Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked RecordGreg, Percy
Science
Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record
Greg, Percy
Science fiction
generally from four to eight inches in breadth and of any length
required. The writing intended to be thus copied is always minute, and
is read for the most part through magnifying spectacles. A roller is
attached to each end of the sheet, and when not in use the latter is
wound round that attached to the conclusion. When required for
reading, both rollers are fixed in a stand, and slowly moved by
clockwork, which spreads before the eyes of the reader a length of
about four inches at once. The motion is slackened or quickened at the
reader's pleasure, and can be stopped altogether, by touching a
spring. Another means of reproducing, not merely writings or drawings,
but natural objects, consists in a simple adaptation of the _camera
obscura_. [The only essential difference from our photographs being
that the Martial art reproduces colour as well as outline, I omit this
description.]
While I was practising myself in the Martial language my host turned
our experimental conversations chiefly, if not exclusively, upon
Terrestrial subjects; endeavouring to learn all that I could convey to
him of the physical peculiarities of the Earth, of geology, geography,
vegetation, animal life in all its forms, human existence, laws,
manners, social and domestic order. Afterwards, when, at the end of
some fifty days, he found that we could converse, if not with ease yet
without fear of serious misapprehension, he took an early opportunity
of explaining to me the causes and circumstances of my unfriendly
reception among his people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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