Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/77

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A THOUSAND YEARS HENCE.
59
Chapter III.
Life and Business in the Twenty-ninth Century.

In these times we should be filling up seas and excavating successive surfaces beneath our feet.—Author, chap. i.

Our laboratories, said Black, would turn out a savoury beefsteak as readily as an acid or an alkali.—Author, ibid.

A Great Subterranean Abode.

We now stood at the main entrance to Bullings' first triumph of its kind, the Great Consolidated Sub, and we had fortunately a spare moment to admire the splendid and accurate machinery of the lift, which goes self-actionally up and down night and day incessantly. We are to bear in mind that, in the descent here, there are five successive inhabited floors, and millions of human occupants beneath. The lift is entirely self-acting, and is worked as part of the general Energy contract, by which the whole consolidation is supplied with its sunlight, its general meteorologies, and all the other force or energy rcLjuisites. At a si<:nal given, all of us in waiting at the moment step into the receiving-box or apartment, which is then slid into the descending lift, and down we at once glide.