Alternating with the scrolls are designs representing episodes in my life and reign. These designs are in pure white marble in relief, and with the light of our world stand out prominently from the iron-marble, sufficiently large to be plainly seen at great distances from nearly all parts of the city. The proposal for thus recording the events of my reign came from the kings and people who loved me greatly.
As before observed, a person can be raised from the base to the top of the column, and through a shaft into the Upper city. The movement is rapid, and takes less than half an hour either way, whilst the journey by our external roads, by reason of the circuits to be taken, and the ascents and descents would, even to descend, occupy two days on a fleet horse. The passage through the Tower, however, is seldom used either for ascent or descent, except in cases of great emergency, because the great difference of the atmosphere above and below materially affects the health of the passenger.
The machinery, too, in the descent requires much care and calculation, for the weight of the descending body would otherwise increase to such an extent, that accidents would occur.
The difference of the atmosphere and the effect on the human frame between the Upper and Lower cities is remarkable; those accustomed to live in the Lower city have a disposition to spring from their feet when first arriving in the Upper city. I recollect a lady—rather weakly—who seemed mad, but was rational enough; only she could not for some time resist the impulse of springing upwards.
This mode of communication would perhaps have been more resorted to had we not possessed the telegraph. The electric telegraph is, in its rapidity, not unlike that used in your world, but is different in construction and mode of working. What is written at one station is reproduced in its exact size and form at another. Even a portrait designed at one end of the telegraph with the electric acid would be instantaneously reproduced at the other end, perhaps many hundred miles distant.
At different stages of the Tower the colour of the atmosphere sensibly changes. This phenomenon is caused by certain minute particles which contain animalcula, or their ova, and exist at different distances in layers, and which as they are developed and become heavier have a tendency to fall into lower regions of the atmosphere, till they awaken into life under the influence of the sun. Blights, called by us Viscotae, "infectious visitors," are often thus generated, falling from layer to layer till they settle on plants and trees.
These ova, moved by the winds, are sometimes mixed together, but when the winds subside the more advanced and heaviest tend to settle in the lower regions of the air just as the heaviest particles of a mixture have a tendency to sink and settle below.
All this has been shown beyond doubt by a quantity of air being collected when falling fast, and at different times and altitudes. Each portion of air being secured in a separate glass case, the ova were then viewed through our powerful microscopes, and subjected to various tests.
The Mountain Supporter, which can be seen from nearly every part of the Middle and Lower cities of Montalluyah, is an object of inconceivable grandeur and beauty, its appearance varying according to the point whence it is seen.
This great work often seems broken into numerous parts of varied length, by mountains, rocks, and ravine sides, raising their heads between it and the spectator. Often, particularly when the clouds have been high, and the sky has been clear, I have seen from a distance parts of the huge Mountain Supporter seemingly broken into vertical lines towards the middle and lower parts in a way that, in conjunction with the upper parts, has produced an effect like that of an immense flower raising its head towards the skies, supported by a long stalk resting on many elegant but slender tendrils.