Driven by poverty, city residents fled to the fields, fields turned into villages, villages into cities, and cities insensitively expanded their borders; in vain did man use all the knowledge acquired by the sweat of centuries, in vain did he add to the tricks of art that powerful activity that fatal necessity gives rise to—long ago the Arabian sandy steppes turned into fruitful pastures; The ice of the north has long been covered with the fat of the earth; Through the incredible efforts of chemistry, artificial warmth brought life to the kingdom of eternal cold...