New York contains now ten million inhabitants; it is the largest city
that is, or ever has been, in the world. It is difficult to say where
it begins or ends: for the villas extend, in almost unbroken
succession, clear to Philadelphia; while east, west and north noble
habitations spread out mile after mile, far beyond the municipal
limits.

But the wonderful city! Let me tell you of it.

As we approached it in our air-ship, coming from the east, we could
see, a hundred miles before we reached the continent, the radiance of
its millions of magnetic lights, reflected on the sky, like the glare
of a great conflagration. These lights are not fed, as in the old
time, from electric dynamos, but the magnetism of the planet itself
is harnessed for the use of man. That marvelous earth-force which the
Indians called "the dance of the spirits," and civilized man
designated "the aurora borealis," is now used to illuminate this
great metropolis, with a clear, soft, white light, like that of the
full moon, but many times brighter. And the force is so cunningly
conserved that it is returned to the earth, without any loss of
magnetic power to the planet. Man has simply made a temporary loan
from nature for which he pays no interest.

Night and day are all one, for the magnetic light increases
automatically as the day-light wanes; and the business parts of the
city swarm as much at midnight as at high noon. In the old times, I
am told, part of the streets was reserved for foot-paths for men and
women, while the middle was given up to horses and wheeled vehicles;
and one could not pass from side to side without danger of being
trampled to death by the horses. But as the city grew it was found