He had been Eight years upon a protest for extracting Sun-beams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into viral hermetically sealed and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.
Answer: These lines are taken from Chapter 5, Part 3 of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Through this extract, Swift speaks of a scientist engaged in a project in the Grand Academy of Lagado.
In his Voyage to Laputa, Gulliver experienced a peculiar kind of human race that was making researchers live in the scientific method. In this connection, he mentions a scientist in Lagado who was engaged in a project of extracting sunbeams from cucumbers for eight years. The first man whom Gulliver met was of a small structure with a beard. This man had been engaged for the last eight years in a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers. The sunbeams were to be put into tubes, which were airtight. Then it would be let out to warm the air in cold weather. He becomes greatly amused by the stupidity and folly of these projectors who were engaged in such absurd activities. He thinks that scientists should keep their feet on solid ground and thus do some useful work. He always welcomes their inventions if they help the common man. But, if it enables the millionaires to become billionaires and if it places instruments of mass annihilation in the hands of the sons of Mars in every land, he is in favour of nipping this evil in the bud.
This was written by Swift as a satire on the kind of work the Royal Society in England was engaged in those days. In other words, the grand academy of Lagado is meant to represent the Royal Society The first man in the society told Gulliver that in eight years he would be able to supply the governor’s garden with sunshine on a reasonable note. He complained that his stock was low as that was a very dear season for cucumbers
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