Page:Life in a thousand worlds.djvu/308

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BRIEF.
303

away by the power of an overhead cable system. When an exchange of seats is necessary, it is all done so easily and so quickly that you would wonder why we tolerate trolley cars.

In traveling from city to city, a system is in use that I will call the Toboggan Slide System, although the cars run on wheels. The car is raised in a shaft about one hundred feet and then by gravity it dashes two or more miles according to the lay of the land traversed. Then another rise more or less than one hundred feet is experienced, and then another wild dash. I have no words of praise for this system, although the Briefites can cover considerable territory in an hour. They look upon this gravity system as a wonderful achievement, for it has not been in operation for more than three hundred years.

The power of steam has never been utilized. No genius of all this active world of Brief ever conceived the idea that almost unlimited power lies wrapped up in thin vapory water. But they have discovered what we would call gaseous oil, and have learned