IN THE YEAR 2889

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they would find our modern towns, with populations amounting sometimes
to 10,000,000 souls; their streets 300 feet wide, their houses 1000 feet
in height; with a temperature the same in all seasons; with their lines
of aerial locomotion crossing the sky in every direction! If they would
but picture to themselves the state of things that once existed, when
through muddy streets rumbling boxes on wheels, drawn by horses--yes, by
horses!--were the only means of conveyance. Think of the railroads of
the olden time, and you will be able to appreciate the pneumatic tubes
through which to-day one travels at the rate of 1000 miles an hour.
Would not our contemporaries prize the telephone and the telephote more
highly if they had not forgotten the telegraph?

Singularly enough, all these transformations rest upon principles which
were perfectly familiar to our remote ancestors, but which they
disregarded. Heat, for instance, is as ancient as man himself;
electricity was known 3000 years ago, and steam 1100 years ago. Nay, so
early as ten centuries ago it was known that the differences between the