"But here we are," continued MacNair, "over the land, and now we will loiter along, so you can study the immediate neighborhood in which you will have your home until you want to make a change. These magnificent buildings are communal homes, and this is a communal agricultural district. I am engaged here as a teacher of English, and it has been thought best to bring you here, because quite a number of people are learning to speak our language. It will therefore be more agreeable to you until you have learned to speak the language of Altruria, which has long been universal throughout the inner world. But this will not take you long, and then your services will be in demand as a teacher. The people are anxious to learn all that can be discovered concerning the outer world." This country is divided into numerous districts which are numbered from north to south. This is District No. 1, Range No. 1, west. This range line corresponds with longitude 180°. These longitudinal lines are numbered east and west just as they are in the outer world, but as the circle is smaller, the distance between the lines is proportionally less. "The tower which you were examining so closely as we came to land, is the point from which longitude is calculated. It stands on the equator, and the north and south verges are said to have been marked on the same longitude by similar towers, in ancient times, before communication between the inner and outer worlds was closed by the great ice age, and floods which are said to have submerged all the lower lands. Some regard these traditions as mythical, but many of the ablest scholars accept them as the fragments of authentic history which were saved from some great cataclysm." "Then," said Captain Ganoe, "it will doubtless be interesting to these people to learn, that our log book confirms the truth of these traditions. At the point where we escaped from the ice was a stupendous tower situated on a point of land, and it was in latitude 85° north, longitude 180° west. So from this it seems that we are now situated directly under the Pacific Ocean."