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."