A THOUSAND YEARS HENCE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3303, 23 August 1911, Page 8

A THOUSAND YEARS HENCE.

THE GOOD TIME COMING. Professor Camille Flammarion, : tlie, eminent French' scientist, has lately! appeared' in tiie’ role of prophet. He toresees mighty changes during the next thousand years. The population of Europe will have increased, I he thinks, from. 375,000,000 rto 700,000,000; that O'f Asia from 870,000,000 to 1,000,000,000; that of America from 120,000,000 to 1,500,000,000;' that r of •Africa from 75,000,000 to 200,000,000; and that of Australia from 5,000,000 to 60,000,000; the grand total of the people of the world thus rising from 1,460,000,000 to 8,360,000,000.. The English language, says the professor, will he practically universal throughput the globe, and war will disappear shon after the year 2000 has been reached, all international disputes being settled by arbitration. Kings and queens will disappear, and every country will adopt the republican form of government. A single money currency will prevail the world over. There will be one universal meridian—that of Greenwich — and the hours will be calculated from Ito 24. Meteorology will become as exact a science as astronomy, and the experts' of A.D. 2911 will be able to foretell the weather with unerring accuracy. Steam as a motive power will be wholly superseded by electricity for all purposes, and the most popular method of transport from one place or country to another will be by .dirigible, balloon. London will be connected •with Paris by a rapid transit electric railway.; the Mediterranean will be united to the Atlantic by canal, and compressed-air tubular trains will connect Spain and Portugal with NCrthern Africa. There will be telephonic communication all over the earth, and the people of Australia and New Zealand will be enabled to listen to Italian opera in London or Paris without leaving their own firesides. They will be able, also, to witness the great dramas and spectacular pieces of the future, produced in the cities of the Old Wend, in the same easy fashion Altogether, Professor Flammarion paints an alluring picture of the good time coining, but some at least of the things he predicts ought to come to pass in considerably less time than a thousand years.