Chapter I: Front Matter

NEQUA

OR

The Problem of the Ages

By JACK ADAMS

VOL. I.

EQUITY PUBLISHING COMPANY
Topeka, Kansas
1900

DEDICATION.

TO ALL LOVERS OF HUMANITY, WHEREVER FOUND WHO BELIEVE THAT THE APPLICATION OF THE GOLDEN RULE IN HUMAN AFFAIRS WOULD REMOVE ALL THE BURDENS THAT IGNORANCE AND GREED HAVE IMPOSED UPON THE MASSES OF MANKIND, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY

THE AUTHOR.

Copyrighted 1900, by
A.O. Grigsby and Mary P. Lowe.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Beneath the Midnight Sun--A strange visitor comes down from
above--An old acquaintance recognized--Strange story by
an old physician 1

CHAPTER II.

In San Francisco--"Where shall I go next?"--A startling item of
news answers the question and ends the search--In male attire--Enlists
as Scientist on the Ice King--Off to the North Pole--An
unexpected blow--The danger signal--The race for life--The
earthquake--"The channel is closing!"--"The ship is
lost!" 16

CHAPTER III.

In the dark--All is still--Imprisoned in the ice--Distressing
situation--How to preserve the health and efficiency of the crew--A
new danger--The ice is moving--The common sailor to the
rescue--Lief and Eric save the ship--The tunnel to the
surface--Exploring the ice-field 40

CHAPTER IV.

A singular discovery--Battell crossing a sand ridge on the
ice-field--Captain Ganoe leads a party to his assistance--Lief
and Eric--Battell's theory--A second expedition--Battell's
long absence--Is discovered returning alone, scarcely able to
walk--Relief party finds him unconscious--Captain Ganoe as
physician--Battell relates how he was abandoned by his men--Preparing
for the break 65

CHAPTER V.

The break--A race for life--The island--Strange tower--A safe
harbor--Crossing the open Polar sea--Strange phenomena--Sailing
south--Horizon obscures familiar constellations--Return
to the tower--No explanation--Off for the Pole again--A
wonderful discovery 94

CHAPTER VI.

Sailing south--The wind ceases--Our coal exhausted--Drifting on
an unknown ocean--In the grasp of southbound
currents--Desponding--Visited by an airship--Then a whole
fleet--Among friends--A most highly cultivated people--We
embark for Altruria--An air voyage 111

CHAPTER VII.

Caring for the sick--New methods of treatment--Not physicians
but nurses--A voyage through the air--Wonderful optical
instruments which reveal a panorama of the world--Arrival in
Altruria--Marvelous improvements--Drudgery and poverty
both abolished 136

CHAPTER VIII.

A colossal communal Home--District 1, Range 1--Under the Pacific
Ocean--Battell at the telephone--Startling apparition in a
mirror--Enrolled in school--Study of the language--Phonographic
enunciator--A communal agricultural district--The first revolt
against landlordism--Freedom the rule--A new world--Strikingly
similar to America 151

CHAPTER IX.

A happy scene--Two civilizations compared--Arrival of Oqua--Disguise
penetrated--Human rights--"Glittering generalities"
reduced to practice--A strange custom--Numbered, labeled
and registered as citizens--Exit Jack Adams--A new name--Nequa--Bitter
memories--Oqua's sympathy 178

CHAPTER X.

Oqua's visit--The revelation--A story of perfidy and wrong--Cassie
VanNess--Raphael Ganoe--Richard Sage--A designing guardian--False
charges against Ganoe--A fraudulent marriage--Home
abandoned--On the high seas--Jack Adams--Ganoe
found--Effects of a false education--Legal Wrongs vs. Natural
Justice--Oqua hopeful 191

CHAPTER XI.

An air voyage--Change of scenery--Homes for mothers--Evolution
from competitive individualism--The mountains--Battell joins
us--Orbitello--A perpetual World's Fair--Department of Exchange--The
business of a continent--Norrena--Public Printing--The
council--All matters submitted to the People--Library
of Universal Knowledge 216

CHAPTER XII.

The institute of school superintendents--Norrena's address on the
Transition Period--From Competition to Co-operation--The
closing decades of Money supremacy--The power of gold--Its
conquest of the world--Political governments its tools--The
people helpless--A hint at the way out 244

CHAPTER XIII.

Bona Dea--Matrons' home--Pre-natal influences--Improving the
airships--Battell explains--Plans for the future--Museum of
Universal History--Relics of the Past--Building toward our
ideals--Law of human progress--Presaging the future--Profit
causes Poverty--Equitable Exchange the remedy 283

CHAPTER XIV.

Through the air to Lake Byblis--On the Ice King once more--Captain
Ganoe in command--Met by the Viking, Silver King and
Sea Rover--A wedding--Huston and Dione the principals--Ganoe
objects--Norrena investigates--Objection over-ruled--Excursion
beneath the waters of the lake--Down the Cocytas--The
ruins of Kroy--Abandoned gold--The last relic of barbarism 320