Free The Floating Island by Jules Verne

generally unhealthy, microbian, and typhoic?”
    “Yes, but it can be purified.”
    “And why give yourself that
trouble when it is easy to make a water pure, hygienic, free from all impurity,
and even gaseous or ferruginous, if. you please.”
    “You manufacture this water?”
asked Frascolin.
    “Certainly, and we distribute it
hot or cold to the houses as we distribute light, sound, the time, heat, cold,
power, the antiseptic agents, electrization by auto-conduction.”
    “Allow me,” said Yvernès, “to
believe that you also make the rain for watering your lawns and flowers.”
    “And so we do, sir,” said the
American, making the jewels on his fingers sparkle across the flowing masses of
his hand.
    “Do you have your rain on tap?”
exclaimed Sebastien Zorn.
    “Yes, my dear friends, rain which
the conduits arranged underground distribute in a way that is regular,
controllable, opportune, and practical. Is not that better than waiting for
nature’s good pleasure, and submitting to the climate’s caprices, better than
complaining against excesses without the power of remedying them, sometimes a
too persistent humidity, sometimes too long a drought?”
    “I have you there, Mr. Munbar,”
declared Frascolin. “That you can produce your rain at will may be all very
well, but how do you prevent it falling from the sky?”
    “The sky? What has that got to do
with it?”
    “The sky, or, if you prefer it,
the clouds which break, the atmospheric currents with their accompaniment of
cyclones, tornadoes, storms, squalls, hurricanes. During the bad season, for
example.”
    “The bad season?” repeated
Calistus Munbar.
    “Yes; the winter.”
    “The winter? What do you mean by
that?”
    “We said winter — hail, snow, ice!”  exclaimed
Zorn, enraged at the Yankee’s ironical replies.
    “We know them not!” was Munbar’s
tranquil reply.
    The four Parisians looked at one
another. Were they in the presence of a madman or a mystificator? In the first
case he ought to be shut up; in the second he ought to be taken down.
    Meanwhile the tramcar continued
its somewhat leisurely journey through these enchanting gardens. To Zorn and
his companions it seemed as though beyond the limits of this immense park were
pieces of ground, methodically cultivated, displaying their different colours
like the patterns of cloth formerly shown at tailors’ doors. These were, no
doubt, fields of vegetables, potatoes, cabbages, carrots, turnips, leeks, in
fact, everything required for the composition of a perfect pot-au-feu .
At the same time, they would have been glad to get out into the open country to
discover what this singular region produced in corn, oats, maize, barley, rye,
buckwheat, and other cereals.
    But here a factory appeared, its
iron chimneys rising from its low, rough glass roofs. These chimneys, strengthened
by iron stays, resembled those of a steamer under way, of a Great Eastern whose hundred thousand horses were driving her powerful screws, with this
difference, that instead of black smoke they were only emitting mere threads
which in no way injured the atmosphere.
    This factory covered about ten
thousand square yards. It was the first industrial establishment the quartette
had seen since they had started on their excursion, under the American’s
guidance.
    “And what is that establishment?”
asked Pinchinat.
    “It is a factory worked with
petroleum,” replied Munbar, looking as though his eyes would perforate his
glasses.
    “And what does this factory
manufacture?”
    “Electrical energy, which is
distributed through the town, the park, the country, in producing motive force
and light. At the same time, it keeps going our telegraphs, telautographs,
telephones, telephotes, bells, cooking stoves, machinery, arc lights,
incandescent lights, aluminium moons, and submarine cables.”
    “Your submarine cables?” observed
Frascolin, sharply.
    “Yes, those that connect the town
with the different points of the