ed, I would feel as though I could not be
surprised at any marvelous thing that they should claim to do, but I was
really not prepared to believe that they could set the river on fire.
Yet I found that such was, scientifically, the fact. It was one of their
most curious and, at the same time, useful appliances of a philosophical
discovery.

They separated water into its two gases, and then, with their ingenious
chemical skill, converted it into an economical fuel.

Their coal mines had long been exhausted, as had many other of nature's
resources for producing artificial heat. The dense population made it
impracticable to cultivate forests for fuel. Its rapid increase demanded
of Science the discovery of a fuel that could be consumed without loss
to them, both in the matter consumed and in the expense of procuring it.
Nothing seemed to answer their purpose so admirably as water. Water,
when decomposed, becomes gas. Convert the gas into heat and it becomes
water again. A very great heat produces only a small quantity of water:
hence the extreme utility of water as a heat producing agent.

The heating factories were all detached buildings, and generally, if at
all practicable, situated near a river, or other body of water. Every
precaution against accident was stringently observed.

There were several processes for decomposing the water explained to me,
but the one preferred, and almost universally used by the people of
Mizora, was electricity. The gases formed at the opposite poles of the
electrical current, were received in large glass reservoirs, especially
constructed for them.

In preparing the heat that gave such a delightful temperature to the
dwellings and public buildings of their vast cities, glass was always
the material used in the construction of vessels and pipes. Glass pipes
conveyed the separate gases of hydrogen and oxygen into an apartment
especially prepared for the purpose, and united them upon ignited
carbon. The heat produced was intense beyond description, and in the
hands of less experienced and capable chemists, would have proved
destructful to life and property. The hardest rock would melt in its
embrace; yet, in the hands of these wonderful students of Nature, it was
under perfect control and had been converted into one of the most
healthful and agreeable agents of comfort and usefulness known. It was
regulated with the same ease and convenience with which we increase or
diminish the flames