Propeller Island Page 7

  The country lay extended beneath them. The country was a perfect oval, surrounded by a horizon of sea, and as far as the eye could carry no land was in sight. And yet the night before, after leaving the village of Freschal in the American’s company, Zorn, Frascolin, Yvernès, Pinchinat had travelled for two miles on the land. They had then crossed the river in the ferry boat and again reached land. In fact, if they had left the Californian shore for any sea voyage they would certainly have noticed it.

  Frascolin turned towards Calistus Munbar.

  “We are on an island?” he asked.

  “As you see!” said the Yankee, with the most amiable of smiles.

  “And what is this island?”

  “Floating Island.”

  “And this town?”

  “Milliard City.”

  CHAPTER V.

  At this period the world was still waiting for the audacious statistical geographer who could give the exact number of the islands scattered over the face of the globe. The number, we may make bold to say, would amount to many thousands. Among all these islands was there not one that answered the requirements of the founders of Floating Island, and the wants of its future inhabitants? No, not one. Hence this peculiarly American notion of making an island which would be the latest and greatest thing in modern construction.

  Floating Island was an island worked by screws. Milliard City was its capital. Why this name? Evidently because the capital was the town of the millionaires, a Gouldian, Vanderbiltian, Rothschildian City.

  An artificial island; there was nothing extraordinary in the idea. With a sufficient mass of materials submerged in a river, a lake, a sea, it was not beyond the power of men to make it. But that was not sufficient. Having regard to its destination, to the requirements it had to satisfy, it was necessary that this island could be moved from place to place, and consequently that it should float. There was the difficulty, which was not too great for ironworkers and engineers to overcome.

  Already, at the end of the nineteenth century, with their instinct for the “big,” their admiration for the “enormous,” the Americans had conceived the project of forming a large raft some miles out at sea, and their mooring it with anchors. If this was not a city, it was at least a station in the Atlantic with restaurants, hotels, clubs, theatres, &c., where tourists could find all the conveniences of the watering places then most in vogue. This project was realized and completed. And then, instead of a stationary raft, they made a movable island.

  Six years before the opening of this story an American company, under the title of Floating Island Company, Limited, had been formed with a capital of five hundred million dollars, divided into five hundred shares, for the construction of an artificial island, affording the nabobs of the United States the various advantages of which the stationary regions of the globe are deprived. The shares were quickly taken up, for immense fortunes were then plentiful in America, gained either by manipulating railways, or banking operations, or oil transactions, or speculations in pickled pork.

  Four years were occupied in the construction of this island, of which we may conveniently give the chief dimensions, the internal arrangements, the means of locomotion which enabled it to cruise amongst the most beautiful regions of the immense Pacific Ocean.

  There are floating villages in China on the River Yang-tse-Kiang, in Brazil on the Amazon, in Europe on the Danube. But these are only ephemeral constructions, a few small houses built on the top of long rafts of wood. When it reaches its destination the raft is broken up, the houses taken off—the village has lived and died.

  But it was quite another affair with regard to this island; it was to be launched on the sea, it was to last as long as any of the works issued from the hands of man.

  And besides, who knows if the earth will not some day be too small for its inhabitants, whose numbers will almost reach six milliards in 2072—as the statisticians following Ravenstein affirm with astonishing precision. And will it not be necessary to build on the sea when the continents are overcrowded?

  Floating Island was an island in steel, and the strength of its hull had been calculated for the weight it had to bear. It was composed of 270,000 caissons, each of them eighteen yards high, by ten long and ten wide. Their horizontal surface represented a square of ten yards on the side, that is to say, of a hundred square yards. When the caissons were all bolted and riveted together, they gave the island an area of about twenty-seven million square yards. In the oval form which the constructors had given it, it measured about four and a half miles long and three broad, and its circuit in round numbers was about eleven miles.

  Floating Island drew thirty feet of water, and had a freeboard of twenty feet. In volume it was about 430,000,000 cubic yards, and its displacement, being three-fifths of its volume, amounted to 258,000,000 cubic yards.

  The whole of the caissons below the water line had been covered with a preparation up to then undiscoverable —which had made a millionaire of its inventor—which prevented barnacles and other growths from attaching themselves to the parts in contact with the sea.

  The subsoil of the new island was made safe from distortion and breakage by cross girders, riveting and bolting.

  Special workshops had had to be erected for the construction of this huge example of naval construction. These were built by the Floating Island Company, who had acquired Madeleine Bay and its coast, at the extremity of the long peninsula of Old California, which is just on the Tropic of Cancer. It was in this bay that the work was executed under the direction of the engineers of the Floating Island Company, the chief being the celebrated William Tersen, who died a few months after the completion of the work, as Brunei did after the unfortunate launch of the Great Eastern. And Floating Island was but a Great Eastern modernized—only several thousand times larger.

  It will be understood that there could be no question of launching the island as a ship is launched. It was built in sections, in compartments alongside one another on the waters of Madeleine Bay. This portion of the American coast became the station of the moving island, to which it could return when repairs were necessary.

  The carcase of the island, its hull, if you will, was formed of two hundred and seventy thousand compartments, and filled in with vegetable soil, all except the site of the city, where the hull was of extraordinary strength. The depth of mould was ample for a vegetation restricted to lawns, flower beds, shrubberies, clumps of trees and fields of vegetables. It had seemed impracticable to require this artificial soil to produce cereals and feed for cattle, which could be regularly imported. But the necessary arrangements had been made, so as not to be dependent on importation for milk and poultry.

  The three quarters of the soil of Floating Island devoted to vegetation amounted to about thirteen square miles, in which the park lawns afforded permanent verdure, and the carefully tilled fields abounded in vegetables and fruits, and the artificial prairies served as grazing ground for the flocks and herds. Electro-culture was largely employed, that is to say, the influence of continuous currents, the result being an extraordinary acceleration of growth and the production of vegetables of remarkable dimensions, such as radishes eighteen inches long and carrots weighing seven pounds apiece. The flower gardens, vegetable gardens, and orchards could hold their own with the best in Virginia or Louisiana. In this there was nothing astonishing; expense was no object in this island so justly called the” Pearl of the Pacific.”

  Its capital, Milliard City, occupied about a fifth of the seventeen square miles reserved for it, and was about six miles in circumference. Our readers who are willing to accompany Sebastien Zorn and his comrades on their excursion will soon know it well enough in every part. They will find it unlike the American towns which have the happiness and misfortune to be modern—happiness on account of the facilities for communication, misfortune on account of the artistic side, which is absolutely wanting. Milliard City, as we know, is oval in form, and divided into two sections divided by a central artery,
First Avenue, which is about two miles long. The observatory is at one end, and the town hall at the other. Here are centralized all the public departments, the water supply and highways, the plantations and pleasure grounds, the municipal police, custom-house, markets, cemeteries, hospitals, schools, and science and art.

  And now what was the population contained within this circuit of eleven miles?

  The earth, it appears, has only twelve towns—of which four are in China—which have more than a million inhabitants. Well, Floating Island had but ten thousand, all of them natives of the United States. It was never intended that international discussions should arise among the citizens, who might repose in tranquility on this most modern of constructions.

  It was enough, or rather more than enough, that they could not be mustered under the same banner with regard to religion. But it would have been difficult to reserve the exclusive right of residence on the island to the Yankees of the North, who were the port watch of Floating Island, or the Americans of the South, who formed its starboard watch. The interests of the Floating Island Company would not have admitted of this. When the frame of the hull was finished, when the part reserved for the town was ready for building on, when the plan of the streets and avenues had been adopted, the buildings began. to rise—superb hotels, less ornate mansions, houses destined for shops, public edifices, churches and temples, but none of those monstrosities of twenty-seven floors, those “sky-scrapers” one sees at Chicago. The materials used were light and strong. The inoxydisable metal that prevailed was aluminium, seven times as light as iron, the metal of the future, as it was called by Sainte-Claire-Deville, and which is suitable for all the requirements of solid construction. This was used in conjunction with artificial stones, cubes of cement which can be worked with so much ease. Use was also made of glass bricks—hollow, blown, and moulded like bottles—set with mortar, transparent bricks with which if desired the ideal glass house could be realized. But it was really metal framework which was most employed, as in the different kinds of naval architecture. And what was Floating Island but an immense ship?

  These various properties all belonged to the Floating Island Company. Those who lived in them were only tenants whatever the amount of their fortune might be. Care had been taken to provide for all the requirements of comfort demanded by these extraordinarily rich Americans, by the side of whom the sovereigns of Europe and the nabobs of India cut but a sorry figure.

  If the statistics are correct which give the stock of gold accumulated in the world at eighteen millions and that of silver at twenty millions, it must be admitted that the inhabitants of the Pearl of the Pacific had their fair share.

  From the outset the financial side of the enterprise had been kept well in view. The hotels and houses had been let at fabulous prices. The rents amounted to millions, and many of the families could without inconvenience afford this payment for annual lodging. Hence, under this head alone the Company secured a good revenue. Evidently the capital of Floating Island justified the name it bore in geographical nomenclature.

  Setting aside these opulent families, there were several hundreds paying a rental of from four to eight thousand a year. The surplus of the population comprised the professors, tradesmen, shopmen, and servants, and the foreigners, who were not very numerous, and were not allowed to settle in Milliard City or in the island. Lawyers were very few, and lawsuits consequently rare; doctors were fewer, and the death rate was consequently absurdly low. Every inhabitant knew his constitution exactly, his muscular force measured by the dynamometer, his pulmonary capacity measured by the spirometer, his power of cardial contraction measured by the sphygmometer, his degree of vital force measured by the magnetometer. In the town there were neither bars nor cafés, nor drinking saloons, nothing to encourage alcoholism. Never was there a case of dipsomania—let us say drunkenness, to be understood by those who do not know Greek. The municipal departments distributed electric energy, light, power, warmth, compressed air, rarefied air, cold air, water under pressure, as well as pneumatic telegrams and telephonic messages. If you died on this Floating Island, regularly withdrawn from intemperate climates and sheltered from every microbic influence, it was because you had to die after the springs of life had been worked to a centenarian old age.

  Were there any soldiers in Floating Island? Yes, a body of five hundred men under the orders of Colonel Stewart, for it had to be remembered that some parts of the Pacific are not always safe. In approaching certain groups of islands it is prudent to be prepared against any attack by pirates. That this militia was highly paid, that every man received a salary superior to that of a full general in old Europe, need not occasion surprise. The recruiting of these soldiers, lodged, boarded, and clothed at the expense of the administration, took place under excellent conditions, controlled by chiefs who were as rich as Crœsus; the candidates were numerous enough to be embarrassing.

  Were there any police on Floating Island? Yes, a few companies, and they sufficed to keep the peace of a town which had no reason to be troubled. To reside there, permission was necessary from the municipal administration. The shores of the island were watched day and night by custom-house officers. You could only land at the ports. How could rascals get in there? And as to those who went wrong on the island, they were arrested at once, sentenced, and put ashore in the west or east of the Pacific, on any corner of the old or new continent, without the possibility of ever returning to Floating Island.

  We said the ports of Floating Island. Were there many of them, then? There were two, situated at the extremity of the smaller diameter of the oval. One of these was called Starboard Harbour, the other Larboard Harbour. In this way there was no danger of regular communications being interrupted. If, owing to bad weather, one of these harbours was unavailable, the other was open to ships, which could thus reach the island in all winds. It was through these harbours that the island was supplied with goods, with petroleum brought by special steamers, with flour and cereals, wines, beers and other drinks, tea, coffee, cocoa, groceries, preserves, etc. At these were landed the cattle, sheep, and pigs from the best markets of America. Thus was assured a full supply of fresh meat and everything required by the most exacting gourmet. There were also landed the dress materials, linen, and fashions required by the most refined dandy or the most elegant lady. These things were bought from the tradesmen in the island at prices we dare not name, for fear of exciting the incredulity of the reader.

  It may be asked how a regular service of steamers could be established between the American coast and an island which constantly changed its position—one day in one position, next day twenty miles away. The reply is very simple. Floating Island did not cruise about at a venture. Its position was in accordance with a programme drawn up by the adminstration, at the advice of the meteorologists of the observatory. It was a voyage— open to modifications, however—across that part of the Pacific containing the most beautiful archipelagoes, avoiding as much as possible sudden bursts of cold or heat, which are the causes of so many pulmonary affections. ~ It was this which enabled Calistus Munbar to say, with regard to winter, “we know it not!” Floating Island only manœuvred between the thirty-fifth parallels of north and south latitude. Seventy degrees to traverse, over four thousand sea miles. What a magnificent field of navigation! Ships always knew where to find the Pearl of the Pacific, for its movements were arranged in advance among the various groups of these delightful islands, which form the oases in the desert of this mighty ocean.

  But, in any case, vessels were not reduced to having to find Floating Island by chance. The company did not care to avail themselves of the twenty-five cables, six thousand miles long, belonging to the Eastern Extension, Australia and China Company. No! Floating Island must not be dependent on anybody! Scattered about the surface of the sea were a few hundred buoys, supporting the ends of electric cables connected with Madeleine Bay. One of these buoys would be picked up, the cable attached to the instruments in the observatory, an
d the agents in the Bay informed of the present latitude and longitude of Floating Island, the shipping service being consequently conducted with railway regularity.

  There is, however, an important question which is worth dealing with at length.

  How was enough fresh water procured for the wants of the island?

  It was made by distillation in two special establishments, and was brought in pipes to the inhabitants of Milliard City, or led under the fields and country around. In this way it was provided for house and street service, and fell in beneficent rain on the fields and lawns, which were thus independent of the caprices of the sky. And not only was this water fresh, it was distilled, electrolyzed, more hygienic than the purest springs of both continents, of which a drop the size of a pin’s head may contain fifteen milliards of microbes.

  But we have still to describe how the island was moved. Great speed was unnecessary, as for six months it was not intended to leave the region comprised between the tropics and the hundred and thirtieth and hundred and eightieth meridians. From fifteen to twenty miles a day was all that Floating Island required. This speed it would have been possible to obtain by towage, by having a cable made of the Indian plant known as bastin, which is very strong and light, and would float just below the surface so as not to be damaged by shoals. This cable could be passed over pulleys at the extremities of the island, which could be towed backwards and forwards as barges are towed up and down certain rivers. And this cable would have had to be of enormous size for such a mass, and it would have been subject to many injuries. And the freedom would be that of an island in chains, obliged to follow a definite line; and such freedom the citizens of free America revolted at.

  At this period electricians had fortunately so far advanced that they could obtain almost anything from electricity. And it was to it they entrusted the locomotion of their island. Two establishments were enough to drive dynamos of enormous power, furnishing electrical energy by continuous current under a moderate voltage of two thousand volts. These dynamos drove a powerful system by screws, placed near the two ports. They each developed five millions of horse-power, by means of their hundreds of boilers fed with petroleum briquettes, which are less cumbersome, less dirty than oil, and richer in caloric. These works were under the direction of the two chief engineers, Watson and Somwah, assisted by a numerous staff of engineers and stokers under the supreme command of Commodore Ethel Simcoe. From his residence in the observatory, the commodore was in telephonic communication with the works. From him came the orders for advance or retreat, according to the programme. It was owing to him that, during the night of the 25th, the order to start had been given just as Floating Island was in the vicinity of the Californian coast, at the commencement of its annual campaign.