An Unknown World

by Pierre de Sélènes

  The families of birds, which were much less numerous than on Earth, were, in compensation, remarkable for their beauty, the glossiness of their plumage and the harmony of their songs. As they had no more reason than any of the other creatures to fear the approach of humans, they came familiarity when called, populating the arbors that surrounded the habitations, and penetrating into the dwellings, which they enlivened with their chirping and their presence.

  In the sea, the rivers and the lakes lived a few species of fish, whose tranquil existence was never troubled, and only seemed to be there, as the ancient poet put it, in order that none of the elements of nature should remain deprived of inhabitants.

  In that almost completely closed environment, the light and temperature were only subject to slight variations. The illumination was analogous that that spread over the Earth when the sun rises on summer days veiled by the mists that form at the surface of ground chilled during the night. The light was soft, iridescent with all the shades of the prism, singularly tender and delicately nuanced, which seemed to succeed one another in harmonious undulations; it was only darkened when vapors rising from the sea condensed in the upper regions of the atmosphere in light and shifting clouds that sometimes resolved into a fine rain, the vivifying fall of which made the flowers bloom and augmented their perfumes. The temperature dropped a few degrees then, but never enough for any sensation of cold to afflict the inhabitants or diminish their activity.

  That constant mildness of temperature and beneficent rainfall gave the soil a marvelous fertility. The rural areas were not cultivated, since the inhabitants of those fortunate regions were not constrained by the necessity of extracting from the soil, with difficulty, the aliments indispensable to an inferior and material life. Thus, the plants blossomed in complete liberty. Nevertheless, deprived of the light of the sun, the vegetation there offered a strange appearance, to which European eyes had some difficulty in becoming accustomed. The ground was generously covered by a thick, fine grass, pale green in color, which sometimes attained a color that was only slightly tinted white.

  Against that pastel background rose up woody clumps of somewhat darker verdure. The elevated trunks, covered in bark that was sometimes pale and marbled, sometimes smooth and green, and sometimes striated by longitudinal bands of varying darkness, extended their leafy branches in bizarrely-shaped crowns. The leaves were not uniform in color. Some, light and feathery, were almost transparent, and the light that traversed them gave them a brightness similar to that of flowers; others, formed of a delicate cottony tissue cut out like fine lace, seemed light and vaporous.

  Sometimes, in the middle of grasslands, gigantic vegetables rose up, with colossal trunks, extending vigorous branches in all directions, charged with long broad leaves that undulated like veils of bronze-tinted gauze in the slightest breeze, and radiated light of various colors. Others, of lesser height, with smooth trunks of a more vivid green, raised thick-veined lanceolate leaves with pointed tips into the air, as if preparing for a duel.

  All the trees, of various species unknown to the voyagers, bore flowers of strange and capricious forms, but the flowers in question, like those that decorated the countryside, were all in pastel shades, as if toned down. One did not see there, as on Earth, bright reds and bloody crimsons, rutilant yellows reminiscent of molten gold, or vigorous and profound blues and violets, but pale pinks, yellows that seemed attenuated by time, tender blues, and faded reds with hints of violet. Only whites caressed by the slightly blue-tinted glow of the atmosphere, obtained a bright glare from that contact.

  In that fortunate climate, in which there was no winter, the forests never lost their adornment and the lawns were never devoid of flowers; they succeeded one another incessantly, and the gaze was always charmed by them.

  For eyes habituated to the violent and sometimes clashing colors that the richest flowers affect on Earth, the general aspect of that nature could appear a trifle insipid and monotonous, but sight soon became accustomed to those infinitely soft tones, the thousand nuances and delicate diversity of which were delightful and restful at the same time.

  The cities were numerous, constructed like the one in which our voyagers resided, and which was, properly speaking, the capital of the subterranean world, because it was there that the Head of State and the Supreme Council were based. The capital was not otherwise distinguished from other cities, however. As the land was in common ownership and no one had any interest in disputing the common property with anyone else, everyone had been able to give their dwelling the proportions required by the number of family members, or their own whim.

  Unlike the Earth, there were none of the hives deprived of light and air formed by superimposed floors, in which numerous families were accumulated who were strangers to one another. Every family had a dwelling of its own, and everyone delighted in decorating it an ornamenting it with exquisite taste and variety.

  The streets were broad and spacious, paved with a substance similar to glass, the various colors of which, artfully disposed, formed a kind of mosaic. The vegetables that bordered them, the gardens surrounding the houses, and the large spaces planted with trees and shrubs, always covered with foliage and flowers, gave all the cities a pleasant and placid appearance. Numerous electric vehicles, light, rapid and graceful in form, moving silently, went back and forth along them. The roads that linked the cities were merely the continuation of the streets that traversed them; they were paved and planted in the same fashion.

  In the rural areas, some distance from cities, stood solitary habitations, the preferred abodes of a few sages anxious not to be troubled in their meditations by the activity of cities.

  Thanks to a system of electric locomotion, which permitted the acquisition of a very considerable propulsive force with a very small volume, communication between the various cities was rapid and frequent. The people had, in fact, discovered a metal of which the geological constitution of the terrestrial globe has no analogue. Bluish in color, with a density inferior to that of aluminum, with a higher melting-point than platinum and more magnetic than iron, it had the property of drawing electricity from the air and storing it, thus forming veritable accumulators of great power and almost indefinite durability.

  The principal cities were linked by a network of railways, the strangeness of which caused the three inhabitants of Earth a profound surprise when they saw them for the first time. Everything about them was, in fact, new.

  Picture light vehicles elegant in form, hollowed out at the top and inflated at the base, resting both sides on the extremities of an axle-tree serving as the axis of a kind of sphere formed of four large metallic circles intersecting at right angles, one of which, perpendicular to the vehicle and equipped with a groove, ran along a single rail.

  How could such an apparatus be maintained in equilibrium? That was the question that the engineer Marcel asked himself initially, the solution to which, as simple as it was original, amazed him.

  The scientists of the Moon had only had to apply the principle of the gyroscope to locomotion.13

  It is well-known that a solid body, like a metallic disk, for example, submitted to a rapid movement of axial rotation, invariably maintains its plane of rotation, and in consequence its axis, so long as the initial velocity is not modified. It was on this principle that the physicist Foucault based the construction of the instrument that served to demonstrate the rotation of planets. His gyroscope, in fact, maintained itself in equilibrium, suspended in a frame, so long as it conserves the same speed of rotation.

  In the apparatus that surprised Marcel, the same physical principle had been applied. At the center of the sphere on the axis of which the vehicle reposed, a disk was disposed—or, rather, a kind of heavy metallic flywheel, animated by a electric motor with an extremely rapid rotational movement in the same plane as the grooved wheel that rested on the rail. The diameter and weight of that flywheel, as well as the speed imparted to it, were calculated with a view to the load tha
t the axis of the sphere was required to support. As long as it conserved its speed, the entire apparatus maintained a fixed and invariable equilibrium, sufficiently stable not to be disrupted by the comings and goings of passengers. The train thus formed was set in motion by an independent electric motor disposed in the first vehicle, which thus constituted a sort of electric locomotive, whose sharply streamlined form diminished the atmospheric resistance considerably.

  Since the ensemble ran along a single rail, the system reduced friction of a minimum, and increased the speed obtained proportionately. Precious facilities also resulted for the establishment of tracks.

  In fact, the rail rested on metal pillars placed at intervals, the height of which, varying according to the inequalities in the ground, maintained the track in an invariably horizontal plane. That avoided the building of embankments and cuttings, which render the construction-work of terrestrial railways so difficult and tedious; there were no other works of art than a few bold bridges, similarly metallic, extended over a deep gorge or a watercourse.

  Always careful to avoid possible accidents, the lunar engineers had anticipated the possibility that the electric motor might fail for some reason, threatening the train with a loss of equilibrium. They had provided it with an ingenious system of brakes. The rail, of dimensions and a strength far superior to those in usage on Earth, also had the cross-sectional form of a mushroom, with the difference that it was hollowed out more profoundly and more acutely in such a fashion as to offer on either side a groove to which a steel plate could be exactly fitted; that plate terminated, to the right and left of the rail, a very powerful lever disposed beneath the vehicles and thus forming an isosceles triangle of which the rail was the summit.

  When the train was moving the two steel plates were maintained far enough apart for no friction to be produced. As soon as the current activating the gyroscopes ceased, or even diminished, and the stability of the vehicles was compromised, the two plates came closer to the rail, adhering to it forcefully, thus forming an unshakable base for the train.

  To determine that approach, an automatic mechanism was disposed on the locomotive vehicle. Before the eyes of the train driver there were recording devices whose needles indicated precisely the number of rotations accomplished by the gyroscopes in a particular unit of time, along with the force and intensity of the electric current. As soon as the needle reached the permitted minimum, a trigger activated the plates of all the brakes simultaneously, gripping the mushroom of the rail, maintaining the train in equilibrium. It was, therefore, sufficient to interrupt the current activating the locomotive apparatus for the train to come to a stop, without a jolt, in a matter of seconds.

  All of that was light, aerial and silent, and the three friends never wearied of admiring the fertile genius that had imagined the bold trains that they saw cleaving through the air so rapidly, their passage only signaled by a faint noise.

  That transport system served for general and industrial needs, but for particular communications and individual displacements, other comfortable means existed that were easy to employ.

  In the electricity-saturated atmosphere, in which ozone—which is to say, electrified oxygen—was dominant, there was an inexhaustible reservoir of natural forces, which the highly advanced science of the Moon’s inhabitants had put to every use.14 It was child’s play for them, with the light and powerful motors at their disposal, to construct kinds of apparatus that, heavier an air and obtaining their points of support in the ambient milieu, could navigate safely in the atmosphere and travel considerable distances rapidly and without encumbrance.

  An ingenious system of parachutes, which offered a broad resistant surface in a small volume and was deployed automatically, prevented the accidents always to be feared, even with the most improved engines, and ensured that mode of transport a complete security. After long research, the lunar physicists had recognized that the simplest and most practical mode of propulsion was that of the helix, which had only recently arrived on Earth.

  The birds became fatigued in their flight in following light vehicles that a single person was sufficient to steer and maintain in the required direction.

  It was also the electric fluid that powered the vessels of every sort that floated on the surface of the interior sea, went up the rivers, or even, diving beneath the waters, went to explore the deeper layers of those unknown seas.

  Everything in that world, so different from the Earth, respired calm and peace of mind; everyone, liberated from material needs, seemed to have no other care but the development of intelligence, or abandoning themselves to the most tender and noble sentiments of the heart. The serenity of their features, the frankness of their gaze and the benevolence of their smiles demonstrated that their souls were free of all the paltry ambitions and egotistical passions that render the condition of terrestrial humankind so wretched.

  No other sadnesses were known there than those that might result from the loss of cherished individuals—of some child taken away at the dawn of life from the affection of its parents, of a beloved companion, a friend or a venerated master—or from the anxieties and torments against which the souls of sages cannot defend themselves when, entirely devoted to the research of some important problem, they see the solution that they have been pursuing for so long slipping away.

  Our voyagers wondered where, how and by whom the monuments that excited their admiration were constructed, as well as the machines and various kinds of apparatus that responded in such a complete and convenient manner to all the demands of life. Nowhere, in fact, in the cities or the rural areas that surrounded them, had they perceived any traces of industrial labor. They were to learn, as their sojourn in the lunar world was extended, that beyond the limits of the regions they had visited were other agglomerations of habitations different from those with which they were already familiar.

  It was in the vicinity of the mountains that we have already mentioned that these truly industrial cities were located. There, useful or precious metals were extracted from the ground; there, they were put to work; from there emerged all the manufactured utensils necessary to the various usages of life and all the items of apparatus making up a very advanced state of civilization.

  It was the class of Diemides that was employed in these multiple operations.

  XIII. Diemides and Meolicenes

  As in all gatherings of human, intelligent and moral beings submissive to the great law of progress, which rise incessantly along the path of an increasingly complete well-being, an increasingly broad knowledge and an increasingly elevated morality, lunar humanity had, from the beginning, presented various aptitudes and different capabilities.

  There, as everywhere we can conceive of living and perfectible beings, the struggle for existence, each forward step of which is a victory over nature, the influences of environment, selection and heredity had done their work. While the best endowed and the best armed had been able to cultivate their faculties in more favorable conditions and become superior by virtue of knowledge and the practice of virtue, others had only followed the route of indefinite progress at a slower pace.

  Nevertheless, as the inhabitants of the Moon had not been subject to the same necessities as those of the Earth, as they were essentially less coarse by nature and less subservient to the exigencies of matter, their point of departure had been more elevated than that of our primitive races, and the development of that privileged humanity more rapid and more complete. The distance that separated the extreme strata of that moral hierarchy was much less considerable that that which exists on Earth between the refined products of European civilization and the primitive barbarians wandering the wilderness of central Africa or the deserts of Australia.

  Gentle and placid by nature, penetrated in large measure by a love of goodness, respect for science and the legitimate ambition to rise ever higher, the Diemides—which is to say, in the lunar language, “those who aspire to a better condition”—accepted joyfully the labor th
at served the common utility of the great family of which they were a part. Furthermore, the incessant discoveries of the scientists, whose stole some new secret from nature every day, which was employed for their usage, disciplining forces that are as yet unknown to us, rendered that labor ever easier and less repugnant.

  Ingenious methods, machines whose functioning was as simple as it was sure, permitted the extraction almost without effort of the raw materials that the soil furnished in abundance, and the fabrication without difficulty of all useful objects, reducing human labor to a minimum and limiting its role to the guidance and supervision of the operation of advanced machinery.

  In any case, the great sentiment of justice and love that reigned in that purified society made the condition of the Diemides comfortable and reserved for each of them the prospect of more precious recompenses. Everyone there had the exact rank assigned by merit and moral worth. Anyone who, by virtue of intelligence, services rendered or the provision of a good example, distinguished himself from those of the rank in which birth had placed him, was raised to the appropriate degree in the social scale.

  From the ensemble of mores and institutions that was freely and spontaneously established between races naturally inclined to virtue, a fixed hierarchy had resulted with regard to the demarcations separating the various classes, but an essential mobility for individuals, who could always rise by means of the continuity of their efforts into the superior classes. That produced a social order from which all envy and base jealousy was excluded, in which a sentiment of duty accomplished reigned in all ranks, and was accompanied by peace.

  At the lowest degree of the scale were those Diemides who were employed in the extractive industries; above them were the constructors, those who built houses or manufactured machines, movable objects and various engines; higher still were those who, under the direction of artists, painters, sculptors, architects and engineers, decorated buildings, sculpted or carved wood, stone or metal.