Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/25

 heaped up much as we see tin or boiler-plate. Here I had the satisfaction of convincing myself, by actual experiment with a hammer, that I could not break even a thin piece of this malleable glass that was given me. I was able to beat it out of shape, but not to break it. In other stores I saw all sorts of culinary and other domestic utensils, all made of this glass. Elsewhere, again, were found baths, wardrobes, water-pipes, all kinds of ware, indeed, now usually made of wood, terra-cotta, or metal. In another place the chemical apparatus specially excited my interest. I had been somewhat of a dabbler in that science, but here I found my knowledge of small avail. I could not even guess at the uses of the great variety of articles displayed before my bewildered eyes. Some few instruments had, in some degree, preserved their present forms throughout the long series of intervening ages. But, with a sigh of humiliation, I felt within me that I belonged to the dark ages of the far past.

My friend took as much pleasure in explaining as I in questioning. Yet, as he remarked, many things are impossible of clear explanation to even the acutest intellect that lacks the requisite preliminary information. Science had taken immense strides, and many of them; and I had yet to acquire the rudiments of the new system of knowledge.

"It is about time to leave the city," said my companion, when we again found ourselves outdoors.

"My home is fully thirty miles ontside the city, and we most not be late for dinner. Punctuality. in even the minor affairs of life, is, with us, less a virtue than a mental habit."