Page:Robert William Cole - The Struggle for Empire; A Story of the Year 2236 (1900).djvu/66

54 used for letting men, clad in diving dresses, get on to the exterior whenever anything happened to want seeing to there. All round the hull there was the complex network of wires belonging to the antigravitation apparatus, and a system of spiral tubes that formed the Stuberoff apparatus, which effectually insulated the vessel from radiant heat whatever its intensity might be. The use of the latter was to prevent the crew from suffering from the effects of the heat of the sun, which was very intense within the Solar System, and also to enable the vessel to approach the sun or any other luminary for purposes of strategy. As there was no attraction of gravity, a new force was induced equal in intensity to that of gravity at the surface of the earth, and this force acted downwards on to the decks, so that the crew could walk about and work exactly as if they were on the earth. Besides the powerful armament of cannon and torpedoes with which the vessels were provided, each had