Chicago eagle. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1889-19??, 1901-07-27
FOUNDED ON NOVELS.
Fortunes Built from the 1maR inatlve
Pages of Fiction.

Pages Of Fiction.
Oxygen parties IRE now the rage In
fashionable circles. The gas has the
property Of rcviving tired nerves and
bodies In II way which no tonic can
equal. 1t is supplied in tanks. ana the
guests inhale It through long tubes
just as Turkish smokers do tobacco
smoke from u hOokah. The firm Of
Ellsworth. who supply the gas. Is rap
idly reaping Il fortune. and this for
tune they will owe. Indirectly ut least.
to the novelist. Jules Verne.
One Of Jules Vcrne's bOoks--"Dr.
Ox's Expcrlment'-deals with n sclen.
fist who flooded u little sleepy Dutch
town with oxygen. and thereby pro.
duced fruit and vegetables such as the
world had never before seen. Incl.
dentally, It's effect was also to render
the phlegmatlc Dutchmen violently
quarrclsomc. The perusal Of this book
gave the head Of firm Of chemical
engineers the idea which Is now caus.
Ing such delight to bored people Of
fashion.
Jules Verne. with his wonderful
prophecies and Inventions. which have.
since he wrote of them. become actual
facts. IL responsible for more than one
individual rising from poverty to rich.
es. No one was ever more fascinated
by n story than was Claude LcversOn
by Jules Vcrne's Journey to the Cen.
ter Of the Earth" In this book the
novelist describes how Il party climbed
down the crater Of an extinct lcelandic
volcano, anad 80 reached the inner re-
cesses Of the earth. Young Leverson.
who was ut school when he read the
book. made up his mind to copy the
adventures Of his hero. and many
years afterward did actually explore the
craters Of number Of unmappcd peaks
In New Granada. 1t was In 1904.
while camped on the shores Of the
river which fills the old crater pit ut
the top of the san Geronimo Mountain,
| that he made his famous discovery of
the Geronimo emerald field, which has
since made him one of the five richest
men on the South American continent.
In Edward Beilamy's Looking
Backward" the people Of the world,
as 1t IL to be q couple Of centuries
hence. use no money mt all. 1t Is,
therefore, rather curious that the book
should have been the means OF bring.
Ing a large fortune to an enterprising
American who started colony In Mex.
leo on the lines laid down by Bellamy
TIL colonists used no money. but they
grew immense quantities of fruit and
corn. which their manager, whose
name was Daily, sold for the public
good, and bought with tho money such
supplies as they needed. No one seems
to have called on Dalby for accounts
Of his transactions: but one day he
disappeared. and It was found that ht
had taken with him nearly $4,000
which his cOlonists had been kind
enough to make for him.
A writer who Is still alive Is responsl
bic for the millions Of James McKen
ma. the finder of the Half-Moon Creel
diggings In Alaska. II was a poem OF
Bret Harte's. written thirty years ago
which put 1t into McKenna's head Il
go to Alaska. In the poem In question
Bret Harte describes q miner as WELD
ing his pick In the midst Of snow ant
ice in Alaska. Why shouldn't there b,
gold up there? thought McKenna, nj
J though none was then known Of II,
reached the country two years befor