Mister Imagination

There were very few places in the world that Jules Verne, the writer, did not visit. He went round the world a hundred times or more. Once he did it in eighty days, un-heard of in the nineteenth century. He voyaged sixty thou-sand miles under the sea, toured around the moon, explored the center of the earth, and chatted with natives in Australia.

Jules Verne, the man, was a stay-at-home. He was more likely to be tired from writing than from traveling. He did make a few visits to Europe and North Africa. And he made one six-week tour of New York State. But Cartier Replica that was all. He spent less than one of his seventy-seven years really traveling. Yet he was the world’s most extraordinary tourist.

His books are crowded with hunting and fishing expeditions. Jules actually went hunting only once. Then he raised his gun and shot off the guard’s hat!

He never held a test tube in his hand. But he was an inspiration to the scientist in the laboratory. Long before radio was invented, he had TV working in his books. His name for it was photo telephoto. He had helicopters fifty years before the Wright brothers flew their first plane at Kitty Hawk. In fact, there were few wonders of the twentieth century that this man of the nineteenth century did not foresee(BUS,). In his stories you can read about neon lights, moving sidewalks air conditioning^^), skyscrapers, guided missiles, tanks, electrically operated submarines(Jf|7KJi?), and airplanes.

Many people took his ideas seriously. One reason was that he wrote about these wonderful things in such exact details. Learned men would argue with him. Experts in mathematics would spend weeks checking his figures. When his book about going to the moon was published, Five hundred persons volunteered for the next expedition.

Perhaps the best known of all his books is Around the World in Eighty Days. It first appeared as a serial in a Paris newspaper. Its hero had made a bet that he could circle the globe in eighty days, and his progress aroused great interest.

In every country of Europe people made bets on whether the imaginary Mr. Fog would arrive in London in time to win his bet. Verne kept the popular interest alive. His hero rescued a widow from death and fell in love with her. He was attacked by Indians while crossing the American plains. Arriving in New York, he saw the ship that was to take him to England disappearing over the horizon without him.

All the big steamship companies offered Verne large sums of money if he would put Fog on one of their ships. The author refused. Instead, he had Cartier Santos Replica Fog charter a ship. As the world held its breath. Fog reached London with only minutes to spare.

Many of Verne’s other books were set in the future. In these stories, people made diamonds and developed a kind of automobile-ship-helicopter-plane. They received news flashes on televisions, worked in giant skyscrapers, and rode to work on highways much like the ones we ride today. It is hard to believe that the books were written nearly one hundred years ago.

Jules Verne had lived to see many of his fancies come true. But this had not surprised him, For he had once said: “What one man can imagine, another man can do.”