Jules Verne - In the Year 2889

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In the Year 2889In the Year 2889

by Jules Verne

Editor's Notes by Blake Linton Wilfong

In 1885, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., owner of the New York Herald

(the same man who sent Stanley to Africa to find Livingstone) asked

Jules

Verne to write a short story about life in the United States a thousand

years hence. Ironically, the resulting tale was not printed until

1889--and not in the New York Herald.

It is an unusual work in every way. Verne wrote few short

stories,

and no others first published in English. In contrast to his

conservative,

plodding SF novels, "In the Year 2889" dashes wildly from one fanciful

extrapolation to another. Experts believe Jules' son Michel may have

authored part of the story.

Many of the predictions for the year 2889 have already come true.

Verne's dystopian concept of one man brought to vast power and wealth

through widely distributed intellectual property brings to mind names

Samuel Newhouse and Bill Gates. There are also glimmerings of later

science fiction themes, including suspended animation and turning the

moon

around a la Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End (1953).

Of course Verne also made mistakes, and some of his predictions

simply have not come to pass. But give them time: there are nearly nine

centuries left before the year 2889.

Little though they seem to think of it, the people of this 29th century live

continually in fairyland. Surrounded with marvels, they are indifferent to

marvels. To them all seems natural. Could they but appreciate the refinements

civilization in our day; could they but compare the present with the past,

and

recognize the advances we have made! How much fairer they would find our

modern

towns, with populations exceeding 10,000,000 souls; steets 300 feet wide,

houses

100 feet high; with a constant temperature in all seasons; and lines of

aerial

locomotion crossing the sky in all directions! If they could but imagine the

state of things that once existed, when through muddy streets rumbling boxes

wheels, drawn by horses--yes, horses!--were the only means of conveyance.

Think

of the railroads of old, and you will appreciate the pneumatic tubes through

which today we travel at 100 miles an hour. Would not our contemporaries

prize

the telephone and telephote more, had they not forgotten the telegraph?

Surprisingly, all these transformations rest on principles perfectly familiar

our remote ancestors, which they disregarded. Heat, for instance, is as

ancient

as man himself; electricity was known 3000 years ago, and steam 1100. Nay, so

early as 10 centuries ago it was known that the differences between the

several

chemical and physical forces depend on the mode of vibration of etheric

particles, which is for each specifically different. When at last the kinship

all these forces was discovered, it is simply astounding that 500 years still

elapsed before men could analyze and describe the distinct modes of vibration

that constitute these differences. Above all, it is amazing that the method

reproducing these forces directly from one another, and of reproducing one

without the others, should have remained undiscovered till less than a

century

ago. Nevertheless, such was the course of events, for it was not till the

year

2792 that the famous Oswald Nier made this discovery.

Truly was he a great benefactor of the human race. His admirable discovery

led

to many others. Hence is sprung a pleiad of inventors, its brightest star our

great Joseph Jackson. To Jackson we are indebted those wonderful

instruments--the new accumulators. Some of these absorb and condense the

living

force contained in the sun's rays; others, the electricity stored in our

globe;

others again, energy from whatever source: waterfalls, streams, wind, etc.

He,

too, invented the transformer, a more wonderful contrivance still, which

takes

the living force from the accumulator, and, at the touch of a button, returns

to space in any form desired, whether as heat, light, electricity, or

mechanical

force, after having first obtained from it the work required. From the day

these

two instruments were contrived should be dated the era of true progress. They

have put into the hands of man almost infinite power. As for their

applications,

they are numberless. Mitigating the rigors of winter, by giving back to the

atmosphere the surplus heat stored up during the summer, they have

revolutionized agriculture. Supplying motive power for aerial navigation,

they

have given to commerce a mighty impetus. To them we are indebted for the

continuous production of electricity without batteries or dynamos, of light

without combustion or incandescence, and for an unfailing supply of

mechanical

energy for the needs of industry.

Yes, the accumulator and the transformer have wrought all these wonders. And

can

we not to them also trace, indirectly, this latest wonder of all, the great

"Earth Chronicle" building on 253rd Avenue, which was dedicated the other

day?

If George Washington Smith, founder of the Manhattan "Chronicle", should come

back to life today, what would he think when told that this place of marble

and

gold belongs to his remote descendant, Fritz Napoleon Smith, who, after 30

generations, is owner of the same newpaper that his ancestor established!

For George Washington Smith's newspaper has lived generation after

generation,

now passing out of the family, anon coming back to it. When, 200 years ago,

the

political center of the United States was transferred from Washington to

Centropolis, the newspaper followed the government and assumed the name of

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