perpendicularly downward whenever the lever should be moved
which would connect the main electric current.

When all was ready, Clewe sent every one, even Bryce, the
master-workman, from the room. If his invention should totally
fail, he wanted no one but himself to witness that failure; but if
it should succeed, or even give promise of doing so, he would
be glad to have the eyes of his trusted associates witness that
success. When the doors were shut and locked, Clewe moved a
lever, and a disk of light three feet in diameter immediately
appeared upon the ground. It was a colorless light, but it
seemed to give a more vivid hue to everything it shone upon--such
as the little stones, a piece of wood half embedded in the earth,
grains of sand, and pieces of mortar. In a few seconds, however,
these things all disappeared, and there revealed itself to the
eyes of Clewe a perfectly smooth surface of brown earth. This
continued for some little time, now and then a rounded or a
flattened stone appearing in it, and then gradually fading away.

As Clewe stared intently down upon the illuminated space, the
brown earth seemed to melt and disappear, and he gazed upon a
surface of fine sand, dark or yellowish, thickly interspersed
with gravel-stones. This appearance changed, and a large rounded
stone was seen almost in the centre of the glowing disk. The
worn and smooth surface of the stone faded away, and he beheld
what looked like a split section of a cobble-stone. Then it
disappeared altogether, and there was another flat surface of
gravel and sand.

Between himself and the illuminated space on which he gazed--his