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[Illustration]




  A. D. 2000

  BY

  LIEUT. ALVARADO M. FULLER

  U. S. A.

  CHICAGO
  LAIRD & LEE PUBLISHERS
  1890




  Entered according to act of Congress in the year eighteen hundred
  and ninety, by LAIRD & LEE, in the office of the librarian of
  Congress at Washington.

  (All rights reserved.)




PREFACE


Lest originality of title and theme be denied, it is but justice to
myself to state that both were assumed in November, 1887. My thanks are
due to Lieutenant D. L. Brainard, Second Cavalry, for the true copy of
the record of the Greely party left in the cairn at the farthest point
on the globe ever reached by man--83 degrees 24 minutes North Latitude,
40 degrees 46 minutes West Longitude.

  THE AUTHOR.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER I
  JUNIUS COBB'S MARVELOUS DISCOVERY            9

  CHAPTER II
  A STARTLING PROPOSITION                     31

  CHAPTER III
  PREPARING FOR THE TEST                      45

  CHAPTER IV
  JEAN COLCHIS, CONSPIRATOR AND SAVANT        61

  CHAPTER V
  ON THE EVE OF A CENTURY'S SLEEP             80

  CHAPTER VI
  FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH                        101

  CHAPTER VII
  "YOU SAY THIS IS A. D. 2000?"              108

  CHAPTER VIII
  SAN FRANCISCO IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY  130

  CHAPTER IX
  THE CENTRAL PNEUMATIC RAILROAD             150

  CHAPTER X
  UNDER THE CENTRAL SEA                      168

  CHAPTER XI
  THE ARMY OF INSTRUCTION                    199

  CHAPTER XII
  JUNIUS COBB READS A NEWSPAPER              235

  CHAPTER XIII
  NEW YORK CITY--POPULATION 4,000,000        245

  CHAPTER XIV
  THE LAW OF THE LAND                        261

  CHAPTER XV
  THE SYMPATHETIC TELEGRAPH                  278

  CHAPTER XVI
  CHICAGO THE METROPOLIS OF THE COUNTRY      299

  CHAPTER XVII
  NIAGARA FALLS HARNESSED                    309

  CHAPTER XVIII
  THE MYSTERY OF THE COPPER CYLINDER         315

  CHAPTER XIX
  RESURRECTED                                332

  CHAPTER XX
  AN AERIAL VOYAGE                           347

  CHAPTER XXI
  THE TRANSATLANTIC LIFE-SAVING STATIONS     363

  CHAPTER XXII
  LOCATING THE NORTH POLE                    380

  CHAPTER XXIII
  UNITED AT LAST                             396

  CHAPTER XXIV
  CONCLUSION                                 404




A. D. 2000




CHAPTER I


"Number three! half-past eleven o'clock--and all's well!"

"All is well!" came the response from the sentry at the guard-house,
while the sharp click of his piece as he brought it to his shoulder and
the heavy tread of his retreating footsteps were all that was heard to
break the stillness that reigned supreme throughout the garrison.

It was a dark, dreary, foggy night. The heavy atmosphere seemed laden
with great masses of fleeting vapor, and the walks of the post and the
ground surrounding them were as wet as if a heavy shower had just spent
its force.

Such was the Presidio of San Francisco, California, a military post of
the United States government, on the night of November 17th, 1887. The
lights of the garrison made little effect upon that thick and saturated
atmosphere; yet the little that they did make only seemed to add more
to the depth of the surrounding gloom.

In the officers' club-room, near the main parade, was gathered a
jolly party of old and young officers. The rooms were handsomely,
even superbly, furnished. The billiard-tables were in full blast; the
card-tables were occupied; while many sat and chatted upon the various
military topics which are ever a part of the soldier's life.

In a set of officers' quarters, some distance away from the main
parade, were assembled three subalterns of the line. The room was
bright and cheerful, and the decanters upon the table showed that they
knew of the good cheer of the world. The furniture upon which the
officers sat and reclined, as also about the room, gave evidence of
refinement and education; while the cases stacked with books, near the
entrance, bespoke a tendency and desire on the part of the occupant of
the quarters for the improvement of his mind. A grate fire in the angle
threw its cheerful rays upon those present, while the luxuriousness and
warmth of the whole room was in direct contrast with the gloominess and
cold without.

Opening from the main room through a curtained door was a second room,
the inside of which was a study. There was no carpet upon the floor,
and the boards gave evidence of having been used by many feet. Tables
containing jars and many curious vessels, wires in every direction,
bottles filled and empty, maps and drawings, and instruments of
peculiar form and shape, were seen about the room.

In one corner was a large Holtz machine, whose great disc of glass
reflected back the rays from the lights in the front room.

The three men were soldiers and officers of the army.

In the center of the room, by a small table upon which was a roll of
paper, with one hand holding down the pages, while the other was raised
in a commanding gesture, stood Junius Cobb, a lieutenant in the cavalry
arm of the service. Sitting in an easy-chair near the fire, with his
legs on the fender and his eyes watching every movement of the speaker,
reclined Lester Hathaway; while midway between the table and the right
side of the room, in a large rocker, sat Hugh Craft.

Lester Hathaway was a graduate of the military academy of the United
States, as was also Hugh Craft; both were lieutenants in the army--the
former in the infantry, and the latter in the artillery branch of the
service.

Lester Hathaway was about twenty-eight years of age, tall and slim,
fair-haired, a pleasing face, languid air, and a blase style. To him
the world was one grand sphere for enjoyment; it was his life, his
almost every thought, as to how he could pass his time in an easy and
amusing manner. Balls, parties, and dances were his special vocations.
With him there was no thought of the true hardships of life.

Young and handsome, courted by the ladies, he could not understand how
it was that others should occupy their minds with subjects of research
and study.

Hugh Craft was of a different type; yet, like Hathaway, he was tall
and thin, and about the same age; but here the likeness terminated. He
was darker than his companion, with sharp features, an aquiline nose,
and a chin denoting great firmness. His eye was piercing, and wandered
from one object to another with the rapidity of lightning. He was much
more of a student than Hathaway, delighting in all that portion of
the sciences touching the marvelous; a good listener to the views of
others. Altogether, Hugh Craft was a man worthy to be the partner of a
scientific man in a great enterprise.

Junius Cobb, the central figure in the room, deserves more than a
passing description. He was a man about thirty-three years of age, of
medium height, but of a full and well-developed form, black eyes, a
pleasing countenance, a dark mustache nearly covering his lips, square
chin, and eyebrows meeting in the center of the face--all tokens
of a great firmness and decision. He was one who had given many of
his days and nights to hard study in science, in political economy,
and, in fact, had taken a deep interest in almost all of the various
progressive undertakings of his day.

Outside of his duties, Junius Cobb had employed every spare moment of
his time in experimenting in chemistry and electricity. The room off
the sitting-room, where the three gentlemen were gathered this dark
and foggy night, was his workshop, into which no man was permitted to
go save he himself. Its mysterious contents were known to no other
person.

His friends would come and visit him, and sit for hours talking and
chatting, but no invitation was ever accorded them to enter that single
room.

"Craft," and Cobb pointed his finger at that personage in an impatient
manner, "we have often discussed these matters, I will admit, but it is
a theme I like to talk upon. Do you believe in the immortality of the
soul?"

"Why, of course," replied that person, looking surprised.

"And you, too, Hathaway?" continued Cobb, addressing the other.

"Most certainly I do," was the reply.

"Now, do either of you believe that the living body can be so prepared
that it will continue to hold the soul within its fleshly portals for
years without losing that great and unknown essence?" and Cobb fixed
his sparkling eyes upon his listeners.

"Yes," answered Craft; "but by God alone."

"I do not mean by God," quickly returned the other. "God is all
powerful; but by man?"

"Then, of course, I would say that it cannot be done."

"But if I were to show you that it was a fact, an accomplished fact,
you would, of course, admit it?"

"No, Cobb. Look here, old fellow," pettishly exclaimed Hathaway, rising
from his chair, "what is all this about, anyway?"

Cobb glanced at him with an expression of pity, and quickly replied:

"I mean, Hathaway, that it is in my power to hold the life of mortal
man within its living body for an unlimited time. I mean that I can
take your body, Hathaway, and so manipulate it that you will be, to all
appearance, dead; but your soul, or whatever you choose to call it,
will still be in your body; and further, that after a certain time you
will again come to life, having all your former freshness and youth."

Cobb stood at the table with his hand upon the pages of his book, and a
smile upon his face which seemed to say, "Deny it if you can."

Hathaway and Craft looked at him in amazement. These men had known Cobb
to be a student, but neither of them had ever thought him demented.

The proposition advanced by him seemed so terribly contrary to all the
principles of science, natural law, and life, that neither of them
could believe that the man was in earnest.

Both Hathaway and Craft had often come to Cobb's quarters, and
exchanged ideas with him concerning various and many topics; both knew
him to be a student of chemistry and philosophy, and that he worked
many hours in his little back room. They knew that he worked with
chemicals and electricity, and both knew him to be a very peculiar man,
yet neither of them had ever before seemed to be imbued with the belief
that the man was of unsound mind. The grave and startling statement
advanced by Cobb had so astonished them that it was impossible to think
him sane.

"Yes," continued Cobb, "I have found this power. I have no doubt that
it strikes you with amazement that I should even suggest such an
almost preposterous theory. I have no doubt that you almost think me
insane; but my researches in the past few years have been rewarded
by the most startling discoveries. We have all imagined, for many
years, that as soon as the body was deprived of air for a considerable
time, life would become extinct, or, in other words, that life could
not exist without air. Such is not the case--ah! do not start," he
exclaimed, seeing both Hathaway and Craft bend forward inquiringly
in their chairs. "I repeat, such is not the case. Without the oxygen
in the air, the blood of man would be white, yet it would possess
all the properties necessary to continue life. But one thing must
not be confounded with this statement: oxygen is necessary for life
_with_ action, but not necessary for life _without_ action. A strange
statement, is it not? Am I tedious?" he asked, looking at his listeners.

"No; not at all," they both exclaimed. "Please continue, for we are
very much interested."

"Well," and Cobb's eyes flashed as he warmed up to his subject, "it
was long ago discovered that there was a peculiar odor arising upon
the passage of a current of electricity through oxygen gas; this was
also perceived even in working an electrical machine. This odor was
named ozone. Both of you gentlemen are sufficiently proficient in
chemistry for me to pass over the various methods by which ozone can
be manufactured, yet I think it quite necessary that I should state a
few facts about this very remarkable gas, if, indeed, it can be called
a gas; it is really allotropic oxygen. Now, oxygen can be put into a
liquid state, or even into a solid state; yet it is most difficult
to keep it in either of those conditions--so much so that it would
be of no use for the purposes for which I desire to use it. Oxygen
is contracted by passing an electric spark through it, and ozone is
perceived by the peculiar odor arising therefrom. If the intensity of
the current is increased sufficiently, the oxygen is proportionately
decreased in bulk. Suffice it to say that oxygen can be reduced
millions of times in bulk by this simple method, always provided that
the electrical energy was sufficient at starting. You will perceive,"
and he hastily quitted the room, entered his workshop, and returned
with a small bottle fitted with a tight stopper, and containing
apparently a stick of camphor--"you will perceive," he continued,
"when I open this bottle, a most peculiar odor,