Farm and Factory
Early the following morning we were again under way. Leaving Thalos
through a little arched gateway under the western wall, we trudged for
several hours through flat green countryside. Here and there, amid
breaks in the vegetation, we observed edifices which my companions
described as “farmhouses,” but which, with their statue-lined walls
and marble columns, seemed to me to be little less than palaces. These
remarkable dwellings, of which there must have been four or five to
every square mile, were conspicuous from a distance, for there were no
obscuring trees, and the landscape was dominated by a hardy reed that
grew shoulder-high in impenetrable clusters.
Except for the size of this plant, I might have fancied it to be a
variety of wheat. Not only were its leaves long and grass-like, but it
bore a rich crop of some grain that closely resembled wheat, although
each of the seed-clusters were large as ears of Indian corn. That it
was cultivated for food purposes was obvious, for brilliant white lamps
were beaming from the tinted columns as in the fruit-jungles, and at
regular intervals we passed irrigation ditches, and now and then caught
glimpses of gray-clad men at work amid the green thickets.
But while this scenery was fairly interesting, it was on the whole the
most monotonous I had yet viewed in Atlantis. Hence I was relieved when
the landscape showed a sudden change, and the cultivated plains gave
way to a series of long, low, grass-covered hills. From the beginning,
I noticed something peculiar about these eminences, for their contours
were rounded with almost geometrical evenness; while beyond the
furthest heights, a clear, rapid stream flowed out of the ground as
if forced up from nowhere, and, after meandering to the edge of the
reed-covered plain, divided into half a dozen diverging irrigation
canals. But all this was less surprising than what I next observed; for
as I stood staring at the stream in wonder, a huge rock at the base of
the nearest hill thrust itself outward, and a man emerged as if from
the center of the earth!
Startled, I turned to my companions for an explanation--but not a
murmur issued from them, and their faces showed none of that amazement
I might have expected. “Here is where we enter,” declared one of the
tutors, in matter-of-fact tones; and followed by the rest of the party,
he plunged through the aperture made by the dislodged boulder.
Like one in a dream--or rather like one in a nightmare--I trailed
with the others into that hole on the hillside. As I approached the
entrance, I found that what I had taken to be a rock was not a rock at
all, but merely a cleverly disguised bit of metal; upon reaching the
doorway, I was amazed to find, instead of the tunnel-like corridor I
had expected, a spacious and wide-vaulting hall.
With the exception of the Sunken World itself it was the largest
enclosure I had ever entered; indeed, it occupied the entire interior
of the hill. Along the full length of a half-mile gallery the
white-lanterned ceiling arched to a height of two hundred feet; and on
each side of a broad passageway, rising almost to meet the ceiling,
was a series of what I took to be gigantic boilers. All of these were
connected with innumerable wires and with pipes thicker than a man’s
body, while at the further end of the gallery the tubes were interwoven
in intricate loops, coils and convolutions like the exposed entrails of
a Titan.
As I stepped through the doorway, a warm breeze swept my face, bearing
to my nostrils the odor of oil, and at the same time bringing me
reminders of the furnace-dry air of steam-heated apartments. “What
place is this?” I could not forebear to ask; but almost instantly I was
sorry that I had spoken, for four or five pairs of eyes were turned
upon me in surprise at so obvious a question.
“This is a distillery, of course,” answered one of my young companions.
“A distillery?” I echoed, scarcely less astonished at his words than at
the extraordinary appearance of the place. And although the Atlanteans
had seemed to me to be a sober people, I had visions of the manufacture
of intoxicants on a scale inconceivable to the most bibulous of my own
countrymen.
“Yes, this is where we prepare our distilled water,” continued my
friend, surprised at my surprise.
* * * * *
For a moment I merely stared at him without comprehension. “But why so
much distilled water?” was all that I could gasp.
“That’s easily explained,” said the young man, with a smile. “The water
piped from our deep wells, which serves us for drinking purposes,
couldn’t begin to take care of our irrigation problems--and without
irrigation Atlantis would be a desert. The Salty River, of course,
contains enough for all our needs; but it is ocean water, and the brine
would kill all land vegetation. And so the only possibility was to
distill the water. This was arranged for long ago by Agripides, when
he built this distillery and eleven others, which together keep the
irrigation system of Atlantis supplied, and incidentally provide us
with all the salt required for domestic and chemical purposes.”
“That may be all very well,” I remarked, “but the amount of heat
necessary to evaporate so much water must be tremendous ...”
“That is no problem at all,” my companion assured me. “By means of
intra-atomic energy, we could generate power enough to distill the
entire ocean.”
I felt certain that this statement was an exaggeration, but before
I had had time for comment, my attention was suddenly diverted. All
of our party had paused before a circular slit in the floor; and a
brown-clad workman, stepping forth from amid the boilers, applied a key
to a little hole near the edge of the slit, and removed a steel disk
perhaps five feet in diameter.
Instantly we were bathed in a brilliant copper light, so dazzling
that at first I had to turn abruptly away. Then as my startled eyes
gradually accustomed themselves to the vivid illumination, I peered
through a glass partition far down into what remotely reminded me
of a furnace, except that no flames were visible, but from the
vague fire-bright background great sheets and rods of a shining red
or a blinding brassy yellow stared at me steadily with unbearable
incandescence.
“Those are the intra-atomic generators,” explained the workmen. “They
are constantly liberating energy, which is transformed into electrical
power by means of giant induction coils; and it is this electricity
which is wired to the boiler-room below and heats the water from the
Salty River.”
“But how terrible to work down there!” it occurred to me to comment.
“How can any man--”
“It is not necessary to work down there,” I was promptly informed.
“The generators continue operating automatically so long as they are
supplied with fuel.”
“What fuel do you use?” I inquired.
The reply was not at all what I had expected. “Any of the heavier
metals will do,” stated the workman. “One of the best of the cheaper
fuels is gold, for its high atomic weight makes possible extensive
dissociation. Sometimes, however, we use silver, platinum, or
lead--although the latter is ordinarily regarded as too valuable for
such purposes. A supply of lead will run the generator for twenty-seven
years, one of silver for thirty-three, and one of gold for forty-five.
When new fuel is required, we simply shoot it in through the tube over
there.” And the speaker pointed to a tube of about the thickness of a
man’s wrist, which projected several feet above the floor between two
of the boilers.
I thought that I had now seen enough of the distillery, and was not
disappointed when my companions made ready to leave. But there was one
problem which still troubled me: why did the building look so much
like a hill from without, and why had such evident pains been taken to
conceal its existence?
To these questions I found a speedy answer. “If this edifice had
been erected in the days before Agripides,” declared one of my young
friends, “it would have been nothing more than an ugly mass of steel
and stone. But Agripides, seeking a way to beautify the structure and
hide its unavoidable defects, hit upon the plan of covering it with a
coating of earth and sowing the earth with grass, so as to give the
appearance of a green hill. All our factories, you will find, have in
some such way been concealed or made beautiful.”
This, indeed, I discovered to be the case. We had now reached the
industrial center of Atlantis; and all the rest of that day we were
busy inspecting manufacturing plants of sundry kinds and sizes. But
nowhere was the air clouded with that smoke and dust which I had
come to associate with industrial districts in my own land; nowhere
was there a dingy or soot-blackened building, nowhere were my ears
assaulted by the shrieking or droning of whistles, or by the hammering,
pounding, screeching, whirring or grating of machines. Instead, we
passed through a region that might have been recommended to sufferers
from nervous ailments. In the midst of pleasant, grassy lands an
occasional tree-bordered building arose with glittering steeples or
stainless marble facade or august columns of granite; and within each
building, which one might have mistaken for a mansion or a temple,
electrically driven wheels and levers would be operating noiselessly,
preparing the food of the Atlanteans or weaving their clothes from
the fibre of a flax-like plant, manufacturing farm implements or
fertilizers or scientific articles or household wares; and in each of
these factories a few workers (never more than a score) would be calmly
and often smilingly tending the machines, occupying thus their two or
three hours of assigned daily service for the State.
* * * * *
The institution that interested me most was the building where
chemists were at work renewing the air supply of Atlantis--or, rather,
the oxygen supply. Here, in a long hall dominated by great vats
connected by pipes and wires reminding me vaguely of the distillery,
a continual stream of water was being disintegrated by a process
of electrolysis, the hydrogen being diverted to enter into various
chemical compounds, with carbon nitrogen and other elements, the
oxygen being released into the atmosphere to replace that consumed
by respiration and combustion. By means of the air-gauge, a finely
adjusted apparatus whose index was a flame that varied in intensity
with the amount of oxygen, chemists were able to determine how much of
this vital gas was required at any specific time; but some oxygen had
to be provided continually, for, large as Atlantis was, it was not so
great that nature would preserve a balance and replace the oxygen that
was consumed by that freed in the course of organic processes of plant
life.
But if the Atlantean industries were arranged with a regard for the
welfare and esthetic sensibilities of the people as a whole, scarcely
less pains had been taken to insure the health and convenience of the
workers. I will not speak of the safety devices, which had been so
perfected that accidents were virtually unknown; I will not dwell upon
the precautions to vary the monotony even of the two-or three-hour
working day, to make possible individual initiative, to guard against
fatigue and excessive strain, or to render the surroundings pleasant
to the eye and mind. But what I must mention, because it impressed
me as unique, is the fact that the workers were housed in dwellings
not less imposing than the most stately city homes. The road took us
through half a dozen villages reserved for the factory workers; and
each of these seemed to be in itself a work of art, with many-columned
residences, arches and marble portals and connecting colonnades,
flowered parks and statuary and fountains, all co-ordinated in a
tasteful and elegant design.