ities seldom be distinguished from
the illuminated clouds above.

The area in the interior of the tower at the base, and for some distance
above, is divided horizontally and vertically, and the compartments are
used for storehouses, including the storing of scientific instruments,
and for experiments connected with science. The different strata and
incidents of the atmosphere at various elevations are there studied with
peculiar advantage, as there are numerous landings at different
distances, and we have the means of ascending and descending the whole
distance, or of alighting on any of the landings by means of a machine
raised and lowered by electric power.

As the work progressed, stages were constructed at different heights on
which buildings were erected, where the workmen and their families lived
until the task was completed, the materials and electricities used, as
well as provisions and necessaries, being raised to these stages by
electric power. The principal material used is the hardest and most
durable substance known in our world--an amalgamated material consisting
of certain proportions of iron and marble fused into a solid compact
mass by the action of fire and electricity.

HEAVY MATERIALS LIGHTENED BY ELECTRICITY.

The blocks used were of immense size, so huge, that even with our
electrical and mechanical levers, many expedients were employed to raise
them to their assigned places.

Electric science had greatly advanced in my reign, and electric powers
had been discovered by which the heaviest masses could be lightened
temporarily, so that their specific gravity, called by us the "tenacious
electricity," and its tendency to seek the sympathetic electricity of
the earth was temporarily diminished, if not entirely neutralized,
without injury to the mass subjected to the operation.

Though the means and end are different, the principle is not unlike that
by which you often lighten the specific gravity of bodies, and even
change their nature by chemical combination, the action of fire, and
other expedients, the bodies often resuming their specific gravity and
original form. The means we employ for lightening bodies are far more
rapid and effectual, and, at the same time, the materials acted upon are
less abruptly or violently changed.

Notwithstanding all our knowledge of electric and mechanical powers, our
thousands of artificers employed, and all the industry and energy
exerted in obedience to