Читать книгу Anno Domini 2071 - Pieter Harting - Страница 8

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oh, do let us go in. I should very much like to know whether they come at all up to those enormous golden placards outside, and whether the highest of the fine arts is here equalled by reality.”

There was something spiteful in the remarks of the young lady; and at my question of what was meant by heliochromes, she again sarcastically replied, “Oh! nothing but photographs in the natural colours of the objects as pencilled by the sun himself; so, at least, in her extravagant style, says my friend Realia.”7

“Ha!” exclaimed I, “the ultimate triumph of the life-long endeavours of that plucky Frenchman, De Saint-Victor! final fruits of the prix Trémont awarded him by the French Academy!”

Bacon looked at me with a smile clearly indicative of his contempt for my helpless ignorance. But all he said was this: “Come inside, please, and you will have something else to see than those rude and perishable experiments of Victor of the nineteenth century.”

We entered, and I could not trust my eyes. The walls of the building were covered with innumerable pictures, landscapes, portraits, and genre-pieces, some of the figures life-size; and all these pictures were mere photographs, yet photographs differing as much from those that I was familiar with as an oil painting does from a crayon drawing.

“Unhappy artists! poor arts!” I exclaimed; “what have you come to at last?”

But Miss Phantasia appeared to share my delight no more than my sympathy. “Unhappy artists, indeed,” was her reply, “if by such honourable name you designate those knights of the brush whose sole aim and end is the faithful imitation of reality; but do not say poor arts! They have by no means died out, the worthy successors of Raphael and Corregio, of Rubens and Rembrandt, of those whose calling was not to imitate nature, but to idealise it. And that is the vocation of art. Simple imitation is mere handicraft. And although the monuments and statues of living persons are now mechanically taken from photographs, aye, by a common workman who has no notion of art; yet have we sculptors who are genuine artists, creators of the ideal.”

I quietly accepted the rebuff, and rejoiced to think that all those treasures of art of which my country is so proud had not then, after all, deteriorated in worth; on the other hand, it was to me a matter of little moment that mediocre talents, incapable of rising above the imitation of reality, had been compelled to exchange the brush for the camera obscura; and I had no doubt that their productions would thereby gain—in faithfulness.

As we left the exhibition building, I saw a huge waggon without any horses, but simply governed by one man, in spite of which it seemed to roll on as easily as possible, and to pull up at pleasure. The waggon was loaded with all sizes of black-coloured cylinders, resembling casks or barrels. I was perfectly aware of the numerous successful experiments made long ago in England and elsewhere with the construction of steam-engines destined to run, not along iron rails, but along the ordinary roads. I could not, however, help noticing that this waggon differed totally from those old locomobiles, inasmuch as there were no signs of steam about the novelty.

Once more I turned to my amiable guide for an explanation; but although he immediately prepared to comply with my request, still I am obliged to confess that not everything was quite clear to me. I imagine this was partly owing to Bacon’s making use of the names of engines and materials with which I was unfamiliar; but this is about what I understood him to say:

“So long as we had abundance of coal, the use of steam was found to be amply sufficient for the locomotion of all kinds of engines, waggons, or carriages; but about the beginning of this century the quantity of coal in the different countries of Europe had decreased to such an extent that the price of the article became by far too high for daily and ordinary use. True, the supply of North America was far from being exhausted; but, of course, the exportation from thence could not but influence the cost. The same inconvenience further presented itself with such engines where the locomotive power was produced by continually recurring explosions of a mixture of light-gas and common atmospheric air, since the cost of light-gas naturally increased with the decrease of coal, from which it was principally made. Under these circumstances, recourse was had to the electro-magnetic machines, which could not be used to advantage so long as coals were inexpensive; now, however, these were not only able to compete with the different kinds of steam-engines, but they had this advantage over the latter, that they were entirely free from the danger of explosive boilers.

“Nevertheless the electro-magnetic power, with all its improvements, was, and remained, a more expensive one than that formerly produced through coal, and the consequence of this was a decrease in the produce of a great many things which had not only grown into matters of daily necessity, but even into a sine quâ non of a progressive and lasting civilization.

Then it was, since necessity is the mother of invention, that every one contrived to devise a new means of locomotion, until, after innumerable unsuccessful experiments, a power was finally arrived at in every way practical and satisfactory, whilst inexhaustible in its sources. It was, namely, this.

From time immemorial people knew the two motive forces of flowing water and of streaming air, or wind. When the steam-engines came into use, the latter had gradually superseded the former, partly because rapidly flowing or falling water is not always procurable, partly also because the supply of water, as well as its power, depends on the quantities of rain falling in the higher districts. The latter inconvenience, the variability of power, made itself still more strongly felt in the application of the wind. The most absolute quietness in the air may be followed by tempests so dangerous that the skipper is obliged to furl his sails, and the miller finds it necessary to stop his mill, in order to avoid the most disastrous consequences. Now, when the mill stops, it becomes a useless machine; for then the work of the men is stopped, and ultimately their wages. Much valuable time is lost, and time is known to be money. Add to this that a steam-engine may be worked unremittingly, so that the manufacturer can be sure to finish any given work in any stipulated time, and it must be clear enough why the powers of water and wind got to be superseded by steam-power, on account of the latter’s superior regularity.

“Meanwhile it is impossible to overlook the double fact that water and wind may be had for nothing, and that steam involves expense. Moreover, so immense is the quantity of vital or working power of the water falling down on the surface of our earth, and also of the atmospheric currents, that the locomotive power of all existing steam-engines is comparatively trifling by the side of them. One single great cataract has more working power than all the steam-engines of Europe together, and one single thunder-storm may produce such frightful destruction that it would be ridiculous to measure them by horse-power.

“As, therefore, steam became more and more expensive, one naturally looked for means by which, without losing the regularity and stability of steam-power, one might turn to account the forces of wind and falling water. The question had really come to this—how to regularly distribute over a certain period of time a force or power so intensely variable. It seemed as if the working-power of water and wind had to be collected and saved up, so as to have a regular provision of such forces in case of need. In like manner Nature had saved her working-power when she caused the forests to grow, from whence resulted the coal layers. Art had already done the same in preparing gunpowder and other explosive matters. Why, then, could the experiment not be tried in analogous form, namely, by temporary imprisonment or detention of that vital power which appeared to be so inexhaustible?”

That was the problem. With regard to its solution I could not well follow the details. All I could learn from Bacon was this, that the black cylinders on the waggon already referred to bore the name of