the higher levels, above the storm; and, with our increased
scientific knowledge, the coming of a cyclone is known for many days
in advance; and even the stratum of air in which it will move can be
foretold.

I could spend hours, my dear brother, telling you of the splendor of
this hotel, called _The Darwin_, in honor of the great English
philosopher of the last century. It occupies an entire block from
Fifth Avenue to Madison Avenue, and from Forty-sixth Street to
Forty-seventh. The whole structure consists of an infinite series of
cunning adjustments, for the delight and gratification of the human
creature. One object seems to be to relieve the guests from all
necessity for muscular exertion. The ancient elevator, or "lift," as
they called it in England, has expanded until now whole rooms, filled
with ladies and gentlemen, are bodily carried up from the first story
to the roof; a professional musician playing the while on the
piano--not the old-fashioned thing our grandmothers used, but a huge
instrument capable of giving forth all sounds of harmony from the
trill of a nightingale to the thunders of an orchestra. And when you
reach the roof of the hotel you find yourself in a glass-covered
tropical forest, filled with the perfume of many flowers, and bright
with the scintillating plumage of darting birds; all sounds of
sweetness fill the air, and many glorious, star-eyed maidens, guests
of the hotel, wander half seen amid the foliage, like the houris in
the Mohammedan's heaven.

But as I found myself growing hungry I descended to the dining-room.
It is three hundred feet long: a vast multitude were there eating in
perfect silence. It is considered bad form to interrupt digestion
with speech, as such a practice tends to draw the vital powers, it is