CHAPTER IX.
Whenever I inquired:
"From whence comes the heat that is so evenly distributed throughout thedwellings and public buildings of Mizora?" they invariably pointed tothe river. I asked in astonishment:
"From water comes fire?"
And they answered: "Yes."
I had long before this time discovered that Mizora was a nation of verywonderful people, individually and collectively; and as every revelationof their genius occurred, I would feel as though I could not besurprised at any marvelous thing that they should claim to do, but I wasreally not prepared to believe that they could set the river on fire.Yet I found that such was, scientifically, the fact. It was one of theirmost curious and, at the same time, useful appliances of a philosophicaldiscovery.
They separated water into its two gases, and then, with their ingeniouschemical skill, converted it into an economical fuel.
Their coal mines had long been exhausted, as had many other of nature'sresources for producing artificial heat. The dense population made itimpracticable to cultivate forests for fuel. Its rapid increase demandedof Science the discovery of a fuel that could be consumed without lossto them, both in the matter consumed and in the expense of procuring it.Nothing seemed to answer their purpose so admirably as water. Water,when decomposed, becomes gas. Convert the gas into heat and it becomeswater again. A very great heat produces only a small quantity of water:hence the extreme utility of water as a heat producing agent.
The heating factories were all detached buildings, and generally, if atall practicable, situated near a river, or other body of water. Everyprecaution against accident was stringently observed.
There were several processes for decomposing the water explained to me,but the one preferred, and almost universally used by the people ofMizora, was electricity. The gases formed at the opposite poles of theelectrical current, were received in large glass reservoirs, especiallyconstructed for them.
In preparing the heat that gave such a delightful temperature to thedwellings and public buildings of their vast cities, glass was alwaysthe material used in the construction of vessels and pipes. Glass pipesconveyed the separate gases of hydrogen and oxygen into an apartmentespecially prepared for the purpose, and united them upon ignitedcarbon. The heat produced was intense beyond description, and in thehands of less experienced and capable chemists, would have proveddestructful to life and property. The hardest rock would melt in itsembrace; yet, in the hands of these wonderful students of Nature, it wasunder perfect control and had been converted into one of the mosthealthful and agreeable agents of comfort and usefulness known. It wasregulated with the same ease and convenience with which we increase ordiminish the flames of a gas jet. It was conducted, by means of glasspipes, to every dwelling in the city. One factory supplied sufficientheat for over half a million inhabitants.
I thought I was not so far behind Mizora in a knowledge of heating withhot air; yet, when I saw the practical application of their method, Icould see no resemblance to that in use in my own world. In winter,every house in Mizora had an atmosphere throughout as balmy as thebreath of the young summer. Country-houses and farm dwellings were allsupplied with the same kind of heat.
In point of economy it could not be surpassed. A city residence,containing twenty rooms of liberal size and an immense conservatory, washeated entire, at a cost of four hundred centimes a year. One dollar perannum for fuel.
There was neither smoke, nor soot, nor dust. Instead of entering a roomthrough a register, as I had always seen heated air supplied, it camethrough numerous small apertures in the walls of a room quite close tothe floor, thus rendering its supply imperceptible, and making a draftof cold air impossible.
The extreme cheapness of artificial heat made a conservatory a necessaryluxury of every dwelling. The same pipes that supplied the dwellingrooms with warmth, supplied the hot-house also, but it was conveyed tothe plants by a very different process.
They used electricity in their hot-houses to perfect their fruit, butin what way I could not comprehend; neither could I understand theirmethod of supplying plants and fruits with carbonic acid gas. Theymanufactured it and turned it into their hot-houses during sleepinghours. No one was permitted to enter until the carbon had been absorbed.They had an instrument resembling a thermometer which gave the exactcondition of the atmosphere. They were used in every house, as well asin the conservatories. The people of Mizora were constantlyexperimenting with those two chemical agents, electricity and carbonicacid gas, in their conservatories. They confidently believed that withtheir service, they could yet produce fruit from their hot-houses, thatwould equal in all respects the season grown article.
They produced very fine hot-house fruit. It was more luscious than anyartificially ripened fruit that I had ever tasted in my own country, yetit by no means compared with their season grown fruit. Their preservedfruit I thought much more natural in flavor than their hot-house fruit.
Many of their private greenhouses were on a grand scale and containedfruit as well as flowers. A family that could not have a hot-house forfresh vegetables, with a few fruit trees in it, would be poor indeed.Where a number of families had united in purchasing extensive grounds,very fine conservatories were erected, their expense being divided amongthe property holders, and their luxuries enjoyed in common.
So methodical were all the business plans of the Mizora people, and sostrictly just were they in the observance of all business and socialduties that no ill-feeling or jealousy could arise from a combination ofcapital in private luxuries. Such combinations were formed and carriedout upon strictly business principles.
If the admirable economy with which every species of work was carried onin Mizora could be thoroughly comprehended, the universality of luxuriesneed not be wondered at. They were drilled in economy from a very earlyperiod. It was taught them as a virtue.
Machinery, with them, had become the slave of invention. I lived longenough in Mizora to comprehend that the absence of pauperism, genteeland otherwise, was largely due to the ingenious application of machineryto all kinds of physical labor. When the cost of producing luxuriesdecreases, the value of the luxuries produced must decrease with it. Theresult is they are within reach of the narrowest incomes. A lifesurrounded by refinement must absorb some of it.
I had a conversation with the Preceptress upon this subject, and shesaid:
"Some natures are so undecided in character that they become only whattheir surroundings make them. Others only partially absorb tastes andsentiments that form the influence about them. They maintain a decidedindividuality; yet they are most always noticeably marked with thegeneral character of their surroundings. It is very, very seldom that anature is fixed from infancy in one channel."
I told her that I knew of a people whose minds from infancy to matureage, never left the grooves they were born in. They belonged to everynationality, and had palaces built for them, and attendants withcultivated intelligences employed to wait upon them.
"Are their minds of such vast importance to their nation? You have neverbefore alluded to intellect so elevated as to command such royalhomage." My friend spoke with awakened interest.
"They are of no importance at all," I answered, humiliated at havingalluded to them. "Some of them have not sufficient intelligence to evenfeed themselves."
"And what are they?" she inquired anxiously.
"They are idiots; human vegetables."
"And you build palaces for them, and hire servants to feed and tendthem, while the bright, ambitious children of the poor among you,struggle and suffer for mental advancement. How deplorably short-sightedare the wise ones of your world. Truly it were better in your country tobe born an idiot than a poor genius." She sighed and looked grave.
"What should we do with them?" I inquired.
"What do you do with the useless weeds in your garden," she askedsignificantly. "Do you carefully tend them, while drouth and frost andlack of nourishment cause your choice plants t
o wither and die?"
"We are far behind you," I answered humbly. "But barbarous as you thinkwe are, no epithet could be too scathing, too comprehensive of all thatwas vicious and inhuman, to apply to a person who should dare to assailthe expense of those institutions, or suggest that they be converted tothe cultivation of intellect that _could_ be improved."
My friend looked thoughtful for a long time, then she resumed herdiscourse at the point where I had so unfortunately interrupted it.
"No people," she said, "can rise to universal culture as long as theydepend upon hand labor to produce any of the necessities of life. Theabsence of a demand for hand labor gives rise to an increasing demandfor brain labor, and the natural and inevitable result is an increasedmental activity. The discovery of a fuel that is furnished at so small acost and with really no labor but what machinery performs, marks onegrand era in our mental progress."
In mentioning the numerous uses made of glass in Mizora, I must notforget to give some notice to their water supply in large cities. Owingto their cleanly advantages, the filtering and storing of rain-water inglass-lined cisterns supplied many family uses. But drinking water wasbrought to their large cities in a form that did not greatly differ fromthose I was already familiar with, excepting in cleanliness. Theirreservoirs were dug in the ground and lined with glass, and a perfectlyfitting cover placed on the top. They were constructed so that the waterthat passed through the glass feed pipes to the city should have auniform temperature, that of ordinary spring water. The water in thecovered reservoirs was always filtered and tested before passing intothe distributing pipes.
No citizen of Mizora ever hied to the country for pure water and freshair. Science supplied both in a densely populated city.