Chapter 2
The Laputans have reclining heads, one inward turning eye, clothing decorated with celestial figures and musical instruments. Some have slaves with flappers (bladders containing small pebbles) that are used to rouse their memories by a light tap on the mouth, ear etc. Gulliver met the King of this floating island. He was fed (all food is cut in the shape of triangles, rhomboids etc.) He was taught their language and had tailor-made clothes (not well done). The King decided to move the island to Lagado, the capital city. Along the way, petitions from subjects of other towns were received by lowering strings down to the people who wrote notes and often sent up food and drink by a series of pulleys. Their major interest was music and mathematics as well as news and politics. Their constant fear was that the sun would be wholly consumed and the earth would be destroyed. The women were not so content to remian on this island and wanted to see the rest of the world. On occasion, a woman was allowed to go down for a visit and didn't want to return. After a months time, Gulliver could converse with the King who asked him questions only about science and math.

Chapter 3
This floating island is circular with a 4 1/2 mile diameter equalling 10,000 acres. The bottom is made of thick iron-rich soil/rock. A chasm in the center top collects rain but it can rise above the clouds if there is too much rain. A magnet is suspended in this chasm and can be turned to attact or repell the island to/from the earth as well as hover in place. The people who man the magnet are great astromoners with powerful telescopes. The King controls the people down below his floating island by hovering over them to deprive them of sun and water, pelting them with stones or even destroying the whole town by squashing them with the floating island. One city, Lindalino, rebelled and built towers, topped with magnets, hoping to attract the floating island and crack the bottom layerof soil/rock, thus destroying it. The astronomers were able to keep the island afloat but the King was forced to give the town their own conditions. The King and two eldest sons are not allowed to leave the island; the queen can leave when she is no longer of child-bearing age.

Chapter 4
After two months, Gulliver asks to leave this floating island of disagreeable companions. He was let down in Lagado on the coninnent of Balnibarbi with a letter recommendation for an ex-governor named Munodi. Munodi had been discharged as governor due to his inability to adapt to the new methods of farming, building etc. The new ideas, started about 40 years ago, promised wondrous improvements but to date, the homes were poorly built, the people were poorly clothed, the fields yielded little food. Munodi still had his old country home where everything ran smoothly, using the old-fashinied methods.

Chapter 5
Gulliver visits their Academy and finds people working on all sorts of projects: extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, changing human excrement back to food, identifying colors of paint by smell and feel, etc. Another part of the Academy was less scientific. Projects included writing books by tossing words in a frame to find groups of words that made at least broken sentences, eliminating all parts of speech except nouns, even eliminating all speech and just carrying around actual nouns (women objected to this), eating papers with math problems written on them to help solve the comptutions. Nothing was really working but they were hopeful and persistent.

Chapter 6
Gulliver discusses more Academy schemes. Ways to reward merit, remedies for diseases, voting for the good of all by being exactly opposite, transplanting 1/2 of another's brain into another to equal moderation, taxing either vices or best qualities. For example, women would be taxed according to their beauty and style of dress as determined by their own judgment. Excrements would be examined to determine a person's thoughts. Gulliver told them of his suggestions: Suspected political meanings would be determined by scrambling the letters to form new sentences.

Chapter 7
Gulliver decides to leave Lagado for Maldonado. As he waits for a ship to take him there, he travels to a small island, Glubbdubdrib. It is an island of magicians where all the servants are ghosts. The governor is always the eldest person on the island. Gulliver was allowed to call up any persons from the dead and ask them questions. He chose people such as Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar and Brutus. Who would you ask for?

Chapter 8
Gulliver describes Homer as handsome and erect as compared to a thin Aristotle needing a cane. He presented them to others philosophers such as Descartes. Gulliver discovered that the ancestors of kings were often only fiddlers and barbers. He became disgusted when learning how the world had been misled by leaders without wisdom or integrity. He learned the truth about many great events - often lucky accidents. Mostly there has been fraud, betrayals, degenerate vices and corruption throughout history.