which human species will exist by reason of the earth's stiff coldness.I had no way of learning the truth or falsity of this theory.
Thought Photography.
These Ploidites have distanced us in the study of the nervous system, including the intricate problems of the cerebrum and cerebellum. They have ascertained, by long ages of observation and experimenting, the exact effect of every kind of impulse on the brain matter. The experts are able to tell, at a post-mortem examination, what kinds of thinking were most prevalent during the subject's life, just as easily as we can judge the great or little use of the arm by an examination of its muscles.
But more wonderful, a thousand fold, is their ability to follow the course of thought in a living cerebrum after the brain has been made visible by a light more potent than the X ray. After this exposure the operator, with his wizard magnifying lens, watches the tiny tremulous brain cells in their infinitesimal quivering, as they carry messages from the soul to the world of sense and being.
The voluntary nerve action is distinguished from the involuntary, and there is no escape from the conclusions formed by an expert observer. The parts of the brain at work must of necessity determine the nature of the thought, and amplified experiments have been made to prove the correctness of these processes.
This scientific mind reading impressed me as the highest expression of inventive skill that had come to my attention in any world of space, and gave me new light on some of the old mysteries of mind and matter.
I tarried as long as possible on this instructive planet and have not yet forgotten many of the valuable hints of inventions that can be reproduced in my own world. Surely we are far enough away from Ploid to escape any charge of infringement, should we proceed to patent some of their inventions.