The area in the interior of the tower at the base, and for some distance above, is divided horizontally and vertically, and the compartments are used for storehouses, including the storing of scientific instruments, and for experiments connected with science.  The different strata and incidents of the atmosphere at various elevations are there studied with peculiar advantage, as there are numerous landings at different distances, and we have the means of ascending and descending the whole distance, or of alighting on any of the landings by means of a machine raised and lowered by electric power.

As the work progressed, stages were constructed at different heights on which buildings were erected, where the workmen and their families lived until the task was completed, the materials and electricities used, as well as provisions and necessaries, being raised to these stages by electric power.  The principal material used is the hardest and most durable substance known in our world—­an amalgamated material consisting of certain proportions of iron and marble fused into a solid compact mass by the action of fire and electricity.

HEAVY MATERIALS LIGHTENED BY ELECTRICITY.

The blocks used were of immense size, so huge, that even with our electrical and mechanical levers, many expedients were employed to raise them to their assigned places.

Electric science had greatly advanced in my reign, and electric powers had been discovered by which the heaviest masses could be lightened temporarily, so that their specific gravity, called by us the “tenacious electricity,” and its tendency to seek the sympathetic electricity of the earth was temporarily diminished, if not entirely neutralized, without injury to the mass subjected to the operation.

Though the means and end are different, the principle is not unlike that by which you often lighten the specific gravity of bodies, and even change their nature by chemical combination, the action of fire, and other expedients, the bodies often resuming their specific gravity and original form.  The means we employ for lightening bodies are far more rapid and effectual, and, at the same time, the materials acted upon are less abruptly or violently changed.

Notwithstanding all our knowledge of electric and mechanical powers, our thousands of artificers employed, and all the industry and energy exerted in obedience to my will, nine of our years[1]—­more than thirty of yours—­were spent in the completion of this stupendous work.

     [Footnote 1:  Our year is not calculated like yours.  The
     year is marked by a peculiar appearance which the sun
     assumes at equidistant epochs.]

The tower of itself is an object of great grandeur and beauty, and is richly ornamented.  The external walls of the plinth at the base of the tower are overlaid with gold and ravine[1] metal, inlaid with large transparent stones of varied colours.  The ravine metal—­a metal prized beyond gold—­possesses beautiful veins of colour, which change with the temperature—­veins of watery green, of purple, blue, and steel.  When refined, it is most beautiful.  The colours are sometimes so bright that it is dazzling to look at them.