The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1901-12-21
FORESEEN BY
JULES VERNE
DREAMS OF FICTION SINCE
MADE REALITIES.
What When Printed Was Looked
Upon by Many as a Form of Lit
erary Insanity Now Stands Vindi-
Gated as True Forecasts of Scien-
tific Achievement

Emile Gautcr in Figaro.
There is no eXaggeration in saying
mat some of the most extraordinary
prophecies of Jules Verne regarding
travel and scientific achievements have
already been realized or are on the eve
OF realization. Indeed, at times, the re-
;lity seems to have surpassed his most
fantastic flights.
1t is enough almost to make one sus-
pect that he has found in the depths OF
The mysterious grottoes where Captain
Memo used to hide his treasures the
magic amulet which gives the key to
the secrets of the future
Has not Captain Hatteras had hun
dreds of emuators? None of them, of
course, has, as yet, reached the SUI
preme object of his desires-the in
tangible pole: but following his foot
steps in the line of the direction of the
magnetic needle. have they not all more
or less approached it? Does not the
story of the voyage of the I5elglcn
through the ice OF the antarctic circle
resemble page torn out of the
Sphinx des Glaces?" Did not FIRTH
Jof NanSen, in the course of his north
"rn odyssey, have to make a voyage,
just like that of the hero of the Paws
lies Fourrures," ON board Il floating
iceberg?
And has not the most unpretcntous
hospital or the humblest laboratory.
thanks to Paul Bert the means at its
disposal to invest with reality the para :
doNical chimera of Doctor OK, not to
mention the oxygen that is sold in
slphons and tubes, while we are wait
ing for the liquefaction of the perma- :
nent gases TO give us the sea air or tn.
mountain air at home within the reach
of everybody?
UNDER THE SEA.
Shall we speak of the "Vingt Mile
l.leues Sous les Mers?' Why, every
body knows that, If the idea is not yet
public property, the ministry of the
navy, ut least, has realized it. That
ministry now runs about under water
In the forms and appearances of know
not now many submarine torpedo boats,
alWays ready to burst the paunch of
the warships that come within their
reach 1t was some time ago, by the
way, since the writer of these lines
earned the right to affirm from per-
sonal experience that one can, with i'm
p"Hi'S' piStthe, I'VE, write dispatches
and even drink champagne, thirty
meters under the sea!
And even before the late Gustaye
Rousseau. Nj. Moissin, NJ Majorana
and perhaps others, had learned to
make reality, like the chemist of the
"Etoile du Sud-" of the synthesis of
the diamond, rubies ana sapphires,
made artificially, We're, under the hand
of my friend, Maiche, common objects
in the market.
The modern cannon, with a range of
from fifteen to twenty kilometers, the
melenite shells, the aerial torpedoes.
etc, are, I imagine, the equivalents of
the fanciful cannonades of the "Cino
Cents Millions de la Begun" The
city of Steel" be it said in passing,
resembles so strikingly as to be almost
COMPOUNDED with it the Industrial es
tablishment governed by Andrew Car
negie, Pierpont Morgan & Co. Even
the legendary asphyxiating bomb, cap
able OF dealing death without pain and
at long range is scarcely different from