ed,
and under way within their jurisdiction--it may be planning a new
boulevard, a new park, or an improved system of sewers; and at the
year's end they issue a resume of everything completed, and the
progress in everything else; and though there is usually a great
difference between the results hoped for and those attained, the effect
is good. The newspapers publish at length the recommendations of the
Executives, and also the results obtained, and keep up public interest
in all important matters.

"Free to delve in the allurement and fascination of science,
emancipated man goes on subduing Nature, as his Maker said he should,
and turning her giant forces to his service in his constant struggle to
rise and become more like Him who gave the commandments and showed him
how he should go.

"Notwithstanding our strides in material progress, we are not entirely
content. As the requirements of the animal become fully supplied, we
feel a need for something else. Some say this is like a child that
cries for the moon, but others believe it the awakening and craving of
our souls. The historian narrates but the signs of the times, and
strives to efface himself; yet there is clearly a void, becoming yearly
more apparent, which materialism cannot fill. Is it some new subtle
force for which we sigh, or would we commune with spirits? There is,
so far as we can see, no limit to our journey, and I will add, in
closing, that, with the exception of religion, we have most to hope
from science."

CHAPTER VI.

FAR-REACHING PLANS.

Knowing that the rectification of the earth's axis was satisfactorily
begun, and that each year would show an increasing improvement in
climate, many of the delegates, after hearing Bearwarden's speech, set
out for their homes. Those from the valley of the Amazon and the
eastern coast of South America boarded a lightning express that rushed
them to Key West at the rate of three hundred miles an hour. The
railroad had six tracks, two for through passengers, two for locals,
and two for freight. There they took a "water-spider," six hundred
feet long by three hundred in width, the deck of which was one hundred
feet above the surface, which carried them over the water at the rate
of a mile a minute, around the eastern end of Cuba, through Windward
Passage, and so to the South American mainland, where they continued
their journey by rail.

The Sibe