Across the Zodiac (23 page)

Outside the city, at a distance protecting it from any unpleasant
vapours, which besides were carried up metallic tubes of enormous
height, were several factories of great extent, some chemical, some
textile, others reducing from their ores, purifying, forging, and
producing in bulk and forms convenient for their various uses, the
numerous metals employed in Mars. The most important of
these—
zorinta
—is obtained from a tenacious soil much resembling
our own clay.
[12]
It is far lighter than tin, has the colour and
lustre of silver, and never tarnishes, the only rust produced by
oxidation of its surface being a white loose powder, which can be
brushed or shaken off without difficulty. Of this nearly all Martial
utensils and furniture are constructed; and its susceptibility to the
electric current renders it especially useful for mechanical purposes,
electricity supplying the chief if not the sole motive-power employed
in Martial industry. The largest factories, however, employ but a few
hands, the machinery being so perfect as to perform, with very little
interposition from human hands, the whole work, from the first
purification to the final arrangement. I saw a mass of ore as dug out
from the ground put into one end of a long series of machines, which
came out, without the slightest manual assistance, at the close of a
course of operations so directed as to bring it back to our feet, in
the form of a thin sheet of lustrous metal. In another factory a mass
of dry vegetable fibre was similarly transformed by machinery alone
into a bale of wonderfully light woven drapery resembling satin in
lustre, muslin or gauze in texture.

The streets were what, even in the finest and latest-built American
cities, would be thought magnificent in size and admirable in
construction. The roadway was formed of that concrete, harder than
granite, which is the sole material employed in Martial building, and
which, as I have shown, can take every form and texture, from that of
jewels or of the finest marble to that of plain polished slate. Along
each side ran avenues of magnificent trees, whose branches met at a
height of thirty feet over the centre. Between these and the houses
was a space reserved for the passage of light carriages exclusively.
The houses, unlike those in the country, were from two to four stories
in height.

All private dwellings, however, were built, as in the country, around
a square interior garden, and the windows, except those of the front
rooms employed for business purposes, looked out upon this. The space
occupied, however, was of course much smaller than where ground was
less precious, few dwellings having four chambers on the same floor
and front. The footway ran on the level of what we call the first
story, over a part of the roof of the ground floor; and the business
apartments were always the front chambers of the former, while the
stores of the merchants were collected in a single warehouse occupying
the whole of the ground front. No attempt was made to exhibit them as
on Earth. I entered with my host a number of what we should call
shops. In every case he named exactly the article he wanted, and it
was either produced at once or he was told that it was not to be had
there, a thing which, however, seldom happened. The traders are few in
number. One or two firms engaged in a single branch of commerce do the
whole business of an extensive province. For instance, all the textile
fabrics on sale in the province were to be seen in one or other of two
warehouses; all metals in sheets, blocks, and wires in another; in a
third all finished metal-work, except writing materials; all writing,
phonographic, and telegraphic conveniences in a fourth; all furs,
feathers, and fabrics made from these in a fifth. The tradesman sells
on commission, as we say, receiving the goods from the manufacturer,
the farmer, or the State, and paying only for what are sold at the end
of each year, reserving to himself one-twenty-fourth of the price.
Prices, however, do not vary from year to year, save when, on rare
occasions, an adverse season or a special accident affects the supply
and consequently the price of any natural product—choice fruit,
skins, silver, for instance—obtained only from some peculiarly
favoured locality.

The monetary system, like so many other Martial institutions, is
purely artificial and severely logical. It is held that the exchange
value of any article of manufacture or agricultural produce tends
steadily downwards, while any article obtained by mining labour, or
supplied by nature alone, tends to become more and more costly. The
use of any one article of either class as a measure of value tends in
the long-run to injustice either towards creditors or debtors. Labour
may be considered as the most constant in intrinsic value of all
things capable of sale or barter; but the utmost ingenuity of Martial
philosophers has failed to devise a fixed standard by which one kind
of labour can be measured against another, and their respective
productive force, and consequently their value in exchange,
ascertained. One thing alone retains in their opinion an intrinsic
value always the same, and if it increase in value, increases only in
proportion as all produce is obtained in greater quantities or with
greater facility. Land, therefore, is in their estimation
theoretically the best available measure of value—a dogma which has
more practical truth in a planet where population is evenly diffused
and increases very slowly, if at all, than it might have in the
densely but unevenly peopled countries of Europe or Asia. A
staltâ
,
or square of about fifty yards (rather more than half an acre), is the
primary standard unit of value. For purposes of currency this is
represented by a small engraved document bearing the Government stamp,
which can always at pleasure be exchanged for so much land in a
particular situation. The region whose soil is chosen as the standard
lies under the Equator, and the State possesses there some hundreds of
square miles, let out on terms thought to ensure its excellent
cultivation and the permanence of its condition. The immediate
convertibility of each such document, engraven on a small piece of
metal about two inches long by one in breadth, and the fortieth part
of an inch in thickness, is the ultimate cause and permanent guarantee
of its value. Large payments, moreover, have to be made to the State
by those who rent its lands or purchase the various articles of which
it possesses a monopoly; or, again, in return for the services it
undertakes, as lighting roads and supplying water to districts
dependent on a distant source. Great care is taken to keep the issue
of these notes within safe limits; and as a matter of fact they are
rather more valuable than the land they represent, and are in
consequence seldom presented for redemption therein. To provide
against the possibility of such an over-issue as might exhaust the
area of standard land at command of the State, it is enacted that,
failing this, the holder may select his portion of State domain
wherever he pleases, at twelve years' purchase of the rental; but in
point of fact these provisions are theoretically rather than
practically important, since not one note in a hundred is ever
redeemed or paid off. The "square measure," upon which the coinage, if
I may so call it is based, following exactly the measure of length,
each larger area in the ascending scale represents 144 times that
below it. Thus the
styly
being a little more than a foot, the
steely
is about 13 feet, or one-twelfth of the
stâly
; but the
steeltâ
(or square steely) is 1/144th part of the
stâltâ
. The
stoltâ
, again, is about 600 yards square, or 360,000 square yards,
144 times the
stâltâ
. The highest note, so to speak, in circulation
represents this last area; but all calculations are made in
staltau
,
or twelfths thereof. The
stâltâ
will purchase about six ounces of
gold. Notes are issued for the third, fourth, and twelfth parts of
this: values smaller than the latter are represented by a token
coinage of square medals composed of an alloy in which gold and silver
respectively are the principal elements. The lowest coin is worth
about threepence of English money.

Stopping at the largest public building in the city, a central hexagon
with a number of smaller hexagons rising around it, we entered one of
the latter, each side of which might be some 30 feet in length and 15
in height. Here were ranged a large number of instruments on the
principle of the voice-writer, but conveying the sound to a vast
distance along electric wires into one which reverses the
voice-recording process, and repeats the vocal sound itself. Through
one of these, after exchanging a few words with one of the officials
in charge of them, Esmo carried on a conversation of some length, the
instrument being so arranged that while the mouth is applied to one
tube another may be held to the ear to receive the reply. In the
meantime I fell in with one of the officers, apparently very young,
who was strongly interested at the sight of the much-canvassed
stranger, and, perhaps on this account, far more obliging than is
common among his countrymen. From him I learnt that this, with another
method I will presently describe, is the sole means of distant
communication employed in Mars. Those who have not leisure or do not
care to visit one of the offices, never more than twelve-miles distant
from one another, in which the public instruments are kept, can have a
wire conveyed to their own house. Almost every house of any pretension
possesses such a wire. Leading me into the next apartment, my friend
pointed out an immense number of instruments of a box-like shape, with
a slit in which a leaf of about four inches by two was placed. These
were constantly ejected and on the instant mechanically replaced. The
fallen leaves were collected and sorted by the officers present, and
at once placed in one or other of another set of exactly similar
instruments. Any one possessing a private wire can write at his own
desk in the manual character a letter or message on one of these
slips. Placing it in his own instrument, it at once reproduces itself
exactly in his autograph, and with every peculiarity, blot, or
erasure, at the nearest office. Here the copy is placed in the proper
box, and at once reproduced in the office nearest the residence of the
person to whom it is addressed, and forwarded in the same manner to
him. A letter, therefore, covering one of these slips, and saying as
much as we could write in an average hand upon a large sheet of
letter-paper, is delivered within five minutes at most from the time
of despatch, no matter how great the distance.

I remarked that this method of communication made privacy impossible.

"But," replied the official, "how could we possibly have time to
indulge in curiosity? We have to sort hundreds of these papers in an
hour. We have just time to look at the address, place them in the
proper box, and touch the spring which sets the electric current at
work. If secrecy were needed a cipher would easily secure it, for you
will observe that by this telegraph whatever is inscribed on the sheet
is mechanically reproduced; and it would be as easy to send a picture
as a message."

I learnt that a post of marvellous perfection had, some thousand years
ago, delivered letters all over Mars, but it was now employed only for
the delivery of parcels. Perhaps half the commerce of Mars, except
that in metals and agricultural produce, depends on this post.
Purchasers of standard articles describe by the telegraph-letter to a
tradesman the exact amount and pattern of the goods required, and
these are despatched at once; a system of banking, very completely
organised, enabling the buyer to pay at once by a telegraphic order.

When Esmo had finished his business, we walked down, at my request, to
the port. Around three sides of the dock formed by walls, said to be
fifty feet in depth and twenty in thickness, ran a road close to the
water's edge, beyond which was again a vast continuous warehouse. The
inner side was reserved for passenger vessels, and everywhere the
largest ships could come up close, landing either passengers or cargo
without even the intervention of a plank. The appearance of the ships
is very unlike that of Terrestrial vessels. They have no masts or
rigging, are constructed of the zorinta, which in Mars serves much
more effectively all the uses of iron, and differ entirely in
construction as they are intended for cargo or for travel. Mercantile
ships are in shape much like the finest American clippers, but with
broad, flat keel and deck, and with a hold from fifteen to twenty feet
in depth. Like Malayan vessels, they have attached by strong bars an
external beam about fifty feet from the side, which renders
overturning almost impossible. Passenger ships more resemble the form
of a fish, but are alike at both ends. Six men working in pairs four
hours at a time compose the entire crew of the largest ship, and half
this number are required for the smallest that undertakes a voyage of
more than twelve hours.

I may here mention that the system of sewage is far superior to any
yet devised on Earth. No particle of waste is allowed to pollute the
waters. The whole is deodorised by an exceedingly simple process, and,
whether in town or country, carried away daily and applied to its
natural use in fertilising the soil. Our practice of throwing away,
where it is an obvious and often dangerous nuisance, material so
valuable in its proper place, seemed to my Martial friends an
inexplicable and almost incredible absurdity.

As we returned, Esmo told me that he had been in communication with
the Camptâ, who had desired that I should visit him with the least
possible delay.

"This," he said, "will hurry us in matters where I at any rate should
have preferred a little delay. The seat of Government is by a direct
route nearly six thousand miles distant, and you will have opportunity
of travelling in all the different ways practised on this planet. A
long land-journey in our electric carriages, with which you are not
familiar, is, I think, to be avoided. The Camptâ would wish to see
your vessel as well as yourself; but, on the whole, I think it is
safer to leave it where it is. Kevimâ, and I propose to accompany you
during the first part of your journey. At our first halt, we will stay
one night with a friend, that you may be admitted a brother of our
Order."