RAPID TRANSIT ON MARS.
Here Thorwald paused and said he should be obliged to leave us a short
time to attend to some duty in the management of the vessel. When he
returned I remarked that neither he nor his companions seemed to have to
work very hard.
“That,” he answered, “is just the thought I want to speak of next, as
the doctor has said many earthly troubles arise from severe labor. Here
there is no hard work for us. It is all done by some kind of mechanism.
Look at the handling of this ship, in which, as you say, no one is
burdened. The hard and disagreeable parts of the work are taken out
of our hands and are put into the hand of machinery, which in its
perfection is almost intelligent. It is so in all departments of work.
Inventions looking toward the saving of labor have closely followed each
other for so many years that their object is about accomplished, and all
the pain and sorrow accompanying daily toil are things of the dead past.
Even our animals are relieved from distressing labor and share with
us the blessings of an advanced civilization, every heavy weight being
raised and every burdensome load being drawn by an arm of steel or
aluminum, which neither tires nor feels. We do not need to pity a
machine. Why should flesh and blood, whether of dumb beasts or of more
intelligent beings, suffer the agony of labor when the work can be
better done by mechanical means?
“While speaking of the lower animals I may as well say here that we have
no wild beasts. All have been tamed; not merely brought into subjection,
but made the friends and companions in a sense of our higher race. Every
animal, large and small, has lost its power and will to harm us. The
wasp has lost its sting, the serpent its poison, and the tiger its
desire to tear. And not only is their enmity to us all gone, but they no
longer prey upon each other. Perfect peace reigns in this realm also.”
“What has brought about this highly interesting condition?” I asked.
“Was there a natural tendency toward perfection on the part of the
beasts?”
“No,” replied Thorwald, “I think not. The change has been accomplished
by us. Nothing that has life could help being uplifted by contact with
our ever-expanding civilization. We believe the chief factor in working
this great betterment in the animal creation has been our success in
entirely eliminating flesh as an article of food. We early came to see
it was not necessary for ourselves and that without it we were much
better prepared to assume the higher duties belonging to our advanced
life. We then began to experiment with the animals nearest us. It was
a slow and discouraging task at first, but finally we obtained results
that gave us hope of success. We found in the course of many years that
the digestive organs of the animals on which we were experimenting were
gradually becoming accustomed to a vegetable diet. We continued the
work, extending it to one class of animals after another, until in time
all carnivorous instincts disappeared.”
This interested the doctor exceedingly, and he remarked that he should
think there would have been some kinds of animals that would resist all
efforts to work such a change in them; but Thorwald answered:
“I have never read of such cases, but if there were any the species must
have become extinct, for now, in all this world, no conscious life is
taken to support another life. No blood is let for our refreshment and
no minutest creature is pursued and slain to appease the appetite of its
stronger neighbor.”
“Does this condition extend even to the fish of the sea?” inquired the
doctor.
“Even to the fish of the sea,” answered the Martian.
“Now that you discover,” he continued, “what improvement has been
wrought in the lower animals, you can understand that their comfort is
an object of our solicitude, and that we take great pleasure in knowing
that they are relieved from all hard labor.”
“But you haven’t told us,” said I, “what is the source of the power that
does all your work.”
“Let me ask,” replied Thorwald, “if you have begun to use electricity
yet?”
“Yes,” I answered, “we are trying to harness it, but it is still far
from obedient to us.”
“I perceive,” said our friend, “from this and other things you have
told me, that your development is going on in about the order which has
prevailed on Mars. Do not be discouraged in your efforts to bring that
mysterious and wonderful agent, electricity, into complete subjection.
You will find it your most useful servant, and in connection with
aluminum it will enable you to solve numerous problems and remove many
difficulties from your path of progress.
“Here we have made full use of both of these valuable helps. Electricity
enters into every department of life.
“It runs our errands, takes us from place to place, builds our houses,
cooks our food, and even is applied to the growth of our food when we
are in haste for any article. Its laws are so well understood that there
is no fear of personal injury from its use, and I will show you how
familiar an aid it is to us. Here,” he continued, taking from his
pocket a brightly polished case of metal, “is a compact storage battery,
containing, not electricity itself, of course, but elements so prepared
that a simple touch will start into motion a powerful current, able to
perform almost any task I may ask of it. This case, you see, is so small
and light that it is no burden, and yet it contains power enough to
serve me for many days. Of course, all our work of a fixed character
has appliances with the power permanently attached, and these portable
reservoirs are carried about with us only for detached and unexpected
tasks.”
To my experienced eye the doctor’s face looked a little skeptical at
this last remark, and he said:
“But how can the power be applied in these emergencies? Suppose, for
example, it were necessary for you to go from here to the other end of
this vessel in half a second, how would the electricity in your box help
you do it?”
“If I really thought, Doctor, you wanted to be rid of me I would be
tempted to try it; but, as I told your companion just now, you had
better learn all you can of our history before you begin to see what we
can do.
“I haven’t told you half of the wonders performed by this marvelous
power. It has long been our chief reliance for rapid traveling. You find
us in this ship; but, although navigation is a perfected science, this
mode of traveling is tedious, and ships are used only for pleasure and
such out-of-the-way trips as this. Journeys from place to place over
established routes are made in large tubes, in which the cars are
propelled by electricity. These tubes run both on land and water, being
suspended in the latter a little way below the surface. Both tubes and
cars are air-tight, and the adjustment is so perfect that the cars slide
along with the greatest ease. Riding in an air-tight chamber would not
be pleasant if much time were to be occupied in that way, but the cars
are propelled so swiftly that the time from one station to another is
hardly appreciable. At every stop the cars are opened and apparatus set
in motion which changes the air completely almost in a moment. Where the
tubes run under water shafts for air are put in at the stations. There
is always a double line, one tube for each direction. No chance is left
for accidents.
“Of course we navigate the air, swiftly and safely. If not in too much
haste we always take the aerial passage, and often on a pleasant day the
sky over a great city will be as full of air ships, or balloons as we
still sometimes call them, as its harbor is of pleasure boats. In this
department inventors had a fruitful field, the use of aluminum offering
abundant opportunity for the greatest variety of devices, and the
development of the flying machine was one of the most interesting
features in the march toward our present high civilization. Perhaps the
presence of so many electrical machines in the air and the utilization
of so much electricity on land and water have, after thousands of years,
done much toward freeing us from the thunderstorm, with its deadly
lightning. We have fairly robbed the clouds of their electricity and
taught it to do our work.
“Swift and economical as our modern electric cars are, there is one
mode of traveling sometimes adopted which is more rapid still, and
the cheapest and in some respects the easiest way of getting over the
surface of the globe ever dreamed of. It was discovered by accident,
just before accidents entirely ceased, in the following manner:
“A couple of scientific enthusiasts, of the kind we call cranks--I don’t
know what you call them on the earth--conceived the idea that they
could find something better to take the place of the highly purified and
buoyant gases which we used in our flying machines. They observed, in
the lofty flights they were accustomed to make into the air, that as
they ascended the atmosphere grew lighter, and this led them to think
they might go far into the upper regions, collect large quantities of
rarefied air, bring it down, and use it for floating flying machines. Of
course, they understood that any vessel this thin air was put into must
be strong enough to prevent being collapsed by the weight of the denser
atmosphere on the surface. But they thought small spherical vessels of
very thin metal could be made that would withstand this pressure and
still hold enough to float and carry some weight besides. They had a
large number of these hollow balls made and started on a trial trip,
expecting to bring down only a small quantity each time. But, in their
endeavor to obtain the very best quality of lifting material possible,
they went much higher than they intended, although this did not cause
them as much inconvenience as might have been expected, since they were
provided with the latest improved breathing apparatus. The result of
their adventure, however, was a discovery of such magnitude that it
drove from their minds all thought of their real errand and we never
again heard of that project. After remaining at an extreme height a few
hours, the surface of the planet being hidden by clouds, they began
to descend, and when they were near enough to see the features of the
country below them, everything looked strange and unknown. They could
not account for this, but continued their fall, fully persuaded that it
must be their own world and not some other which they were approaching.
But even if they had not been correct in that, they could hardly have
been more surprised than they were to find, on landing, that they were
almost exactly on the opposite side of the globe from the place where
they made the ascent. They seemed to have traveled half way around the
world in that incredibly short space of time, when in reality they had
remained stationary and the world had traveled around them. The fact is,
they had risen above all the denser portion of the planet’s atmosphere,
and had reached a stratum of extremely rarefied air, which, it seems,
does not accompany the globe in its revolution. Of course, the facts
were at once heralded to the four quarters of the world, and the two
aerial travelers found themselves famous. But they did not wish to
let such an astounding discovery rest upon the results of a single
experiment, and so they proved themselves worthy of their new fame
by going home the way they came. That is, they mounted their flying
machine, rose again to the same lofty height, remained there about the
same time as before, descended, and were near their home.”
Here the doctor asked:
“And has this singular mode of traveling become popular, Thorwald?”
“For long distances east and west it is often resorted to. But I presume
you are asking yourself whether you could introduce it on the earth.
When you return and begin to think it over you will probably see so many
practical difficulties in the way that you will not attempt it. You must
have patience. All these things will come to your race in time.”