The first paragraph:
This academy of sciences is not a complete independent building, but several houses connected together on both sides of a street. Because of disrepair, I bought it for the use of the college.
The president of the Academy of Sciences received me very politely, and I stayed in the Academy of Sciences for some time. Each room has one or more designers; I believe that I have visited no less than 500 rooms.
The first person I met looked thin, his hands and face were black as if they had just been smoked, his hair and beard were long, his clothes were sloppy, and he was burned in several places. His coat, shirt and skin are all the same color. He has been working on a design for eight years. He wants to extract sunlight from cucumber and put it in a sealed small glass bottle, which can be released in rainy and cold summer to keep the air warm. He told me that he believed that in another eight years, he could provide sunshine for the governor's garden at a reasonable price; But he complained about the shortage of raw materials and asked me if I could give him something, which encouraged his cutting-edge design, especially now that cucumbers are so expensive this season. I gave him a small gift because my grandfather specially prepared money for me; He knows that no matter who visits, they always ask for money.
I walked into another room, but I was almost drowned by an unpleasant smell, and I was anxious to quit. My guide insisted that I go forward and quietly begged me not to offend them, or they would hate me to the bone. I was so scared that I couldn't stop my nose. The designer of this room is the most senior scholar in the Academy of Sciences. His face and beard are light yellow. Hands and clothes are covered with dirt. When I was introduced to him, he gave me a big hug (I could have made an excuse not to be treated like this). Since he came to work in the Academy of Sciences, he has been studying how to turn human excrement into food. His method is to divide the feces into several parts, remove the color from the bile, let the smell evaporate, and then remove the floating saliva. Every week, people provide him with a bucket of feces, about the size of a Bristol bucket.
I saw a man doing the work of burning ice into gunpowder. He also showed me a paper he wrote about the ductility of fire, which he intends to publish.
There is also one of the most original architects who invented a new method of building houses, that is, starting from the roof and covering the foundation from top to bottom. He also defended his method and told me that bees and spiders, the two smartest insects, did just that.
A man was born blind, and so were some of his disciples. Their job is to adjust colors for painters. Teacher Wang teaches them to distinguish different colors through touch and smell. Unfortunately, during that time, I saw that their classes were far from home, and even the professors themselves often made mistakes. However, this artist is highly encouraged and admired by all researchers.
In another room, I saw with interest that a designer had invented a way to cultivate land with pigs. That method saves labor without plows and animals. It is like this: on an acre of land, some beech fruits and vegetables, such as acorns, dates and chestnuts, which are the animals' favorite foods, are buried at a depth of eight inches every six inches; Then drive more than 600 pigs to the field; In order to find food, pigs can turn over all the soil in a few days, which is not only suitable for planting, but also the excrement pulled by pigs just makes the soil fertile. Of course, although they found that it was too expensive and troublesome through experiments, there was almost no result, but everyone believed that this invention had great improvement potential.
I walked into another room, where there was a narrow passage for scholars to enter and exit, and other places such as walls and ceilings were covered with cobwebs. As soon as I entered the door, he told me not to break his spider web. He laments that the world has made a big mistake. For a long time, it has been using silk made from silkworm cocoons, but there are some domestic insects here, which are many times better than silkworms because they know how to spin and spin. He further suggested that if spiders are used, the overall cost of web weaving can be saved; This point, after he showed me many flying insects with extremely beautiful colors, I fully understood: he fed these flying insects to his spiders; He told us that the color of cobwebs comes from these flying insects, and because he has all kinds of flying insects, he can satisfy everyone's different preferences. As long as he can find suitable food for flying insects, such as resin, oil or other sticky substances, he can make the silk spun by spiders strong and tough.
Another astronomer undertook a design to install a heliograph on the gale sign on the roof of the city hall. By adjusting the movements of the earth and the sun in a year and a day, they can conform to unexpected changes in the wind direction.
I suddenly felt abdominal pain, so my guide took me to a room where a famous doctor who was famous for treating this disease lived. He can perform two operations with opposite effects with the same instrument. He has a big hair dryer with a long ivory mouth. He inserted the ivory mouth into the anus eight inches to suck out the gas in his stomach; He affirmed that he could suck his stomach as long and thin as a deflated bladder. But if the illness is stubborn and fierce, he will first fill the blower, then insert the ivory mouth into the anus, pump air into the patient's body, then take out the blower to inflate it again, and at the same time tightly block the asshole with his thumb. Repeat this for three or four times, and the injected gas will be sprayed out, and the toxic gas will be pumped out together (just like a pump), and the patient will be cured. I saw him doing these two experiments on a dog at the same time. The first one has no effect. After the second operation, the animals were swollen and almost exploded. If they exploded for a while, my companions and I would be smoked out. The dog died on the spot, but when we left, the doctor was still trying to bring it back to life with the same operation!
I also visited many other rooms, and all I saw were strange things, so I won't explain them to readers here. Because I really want to simplify things.
So far, I have only visited a part of the Academy of Sciences, and the other part is reserved for scholars who advocate meditation and fantasy. First, I will introduce a famous figure, who is called a cosmologist, and then I will talk about a scholar who meditates and dreams. This "omnipotent scholar" tells us that he has been studying how to improve human life for thirty years. He has two big rooms full of strange things, and fifty people work in them. Some people extract sodium nitrate from the air, filter out the liquid molecules in it, and concentrate the air into a dry and touchable substance. Some people are studying how to soften marble into pillows and blankets. Others are reinforcing a live horse's hoof so that it won't break when running. The scholar himself is busy with two great projects at this time. The first is to sow seeds with chaff, which he insists has real embryo function. He also did several experiments to prove his statement, but I was too stupid to understand. Another plan is to coat two lambs with a mixture of resin, minerals and vegetables to prevent them from growing long hair; He hopes to breed a hairless sheep all over the country after a long period of time.
We walked through a passage and came to another part of the Academy of Sciences. As I said before, visionary designers live here.
I see the first professor and his forty students working here. After greeting, he saw me staring at the shelf that occupied most of the room, and said, I think he may be confused when he studies how to improve people's speculative knowledge with practical and mechanical operation methods, but the world will soon find it useful. He proudly said that no one had thought of such a noble idea. As we all know, it takes a lot of labor to succeed in art and science by conventional means, and if we use his method, the most ignorant people can write books on philosophy, poetry, politics, law, mathematics and theology without any talent or academic ability, with a little tuition and a little physical strength. Then he led me to the bookshelf, and his students stood in a row around it. This shelf is 20 feet square and is placed in the middle of the house. Its surface consists of many pieces of wood, each about the size of a dice, but some are bigger. These wooden blocks are connected by strings, and each square is stuck with a piece of paper, which is filled with all the words in their language and their different sounds, tenses and variants, but there is no order. The professor asked me to concentrate next, because he is going to start the machine now. At the command, the students each grabbed an iron handle. It turns out that there are forty handles around the shelf. Every student turns a handle, and the layout of the words is completely changed. Then he ordered thirty-six students to read aloud the words that appeared on the bookshelf. As long as three or four words can be connected to make sentences, they will read them to the other four students who are scribes and record them. This work should be repeated three or four times. Because of the ingenious structure of the machine, every time it turns, the wood block will be completely turned over and the words on it will be changed to other positions.
These young students spend six hours doing this work every day. The professor showed me several folio books, which collected many fragmented sentences. He intends to piece them together and use these rich materials to compile a whole book, including all cultural and scientific categories, and contribute to the world. However, if the public can raise a sum of money to make 500 such bookshelves in Lagardo to do this work, and ask the people in charge of these bookshelves to contribute all the materials they have collected, then this work will be improved and completed soon.
He also told me that he was committed to this invention since he was a child; He wrote all the words on the bookshelf and calculated the approximate proportion of function words, nouns, verbs and other parts of speech in the book very accurately.
The celebrity said so much, and I thank him very humbly. I also promised him that if I was lucky enough to return to my motherland, I would give him justice, saying that he was the only inventor of this magical machine. I also asked him to allow me to draw the shape and structure of the machine on paper. I told him that although our European scholars have the habit of copying inventions from each other, if they know that there is such a machine, they can at least make some money, and then who is the real inventor of it will be controversial. Nevertheless, I will be more careful to let him enjoy this honor alone, and no one will compete with him.
Then we came to the language school. Three professors sat there discussing how to improve their own language.
The first scheme is to simplify words, simplify polysyllabic words into monosyllabic words, and omit verbs and participles, because all you can think of are nouns.
Another plan is to abolish all words. They insist that this plan is beneficial to both health and simplicity, because everyone knows that every word we say will erode our lungs to some extent, thus shortening our life span. So they came up with a remedy: since words are just the names of things, wouldn't it be more convenient for everyone to bring what they need to express that specific thing when talking about it? Originally, this invention must have been realized long ago, and people will feel very comfortable and be of great benefit to their health. However, women unite vulgarity and illiteracy and demand the freedom to speak with their mouths like their ancestors, otherwise they will rise up and resist. Such a layman is often the mortal enemy of science. However, many people with the most knowledge and wisdom still insist on this new method of using things as signs. There is only one inconvenience in this method, that is, if a person has a lot of things to do, he must carry a bundle of things on his back, unless he has money and can hire one or two able-bodied men to accompany him. I often see two university experts whose backs are so heavy that their waists are almost broken, just like our small vendors here. If they meet in the street, they will put things on their backs, then open their backpacks and talk for an hour, then put things away, help each other to carry the load on their backs, and then say goodbye.
But if the conversation is short, it is enough to put the tools in your pocket or under your arm. If he were at home, he wouldn't feel embarrassed. Because people who talk in this way have prepared everything they need to talk in the room.
This invention also has a great advantage: it can be used as a world language that all civilized countries can understand, because the goods and electrical appliances in each country are generally the same or similar, so their uses are easy to understand. In this way, ambassadors abroad do not understand other countries' languages and still have the conditions to deal with their own kings or ministers.
I also went to the math school, where teachers taught their students in ways that we Europeans could not imagine. Propositions and proofs are clearly written in scalp-like ink on a thin and crisp biscuit. Students must swallow this biscuit on an empty stomach and are not allowed to eat anything except bread and water for the next three days. After the biscuit is digested, the color will enter the mind with a proposition. But so far, it has not been successful, on the one hand, because the composition of the ink is wrong, on the other hand, because children are stubborn and unruly, and they always feel sick after eating such a large pill, so they often sneak aside and spit in the air before the drug attack. They don't listen to advice and don't want to wait so long without eating according to the prescription.
I was left out in the cold at the school of political designers. It seems to me that the professors have completely lost their minds, and that scene has always made me feel sad. These unhappy people put forward their ideas there, trying to persuade the monarch to choose his favorite person according to wisdom, talent and virtue; I want to teach ministers to consider the public interest; I will reward those who have made meritorious deeds, outstanding talents and outstanding contributions; I want to guide the king to recognize his real interests on the basis of the same interests as the people; Want to select qualified people to work in relevant positions; There are many other crazy and impossible strange ideas that people have never thought of before. This makes me believe the old saying even more: no matter how exaggerated and absurd things are, there are always some philosophers who insist that they are true.
But to be fair to these people in the Academy of Sciences, I have to admit that they are not all illusions. There is an extremely clever doctor who seems to be completely proficient in the nature and system of the government. This outstanding figure is very good at using his knowledge, and he has found effective treatments for the ills and corrupt behaviors that are easy to be committed by various public administrative organs. On the one hand, these ills are caused by the sins or faults of the rulers, on the other hand, they are also caused by the lawlessness of the rulers. For example, all writers and theorists agree that the human body and the political system are generally similar, so both the human body and the political system must be kept healthy, and at the same time, both can be cured with one prescription. Isn't that clear? Everyone admits that senators and officials of the Privy Council often make long speeches, emotional impulses and other issues; They have many ideological problems, but most of them are heart diseases; There will be severe convulsions, and the nerves and muscles of both hands will contract painfully, especially the right hand; Sometimes it will add fuel to the fire, my stomach will swell, I will be dizzy and talk nonsense. There will also be lymphadenoma full of stench and pus; The foam at the mouth flies directly to the ground, warming the sour stomach; Eating will have an appetite like a dog but indigestion; There are many other diseases, so I won't list them one by one. Therefore, the doctor suggested that several doctors should be invited to attend the meeting three days before each senator's meeting; After the debate every day, they will take the pulse for each senator; After careful consideration, we discussed the nature of various problems and their solutions. Then on the fourth day, we took the pharmacist and prepared the corresponding medicine to report to the Senate. Before the members are seated, they should be given sedatives and laxatives according to their illness. Cleaning agent, corrosive agent, brain tonic, palliative agent, laxative agent, headache agent, jaundice agent. Expectorants and ear washes, and then decide whether to take it again, replace it or stop using it according to the nature and function of the drugs.
This plan will not cause any big burden to the public. In my humble opinion, in countries where senators participate in legislation, it will be of great benefit to improve work efficiency, bring unity and shorten debate time. It can make a few silent people talk and make many people who have been talking shut up; Can curb the temper of young people, can let the elderly not always self-righteous; It can awaken the dull and make the bold cautious.
Also, because everyone complains that the king's favorite has a bad memory, the doctor suggested that anyone who meets the prime minister and reports his official business simply and clearly should twist the minister's nose, kick his stomach, step on his corns, hold his ears and pull three times, or poke his ass with a pin, or twist his arm black and blue. This is all in case he can't remember things. Come here every court day from now on until things are done well or resolutely not handled.
He also pointed out that every senator attending the grand national assembly, after expressing his opinions and defending them, must cast a vote completely opposite to his own opinions, because if he does, the result will definitely be beneficial to the public.
If there are fierce disputes between political parties in a country, he has come up with a wonderful way to mediate them. The method is as follows: Pick out 100 leading figures from each side and pair them with avatars of similar size, one for each side; Then ask two skilled surgeons to saw off the occipital part of each pair of bigwigs at the same time, and pay attention to the fact that the brains must be equally divided when sawing. Interchange the cut occipital parts and put them on each other's heads. The operation must be done accurately, but the professor assured us that its curative effect is absolutely reliable as long as the operation is done skillfully and neatly. He argued that if you put two and a half heads into a person's skull to argue about things now, you will soon reach an agreement, so that you can be calm. Thinking in an orderly way. How I hope that those who think they are here to see the world and dominate the world movement can think calmly and orderly! As for the difference in quality and size between the heads of the two leaders, the doctor assured us that, as far as he knows, it was really insignificant.
I heard a heated debate between two professors. They are arguing: what should be the most convenient and effective way to raise funds without causing people suffering? The first one said that the fairest way is to levy a certain tax on crimes and disgraceful acts, and the total amount of tax payable by everyone will be judged fairly and reasonably by a jury composed of its neighbors. The other holds the opposite view: if someone boasts of his physical and intellectual talent and thinks he is self-righteous, he should levy taxes. The amount of taxes should be determined according to his outstanding ability, but it is entirely up to him. The man who is most favored by the opposite sex should pay the highest tax. As for the amount of tax, it depends on the number of times he is favored and the nature of love. They are allowed to testify for themselves on this point. He also suggested that for smart, brave and polite people, heavy taxes should be imposed, as should the taxation method; How smart, brave and polite, let everyone speak for themselves. However, as for honor, justice, wisdom and learning, there is no need to tax them, because these qualities are so rare that no one will admit that people around them have these qualities and they don't pay attention to them.
He advocates that women should pay taxes according to their beauty and dressing skills. In this respect, they can enjoy the same privileges as men, that is, how to be beautiful and how to dress up is up to them. But loyalty, moral integrity, good discrimination and gentleness are not taxed, because they simply can't afford to pay taxes.
In order to make the senator always serve the interests of the royal family, he suggested that members get positions by drawing lots. Everyone must take an oath first to ensure that whether they win or not, they will bid to support the court; In this way, the next time there is an official vacancy, those who don't win the lottery can draw lots again. Since they still have hope, no one will complain that the court has broken its promise. Once disappointed, they have to completely blame their own fate, and the shoulders of fate are always wider and stronger than those of cabinet members, and they can bear failure.
Another professor showed me a big book about how to discover anti-government conspiracy. He suggested that great politicians should check all suspicious people to see when they eat and which side they face when they sleep. Which hand is used to wipe your ass; We should strictly check their feces, and judge their thoughts and plans from the color, smell, taste, concentration and digestion degree of feces, because no one thinks more seriously, carefully and intently than when urinating, which he discovered after countless experiments; At this time, if he used to think about the best way to assassinate the king, the feces would be green; But if he only plans to rebel or burn the capital, the color of the feces will be very different.
This paper is very sharp, and many ideas are both interesting and useful to politicians, but I think some places are not perfect. I took the liberty of telling the author about it and suggested that I could give him some supplementary advice if he wanted. He accepted my suggestion with pleasure; This is very rare among writers, especially among designers. He expressed his willingness to listen to my other opinions.
I told him that I had been to Tbilisi. "Tribnia" and "Britain" contain exactly the same letters, but they are arranged differently. ] The kingdom stayed for a while. The locals call this country Langdon [implying London]. ]。 Most people there are made up of detectives, witnesses, informers, plaintiffs, prosecutors, witnesses, cursers and some of their minions. They are sheltered, guided and subsidized by ministers and deputy ministers. In that kingdom, conspiracies are usually made by those who try to improve their status as great politicians. They tried to revive a crumbling government, suppress or divert people's discontent, put confiscated property into their own pockets, and tried to influence public opinion to satisfy their own self-interest as much as possible. They first reached an agreement to decide which suspicious elements should be accused of conspiracy, then took effective measures to find their letters and documents, and then imprisoned them and handed them over to a group of experts who could skillfully find mysterious meanings from words, syllables and letters. For example, they will decipher the meaning of "toilet" as "Privy Council"; "A flock of geese" means "Senate"; "lame dog" means "invader"; "Idiot" means "-"["-"stands for "king". At that time, the author couldn't understand it or write it, so he replaced it with "-". ]; "Plague" means "standing army"; "Vulture" means "minister"; "Gout" means "chief sacrifice"; "gallows" means "minister of state"; "chamber pot" refers to the "aristocratic Committee"; "Screen" means "maid-in-waiting"; "broom" means "revolution"; "mousetrap" means "official position"; "bottomless pit" refers to the "Ministry of Finance"; "Sewer" means "imperial court"; "The bell hat worn by comedians" means "favorite"; "Broken reed" means "court"; "Empty bucket" means "general"; "Sore" means "administrative organ"
If this method does not work. They have two other more effective methods, which are called "switch crossword puzzle" and "inverted crossword puzzle" by scholars there. In the first method, they can explain the political meaning of the first letter of all words. Therefore, n stands for "conspiracy", b stands for "a cavalry regiment" and l stands for "sea fleet". Otherwise, they can use the second method, by reversing the spelling order of letters on suspicious documents, to uncover the deepest hidden conspiracy of political parties dissatisfied with the authorities. For example, if I say in a letter to a friend, "Our Tom brother recently got hemorrhoids." A person who is good at this, at the same time, those letters in that sentence, after his analysis, will become the following words: "resist!" " The plot is mature. Tower. "This is the inverted crossword puzzle.
The professor thanked me very much for giving him these opinions and promised to mention my name in his paper as a sign of respect.
I don't want to live in this country anymore, so I decided to go back to my hometown in England.
The second paragraph:
This kingdom is only a part of this continent. I have reason to believe that this continent extends eastward to unknown areas west of California and northward to the Pacific Ocean. There is a good port less than one hundred and fifty miles from Lagardo. It has frequent trade with Lagenaige, a big northwest island located at about 29 degrees north latitude and 0/40 degrees east longitude. About 100 Rig to the southeast of this small island is Japan. The Japanese Emperor and King ragnar formed a close alliance, so there were frequent ships between the two island countries. So I decided to take this road back to Europe. I hired a guide to lead the way, and two mules were carrying luggage. I bid farewell to my master, because he has been so kind to me and gave me a generous gift when I left.
I didn't meet any stories or adventures worth mentioning along the way. When we arrived at Nada Port in Maldor, there was no boat to Lagenager in the port, and there may not be one in a few days. This port city and Portsmouth [a port city in southern England]. ] About the same size. I made some friends soon and received them warmly. A famous gentleman told me that I might be interested in visiting Greta Cone's island, which is about five leagues southwest of here, because there is no boat to Lagenage within a month. He offered that he and another friend could accompany me and provide a light three-masted sailboat.
As far as I know, the closest translation of the word "Greta cone" is "Witch Island". It covers an area of about Waite Island [Waite Island is a small island near the south coast of Britain, with an area of 147 square miles. ] one-third of the scale, the products are very rich. The inhabitants of the island are witches and are under the jurisdiction of tribal leaders. They only marry people from their own tribe, and the oldest of their peers inherits the island owner or chief executive. The island owner owns a magnificent palace and a garden with an area of about 3000 acres, which is surrounded by 20-foot-high stone walls. There are several open spaces in the garden for grazing, planting crops and gardening.
Officers and their families are taken care of by some unusual servants. The chief is proficient in magic and has the ability to summon any ghosts at will and guide them for 24 hours, but this method is no longer effective, and within three months, unless the situation is very special, he will not be able to summon the ghosts he has summoned before.
When we arrived at the island, it was about 1 1 a.m. One of the gentlemen who accompanied me went to see the Chief Executive and asked to see me, a stranger who came to visit him specially. He immediately agreed to this request, so the three of us entered the official door together. On both sides of the palace gate stood a row of guards with special weapons and costumes. Their faces somehow give me the creeps. My fears at that time were indescribable. We passed several inner halls, and the same guards stood on both sides all the way until we came to the main hall. We bowed deeply for three times, then he asked a few common questions, and then let us sit on three stools next to the lowest step under his throne. He knows what Balny Bobby said, although it is different from what he said on this island. He asked me to tell him something about my trip. In order to show me his rudeness, he made all his followers retreat with one finger. I was surprised to see this, because in the blink of an eye, they all disappeared without a trace, as if we suddenly woke up from a dream and all the scenes in the dream disappeared. I couldn't get back to normal for a while, and then the chief told me to rest assured that I wouldn't get hurt; Seeing my two companions as if nothing had happened (they were treated like this before), I was relieved and emboldened, and simply told him about my adventure. However, I am still a little hesitant, and I have to go back and look at the place where I just saw the Ghost Guardian from time to time. I was lucky enough to have dinner with the chief, and a group of new ghosts brought meat and waited on them. I don't think I'm as scared as I was this morning. I stayed until sunset, but I humbly asked him to forgive me for not accepting his invitation to live in the palace. That night I stayed with two friends in a private house in a nearby town, which is the capital of the island. The next morning, we visited the chief again, but he was very willing for us to go again.
In this way, we lived on this island for ten days, spending most of the day with the chief executive and returning to our residence at night. Soon I will get used to seeing ghosts and gods, and after three or four times I will be completely indifferent. Although there are still some fears, curiosity far exceeds fear. The chief told me that I could summon any ghost I wanted. Now, no matter how many ghosts there are, he can summon all ghosts from the beginning of the world to the present, and he can order them to answer all the questions I think are appropriate. There is only one condition, that is, my problems must be confined to the era in which they live. One thing is reliable to me, that is, what they say must be true, because lying in the underworld is useless.
I am very grateful to the director for his kindness to me. We walked into an inner hall, from which we could see the garden clearly. Because the first thing I want to see is the magnificent scene, I hope to see the Macedonian emperor Alexander the Great (Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), who commanded the army after the Battle of Arbella and established the Alexander Empire after conquering Persia. In the Battle of Arbella, he defeated the Persian army. ]。 The officer immediately moved his finger, and a big battlefield immediately appeared under the window where we were standing. Alexander was called into the temple. His Greek sounds difficult to me, probably because.