Life in a Thousand WorldsHarris, W. S. (William Shuler)
Science
Life in a Thousand Worlds
Harris, W. S. (William Shuler)
Utopias
People who live along streams of water utilize these streams for similar
purposes. It is now conceded in Ploid that the storage batteries of the
home can be supplied as economically and effectively by winds and the
sun's heat as by running streams; hence it is a common sight to see
residences throwing out the old water machinery and introducing the
latest design of wind-employers or sun-harnessers.
There are certain emergencies when the storage batteries fail to work or
when the power is exhausted; this happens when there is a very slight
wind for several days or a heavy drain of power. In such cases fuel is
used for heating and lighting.
PALACES OF PLOID.
The palaces of Ploid are dreams of beauty and convenience, outshining
and surpassing by far the finest mansions on the face of our globe. In
these abodes the sum total of glory and convenience converges, flowing
from almost numberless discoveries during the last one hundred years. In
round numbers, there have been five hundred thousand patents issued in
the United States in the nineteenth century, but the Ploidites excel us
by double that number for a similar territorial limit.
THE REWARD OF INVENTORS.
Patents are not issued in Ploid. The government gives liberal rewards to
each inventor or discoverer. The applicant appears personally before the
District Committee on Inventions. If this Committee considers the
invention worthy of a reward, the applicant is recommended to one of the
Central Committees at the seat of the government.
This Central Committee carefully considers the invention or discovery,
places on it an estimate as to its local or governmental value, and
fills out papers in accordance with its findings. This paper must be
signed by the Chief Inventor, and the applicant at once receives his
first installment which is continued, in some instances, during natural
life. In the case of some extraordinary invention, the immediate
relatives of the inventor are pensioned for five or ten years in his
honor.
Naturally, under this system, the government owns all inventions, and
reaps a heavy return from them, enough to pay all the installments to
the inventors and the officers employed to carry on this branch of the
government work.
SOME PARTICULAR INVENTIONS.
One of the most convenient inventions I saw on this planet of Ploid was
the carrying of a photograph or image along a wire. The people of Ploid
cannot only talk to one another many miles apart, but they can also see
each other while they are talking.
This wonderful attachment to their telephones, by which the human face
is also carried over the wire, was perfected over one thousand years
ago. I herewith give a few uses to which this invention is applied.
1. Office men have photograph wires connected with their homes, and they
can thus talk to and see any one of the family at their pleasure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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