Karen Fleet, age 15, of Cleveland, Ohio, for her question:

WHAT DID JULES VERNE DO?

Jules Verne was a famous French writer. He was the founder of modern science fiction and prophesied submarines, dirigibles, television. and space travel long before any of these developments seemed even probable.

Verne was born in 1828 and studied law. He settled down in Paris at the age of 29 as a stockbroker. At the Scientific Press Club, to which he belonged, the members were fascinated by the possibilities of the balloon. In 1862, Verne tried his hand at writing a science adventure story, "Five Weeks in a Balloon." It was a great success.

Verne turned out many other adventures. "A Journey to the Center of the Earth" came out in 1864, followed the next year by "From the Earth to the Moon." Verne soon became one of the world's most popular writers.

Two of Verne's most famous stories were "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" and "Around the World in Eighty Days." This last story, which told of an achievement which seemed next to impossible when it was written, was first published as a serial in a Paris newspaper.

Verne died in 1905 at the beginning of the century which brought so many of his dreams to reality.