A World of Highest Invention.
After 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 palaces of Ploid are dreams of beauty and convenience, outshining
and surpassing by far the finest mansions on the face of our globe. In
these abodes the sum total of glory and convenience converges, flowing
from almost numberless discoveries during the last one hundred years. In
round numbers, there have been five hundred thousand patents issued in
the United States in the nineteenth century, but the Ploidites excel us
by double that number for a similar territorial limit.
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, according 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.