Another World: Fragments from the Star City of MontalluyahLumley, Benjamin
Science
Another World: Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah
Lumley, Benjamin
Utopias
"He inspired the directing mind, and gave strength to those that
executed. He created the fire that married the two substances into
one indestructible compound mass.
"Behold, and wonder!"
A circular tower, whose base above the foundation is more than a mile in
diameter, and whose round walls are more than a hundred feet in
thickness, is carried up from the lower land nearest to the sea-level
until the head of the tower reaches and supports the projecting mountain
mass above.
The diameter of the tower-head is one-third of the diameter of the base.
The diminution being very gradual is scarcely perceptible, and appears
to be the effect of distance. The height of the tower is the same as its
circumference at the base. Our ordinary powers of vision generally
exceed yours, and the light in our world is more intense; and yet the
head of the tower can from the lower cities seldom be distinguished from
the illuminated clouds above.
The area in the interior of the tower at the base, and for some distance
above, is divided horizontally and vertically, and the compartments are
used for storehouses, including the storing of scientific instruments,
and for experiments connected with science. The different strata and
incidents of the atmosphere at various elevations are there studied with
peculiar advantage, as there are numerous landings at different
distances, and we have the means of ascending and descending the whole
distance, or of alighting on any of the landings by means of a machine
raised and lowered by electric power.
As the work progressed, stages were constructed at different heights on
which buildings were erected, where the workmen and their families lived
until the task was completed, the materials and electricities used, as
well as provisions and necessaries, being raised to these stages by
electric power. The principal material used is the hardest and most
durable substance known in our world--an amalgamated material consisting
of certain proportions of iron and marble fused into a solid compact
mass by the action of fire and electricity.
HEAVY MATERIALS LIGHTENED BY ELECTRICITY.
The blocks used were of immense size, so huge, that even with our
electrical and mechanical levers, many expedients were employed to raise
them to their assigned places.
Electric science had greatly advanced in my reign, and electric powers
had been discovered by which the heaviest masses could be lightened
temporarily, so that their specific gravity, called by us the "tenacious
electricity," and its tendency to seek the sympathetic electricity of
the earth was temporarily diminished, if not entirely neutralized,
without injury to the mass subjected to the operation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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