The Great Stone of Sardis

The Great Stone of Sardis is a science fiction story written by Frank Richard Stockton, who was an American writer and humorist, best known today for a series of innovative children's fairy tales that were widely popular during the last decades of the 19th century.

Excerpts:

The home of Roland Clewe, a small house plainly furnished, but good enough for a bachelor's quarters, stood not half a mile from the station, and near it were the extensive buildings which he called his Works. Here were laboratories, large machine-shops in which many men were busy at all sorts of strange contrivances in metal and other materials; and besides other small edifices there was a great round tower --like structure, with smooth iron walls thirty feet high and without windows, and which was lighted and ventilated from the top.