Project Gutenberg's In the Year 2889, by Jules Verne and Michel Verne

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Title: In the Year 2889

Author: Jules Verne and Michel Verne

Release Date: January 2, 2007 [EBook #19362]
[Original version posted on September 23, 2006]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE YEAR 2889 ***

Produced by Norm Wolcott

IN THE YEAR 2889

[Redactor's note: _In the Year 2889_ was first published in the
_Forum_, February, 1889; p. 262. It was published in France the next
year. Although published under the name of Jules Verne, it is now
believed to be chiefly if not entirely the work of Jules' son, Michel
Verne. In any event, many of the topics in the article echo Verne's
ideas.]

IN THE YEAR 2889.

Little though they seem to think of it, the people of this twenty-ninth
century live continually in fairyland. Surfeited as they are with
marvels, they are indifferent in presence of each new marvel. To them
all seems natural. Could they but duly appreciate the refinements of
civilization in our day; could they but compare the present with the
past, and so better comprehend the advance we have made! How much fairer
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 st