"Jules Vernes - An Express of the Future" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verne Jules)

iron tubes, weighing over 13,000,000 tons, were required, with the number of ships necessary, for the
transport of this material┬в00 ships of 2,000 tons, each making thirtyтИТthree voyages. He described this
Armada of science bearing the steel to two special vessels, on board of which the ends of the tubes were
joined to each other, and incased in a triple netting of iron, the whole covered with a resinous preparation to
preserve it from the action of the seawater.

Coming at once to the question of working, he filled the tubestransformed into a sort of peaтИТshooter of
interminable lengthwith a series of carriages, to be carried with their travellers by powerful currents of air,
in the same way that despatches are conveyed pneumatically round Paris.

A parallel with the railways closed the article, and the author enumerated with enthusiasm the advantages of
the new and audacious system. According to him, there would be, in passing through these tubes, a

An Express of the Future 1
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suppression of all nervous trepidation, thanks to the interior surface being of finely polished steel; equality of
temperature secured by means of currents of air, by which the heat could be modified according to the
seasons; incredibly low fares, owing to the cheapness of construction and working expensesforgetting, or
waving aside, all considerations of the question of gravitation and of wear and tear.

All that now came back to my mind.

So, then, this "Utopia" had become a reality, and these two cylinders of iron at my feet passed thence under
the Atlantic and reached to the coast of England!

In spite of the evidence, I could not bring myself to believe in the thing having been done. That the tubes had
been laid I could not doubt; but that men could travel by this routenever!

"Was it not impossible even to obtain a current of air of that length?"I expressed that opinion aloud.

"Quite easy, on the contrary!" protested Colonel Pierce; "to obtain it, all that is required is a great number of
steam fans similar to those used in blast furnaces. The air is driven by them with a force which is practically
unlimited, propelling it at the speed of 1,800 kilometres an houralmost that of a cannonтИТball!so that our
carriages with their travellers, in the space of two hours and forty minutes, accomplish the journey between
Boston and Liverpool."

"Eighteen hundred kilometres an hour!" I exclaimed.

"Not one less. And what extraordinary consequences arise from such a rate of speed! The time at Liverpool
being four hours and forty minutes in advance of ours, a traveller starting from Boston at nine o'clock in the
morning, arrives in England at 3.53 in the afternoon. Isn't that a journey quickly made? In another sense, on
the contrary, our trains, in this latitude, gain over the sun more than 900 kilometres an hour, beating that
planet hand over hand: quitting Liverpool at noon, for example, the traveller will reach the station where we
now are at thirtyтИТfour minutes past nine in the morningthat is to say, earlier than he started! Ha! Ha! I don't
think one can travel quicker than that!"

I did not know what to think. Was I talking with a madman?or must I credit these fabulous theories, in spite
of the objections which rose in my mind?