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A Voyage to Other Worlds.

CHAPTER V.

THE OCEAN CAPITAL.

At length we came to a mountain-side, up which the electric engine crept, amidst rocks and cliffs and ruddy woodlands. On a sudden, by a turn of the road, a strange scene opened before my eyes, such as I shall strive, though ill able to describe it in earthly words, to depict. A vast plain lay before us, stretching towards the green sea of what you call the Delarue Ocean. Its surface was not all ruddy, but speckled with great white spots of shining metal, which glistened in the sun, and tall spires and towers varying the expanse. Over it there were extended various ramifications, like a spider's web, of hanging railroads in long lines, crossing and intersecting each other, resting on huge pillars and massive towers. It stretched for twenty miles away, or more, sinking into the horizon on one side, but, on the others, bounded by mountains and the green sea.