The Begum's Fortune

Jules Vernes conceptions are as brilliant as ever. Dr. Sarrasin, a French savant, simple in taste and absorbed in science, delivers an address at the Brighton Scientific Association. The publication of it with his name in The Daily Telegraph discovers him to a London lawyer as the lost heir of the Begum, whom his uncle had married in India. He inherits a moderate property of twenty-one millions sterling, all ready for him in the Bank of England. Dr. Schultz, a German professor, also a connection by marriage, threatens to dispute it. They settle the dispute by dividing it. Dr. Sarrasin founds in the Rocky Mountains a city of health, modelled on Dr. Richardsons lines. Dr. Schultz founds at thirty miles distance a stupendous cannon manufactory. One piece fires a shot with a velocity and force that give it perpetual motion. He resolves to destroy Dr. Sarrasins city. How he fails and perishes by his own science the story must tell ; but it is prodigious. The magnificence and the verisimilitude are perfect.