"Well, yes; if you mean to apply that name to the greater part of our city. That which in the nineteenth century was only to be found occasionally in the great towns of Europe, has become a regular institution in the twenty-first, owing to the manufacture of our inexpensive Verre sans Fin, or 'Endless Glass,' as our people generally call it." "I have no doubt that this must be a considerable improvement on your town-life throughout winter; but in summer-time I should say this must be intolerably hot." "Not at all; the same society which undertakes the supply of warm air in winter also provides for us during the summer months a cooling draught. Nothing can be easier than that. You are doubtless aware of ice having been manufactured in the middle of summer for at least a couple of centuries. During the warm season the air is made to pass over the glass vault above us before it reaches the pavement through the sieve-like plate, and if the warm-air inspectors properly attend to their duties, there is scarcely any difference in our temperature throughout the year." "Then probably you warm your houses by a similar process, and you never use any stoves or fireplaces now?" Neither of my companions could help smiling at these words, betraying again, as they did, my very old-fashioned notions. Bacon, however, gave me a kindly nod of assent as he proceeded to explain: "Just as a cold-water bath may be heated at pleasure by opening the hot-water tap, we can warm the air in our apartments by means of a valve, which when opened, not only affords a supply of warm air, but has the additional advantage of producing a most delightful refreshing of the atmosphere without any idea of draught." "I really cannot understand," Miss Phantasia here remarked, "how the people in those barbarous times managed to live amid the smoke and ashes and dust of their horrible fireplaces." "And then their chimneys on fire," added Bacon; "thank Fate, we have done with that too. Poor insurance offices, they don't pay half the premium now of what they used to do." "One more question," said I, "before we leave this subject. What do you call the metal used for those elegant little bars which connect and support the roof of glass above us? Surely they are not of iron, as they would have been in my time?" "No," answered my guide; "iron, on account of its greater specific weight, would have been less suitable here than aluminium; the latter not only corresponds in weight with the glass which it supports, but it also withstands the effects of the atmosphere far better than iron. You will very soon perceive in how many instances the new metal has superseded the old one, in additional proof of which I would just mention the fact that the modern antiquarians do not exclusively now speak of the ages of stone, bronze, and iron, but that they have formally recognised the Age of Aluminium.