EANWHILE Dr. Giles had returned to his office, where he found Mr. Curtis and Flora eagerly awaiting his arrival.
"Well, doctor," inquired Mr. Curtis, "how did our young friend bear up at the last moment? Was he beginning to feel shaky when you left him?"
"Not a bit of it," answered Dr. Giles. "William is a brave lad, and, aside from a slight nervousness which is perfectly natural under the circumstances, he does not display the slightest signs of fear. In fact, I am convinced he is better fitted to make the trip than many a man would be."
"Oh, Dr. Giles," exclaimed Flora, "you really don't think anything will happen to him, do you?"
"Nonsense!" replied the doctor, with more show of conviction than he really felt. "What could happen to him? The advantage of this railroad over all others is that the trains cannot get off the track, and that collisions are impossible. So, you see, the danger is very slight."
"There's one thing I forgot to ask about, doctor," said Mr. Curtis. "How is William going to renew his supply of air when it gives out?"
"There will not be any need of renewing it," replied the doctor. "The trip will take only one hour, and as the car is as large as a good-sized room, William will have enough air to last him a whole day, at a pinch. As an extra precaution, however, I have put in a tank of liquefied air, which he can turn on in case he needs it."
"Why, in what case could he need more than a day's supply of air?"
"Well, for instance, if the resistance of the air during his fall is so great as to prevent the car from reaching the catches I have placed on the New York end of the tube."
"And what would happen in that case?"
"Why, it would stop short of its destination and then fall back."
"I see; and as it would n't fall back far enough to reach the catches on this side of the tube, it would continue falling backward and forward until it came to a rest in the center."
"Yes; and as the retardation would be only gradual, several days would probably elapse before it came to a complete stop."
"Ah! And then, of course, William would need the extra air?"
"Certainly; for the simple reason that we could not send him any assistance until he came to a complete rest. But, understand me, while I thought it best to take these precautions, I have not the slightest fear of anything of the kind happening. I have catches arranged on the New York side as far as twenty miles below the surface of the earth, and I am certain that it will be impossible for the car to fail to reach these. On the contrary, it will pass these first catches with such speed that I have been obliged to devise means of moving the catches out of the way instantaneously, if necessary, so as to afford free passageway. I am fully convinced that William will not come to a stop until he is within two miles of the surface on the New York side."
The conversation was here interrupted by an exclamation from Flora.
"Oh, Dr. Giles, look at that ship!" she cried. Dr. Giles turned to the window and looked out. To his surprise, he saw a large vessel at anchor. During the events of the last half-hour he had been so engrossed with other matters that he had not noticed its approach; but now he looked at it with some anxiety; and his anxiety was but too well founded.
"Why, that's an Australian revenue cutter!" exclaimed Mr. Curtis. "What in the world can it want here? I suppose it's going to establish a custom-house on the islet to collect duties from the American passengers who come through the tunnel. When William returns, his baggage will all have to be inspected and chalked before he will be allowed to land."
"I sincerely hope it is only that," said Dr. Giles, somewhat relieved.
At this moment there was a knock at the door, and a government official entered, bearing a large missive.
"Is this Dr. Giles?" he inquired.
"Yes, sir; that's my name," said the doctor, with an anxious glance at the document which his visitor held.
"Well, I represent the Australian government, and this is an injunction forbidding you to let your car go through the earth."
"What!" exclaimed Dr. Giles, bounding to his feet.
"Yes, sir; the Australian government positively forbids your letting the car start. And, furthermore, it commands you to have the tunnel filled up with earth again immediately. In case of failure to obey, I have orders to arrest you at once!"
R. GILES was so stupefied at this totally unexpected turn of affairs that for a moment he was unable to utter a syllable. But in that moment his thoughts were not idle.
Full well he knew that among the Australian politicians there were quite a large number of "Jingoes," and he knew also that there had been considerable discussion as to the dangers which menaced Australia from the construction of the tunnel.
One of the sensational papers was particularly bitter in denouncing the scheme, as the following extract will show:
As to the statement made by certain persons that it would be an easy matter for the Australians to gain possession of this end of the tube, and block up the tunnel by allowing the ocean to run into it, it is made by parties who have no idea of the true condition of things. With proper fortifications on the islet, and an American fleet to defend it, the United States could hold it against any nation. The garrison could not be starved out, since they would receive constant food-supplies from the other side of the earth; and they could not be conquered, for as fast as the defenders were killed off, new ones would take their place. The American ships would receive constant munitions and provisions of coal, while the Australians, having none of these facilities, would be under a great disadvantage.
No; unless the government speedily acts in the matter, the United States will soon gain a foothold here from which they can never be dislodged. Under these circumstances, it behooves our government to at once issue an injunction prohibiting the passage of any cars through the tunnel, and ordering the latter to be immediately filled up with earth again.The Australian government had weakly allowed itself to be swayed by arguments of this nature, and the issuing of the injunction restraining the passage of the car bearing our hero followed as a matter of course.
The injunction once signed, the fleetest revenue cutter was despatched with it, and had arrived at the very moment we have mentioned, when William was already snugly ensconced in his car.
All this flashed through the doctor's mind in an instant, and at the same time a wave of disappointment came over him at the idea that his fifteen years of hard toil were to go for naught. After conducting his enterprise to a satisfactory termination in spite of all the obstacles of nature, he was now to be stopped and turned back through the foolishness of men! It was a hard blow, but there was no help for it. The doctor was not the man to oppose the decree of the government under which he lived.
With a heavy heart he turned to his speakingtube.
"Petrie," he called out to his chief engineer, "we shall not be able to send the car through; please have it held back."
"Too late, doctor," returned the engineer. "The car is just starting, and to try to stop it now would be useless!"
Dr. Giles, with a cry of joy, looked up at the clock. It was indeed too late, for the hour hand was just pointing to eleven.
Turning to the government official with great politeness, Dr. Giles explained the state of affairs.
"You come just five minutes too late," he said. "Had you arrived but a few moments sooner, I might have been able to prevent the car from starting; but it is now beyond mortal power to stop it. It has started on its trip through the earth, and cannot possibly be stopped until it reaches the other side."
And with great courtesy he bowed his unwelcome visitor out of the room.
While these events were transpiring, immense crowds had gathered, in every city of the world, around special appliances that had been erected for rendering visible the course of the car during its passage through the earth. The news had already spread that at the last moment a passenger had been found to undertake the journey, and hence public interest was excited to the highest pitch.
At one and the same moment an electric bell in each of these places sounded a warning ring for a few seconds, and then suddenly ceased, while at the instant of cessation a ball placed in a tall glass tube began to fall slowly downward. This ball was in electric communication with the carbonite tube itself, and by an ingenious arrangement it measured and made manifest to the spectators the exact speed and position of the car at every stage of its rapid fall through the earth.
The die was cast! Our hero had started on his novel journey. And novel it was destined to be beyond anything he had ever imagined!
HILE the whole civilized world was watching, as it were, the fall of the car, let us see how William was faring in his singular vehicle.
His first sensation on entering it had been a most curious one, for the internal arrangements were quite striking. To use our hero's expression, he seemed to be inside a large Dutch cheese. The fact is that the room, if such it may be called, was nearly cylindrical in shape, and the walls were lined throughout with thick, soft cushions of a reddish color. Even the door by which he entered, and which he now carefully closed and locked behind him, was padded with similar cushions.
"Evidently," thought William, "the doctor does n't want me to get hurt in case my car strikes against something on the way. It was very thoughtful of him to arrange matters so comfortably, and I'll have to profit by his kindness to have some good gymnastic exercises on the journey."
He little suspected the variety of gymnastics that was in store for him!
The car was illuminated by a diffused light, fully equal to that of a bright day, and all objects were, therefore, in plain view. But what especially amazed our hero was the furniture. Fastened to the floor at one side of the room were a lounge, a chair, and a table with a few books secured to it.
There was nothing extraordinary in this; but on casting up his eyes, what was William's astonishment to see, fastened upside down to the ceiling, duplicates of these pieces of furniture. Two strong handles were affixed to each article, thus adding not a little to their singularity.
"What in the name of the seven wonders can that furniture be doing up there on the ceiling?" said William to himself, greatly puzzled by this sight. "The lounge that is hanging there would be comfortable enough, I suppose, if I could only be glued to it; but as it is, I don't really see of what use it can be—unless," he added, a light striking him, "it may be useful after I pass the center of the earth, when the attraction of gravitation will pull in the opposite direction; or perhaps it is only intended for the use of those passengers who come from the New York side."
Both of these surmises seemed plausible, but neither was completely correct.
William's first surprise being over, he gazed around at the various instruments on the wall, the uses of which he readily understood from the printed notices below each. But what specially interested our hero was a number of curious inscriptions printed in large letters upon the cushions of the car. These notices were so extraordinary that it may not be amiss to give the reader a few specimens:
STAND ON YOUR HEAD AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE DURING THE ENTIRE TRIP!
DO NOT TOUCH THE SIDES OF THE CAR UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY!
BE CAREFUL NOT TO SPIN AROUND TOO QUICKLY!
ALWAYS STRIKE THE CAR WITH YOUR FEET RATHER THAN WITH YOUR HEAD!
"HE TURNED HEAD DOWNWARD, AND LET HIMSELF DROP."
DO NOT LOOK OUT OF THE WINDOWS OF THE CAR UNLESS UNAVOIDABLE!
DO NOT SWIM TOO NEAR THE INSTRUMENTS!
IN CASE OF DANGER TURN ON THE COLD!
"Well, I never!" exclaimed William, hugely astonished. "So, I must stand on my head, eh I And I must n't spin around too quickly? Rather superfluous advice, I should think, for I have n't the least desire to take a spin, and I could n't very easily, even if I would. Moreover, why does the doctor tell me to strike the car with my feet rather than with my head? Does he think I am such a ninny as to want to strike it at all? And why in the world does he speak of swimming, when there's not enough water in the car for a cat to swim in? I declare, I am almost ready to believe that the doctor is crazy, and this whole scheme of his a humbug. Nor does that furniture dangling from the ceiling tend to change this opinion."
As he said these words he came to another sign, which read:
TO START THE CAR, CLIMB BY THE STRAPS TO THE CEILING, AND THEN LET YOURSELF DROP, HEAD DOWNWARD!
"Good gracious!" exclaimed our hero, looking upward in astonishment, "that's a drop of about fifteen feet! In spite of the cushions, I'd have a pretty rough fall if I tried that kind of diving. On the other hand, the doctor told me to be sure to follow exactly the directions given; and he did n't look as though he wanted to kill me. Perhaps, after all, I'd better follow his advice."
And, lightly climbing up by some straps which he noticed on the side of the car, William seized two handles that were swinging from the ceiling. At this moment he heard the clock strike eleven.
"Time's up," said he. "Well, good-by, Australia. Take good care of yourself while I'm away." And with these words he swung out into mid-air, turned head downward, and let himself drop.
S William let go of the handles a slight click was borne to his ear, and then all was silence again.
Occupied though he was in trying to break his fall, our hero could not help feeling that, through some accident or other, the car had failed to start; and he felt a pang of disappointment at the thought. But a fresh surprise was in store for him; for although he was continually falling, he did not seem to be any nearer the bottom of the car than before, but remained suspended, head downward, in mid-air!
A whole minute passed, and still there was no change in the conditions; nor did William feel in the least uncomfortable in his awkward position, although he was completely at a loss for an explanation of this curious phenomenon.
Wishing for some definite information, he screwed his head around until he could see the telemeter on the side of the car—an instrument designed to indicate the speed and position of the vehicle at every stage of its journey. To William's surprise, the needle of the instrument was descending rapidly from the top to the bottom of the first glass tube.
"Sure enough," said William, "we have started. And we're going pretty rapidly, too, if that instrument is correct, though, to look at the car, I should n't for a moment imagine that it was moving."
Then the truth flashed over him. "I see it all!" he exclaimed. "I understand now how it is I don't get any nearer the bottom of the car, but float up here in the air like a balloon; for, as Dr. Giles said, although I am falling at a good speed, the car is falling just as fast as I am. Consequently I can never reach the bottom, and unless something happens, I shall remain up here, floating about in mid-air, until I reach New York! Well, I'm sure I can't complain, for this cushion of air is about as soft as any feather-bed I ever lay on; but I feel sort of queer at thus continually falling without ever getting anywhere."
He was interrupted in his scientific meditations by a fly, which had, in some manner, found its way into the car, and now came and alighted upon his nose. William slapped it violently away with his hand; and as he did so he noticed that the motion had thrown his body somewhat out of the perpendicular. But if our hero was surprised at this, his astonishment may be imagined when he perceived that his body was slowly revolving, so that he soon found himself lying horizontally in the air; and a little later he was standing upright—if any one can be said to stand when resting on nothing but air.
"Good gracious!" he exclaimed, "I'm turning around in a circle!"
He was right; and as he had studied mechanics at school, it did not take him long to see the cause of this curious fact. He knew that no action could take place without a corresponding reaction, and that the force used in moving his hand to brush away the fly, working against the resistance offered by the rest of his body, had been sufficient, now that his movements were unimpeded by the attraction of gravitation, to set him turning around as if on a pivot, the resistance of the air being insufficient to stop him. In fact, he found it necessary to throw up his other arm in order to stop himself.
William amused himself for a time by thus making his body revolve like a wheel, first in one direction and then in another, and found it a most novel experience. He enjoyed it immensely, but after a while the sport became monotonous; in fact, worse than that, our hero began to feel the first symptoms of seasickness, and wished he could reach the bottom of the car.
"I don't know how it is," he said, "but my head feels queer, as though this spinning had sent all the blood into it." He did not reflect that, besides this, there was the fact that his blood was no longer attracted downward into his legs by gravitation, and that consequently an undue flow was sent to his head.
The novelty of the situation having passed away, our hero began to feel a trifle blue.
"It is curious," said he, "but although I am perfectly free in all my motions, and am not tied in any way, yet I am held here an absolute prisoner in the center of the car, held more securely than if my hands and feet were tied, and I were inclosed in a strong iron cage. I can spin around in all directions, but I cannot get an inch nearer the top or bottom of the car, or approach either side.
"In order to move my whole body in any direction I must be able to change the position of my center of gravity, and this I cannot do unless I have something to push against. If I had a long pole here I could push against the side of the car, and so move my body in the opposite direction; but as it is, I have absolutely no point of resistance against which to work, and I must therefore remain here, suspended in space, like Mohammed's coffin.
"No matter what happens, here I must stay, dangling about in mid-air! Truly no one was ever before placed in such a fix as this!"
HE situation was indeed a strange one. Here was our hero, in full possession of all his powers, suspended in mid-air, and seemingly absolutely powerless to budge a single inch in any direction; for it is one of the first laws in physics that a body cannot be set in motion without the action of some force, and no force is possible without some point of resistance against which to act.
"Well, here's a pretty state of thing's!" exclaimed William, dolefully. "Dr. Giles must have overlooked the fact that I'm to be kept prisoner up here. It's no earthly use my trying to reach the bottom of the car, because I have no means whatever of moving from this spot. If there were only somebody else in the car, he could throw a chair or something at me, and so knock me close enough to the wall to enable me to catch hold of one of the straps; but there being nobody with me, there seems no possible means of my reaching the floor."
It was indeed an awkward predicament, and the more William puzzled over the problem, the more difficult did it appear, until finally an idea struck him.
"If I only had a heavy weight here with me," said he, "I could reach the side of the car fast enough; for by throwing the weight with all my force toward one side of the car, the reaction would be sufficient to push me in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, the heaviest thing I have in my pockets is my jack-knife, and that is much too light for the purpose. I could, of course, cut off one of my arms and use that for a weight. By throwing it in any direction my body would certainly be pushed back in the opposite direction until I reached the walls of the car; and once I could get hold of the straps, I should be all right. This method would be sure to succeed, but it's one I should wish to be excused from trying."
William's theory, singular though it may appear, was nevertheless perfectly correct. The mere act of throwing a heavy body in any direction would have sufficed to set his own body traveling in the opposite direction. Of course the speed at which he would move would depend upon the weight of the body thrown, or rather upon its mass, since bodies in the car no longer possessed weight.
In other words, supposing some emergency to arise which would render it absolutely necessary for our hero to reach the side of the car, he could do this by resorting to the heroic expedient of cutting off his own arm and hurling it away from him with all his strength. A singular expedient, truly, but a most effective one; for, assuming his arm to be one tenth as heavy as the rest of his body, he would move in one direction with one tenth of the speed at which his arm was thrown in the opposite direction.
"It's some comfort," thought William, as he meditated over this curious plan, "to know that I could, if I wanted, reach the side of the car; but at present I hardly think it worth while to sacrifice one of my arms for no real advantage. If ever I get out of this fix alive, I want both my arms to come out with me. If only my jack-knife were a little heavier I could make that answer, but I'm afraid it's much too light."
The idea of utilizing the knife in this way seemed, however, to haunt him, and at last he exclaimed:
"I don't see why the knife won't answer almost as well as my arm. Being so light, the reaction will, of course, be much less, and it will consequently take me a great deal longer to reach the side of the car.
"Let me see; the calculation is an easy one to make. My knife weighs about one ounce, and my body weighs over one hundred pounds. Consequently, if I throw the knife with sufficient force to make it reach one side of the car in a single second, the reaction will force my body to the other side of the car in sixteen hundred seconds, that is to say, about twenty-six minutes. In other words, I shall not be obliged to remain suspended here more than half an hour, at the most. That's bad enough, I must confess, but it might have been worse."
Just as William was about to throw the knife, a new thought stayed his hand. "I forgot the resistance of the air!" he exclaimed. "The knife will pass through the air all right, because it is small; but my body is so large that the air will stop me before I get half-way to the side of the car!"
Our hero's face fell; but the idea of the resistance of the air suggested a new train of thought.
"Hurrah!" he cried. "I see now how I shall be able to reach the side of the car! All that I have been saying about being obliged to stay here would be true only if there were no air in the car. If there were no air I should indeed have no point of resistance against which to work. But there is air in the car, and this will prove my salvation. The air in the car will furnish me with the point of resistance I have been seeking. In five minutes I shall reach the floor, for I will swim down through the air! It will be harder work to swim here than through water, but it will be far better than to remain suspended in mid-air like this!"
ILLIAM was right in his surmise. The presence of air in the car afforded him a point of resistance against which he could act, and he would therefore be able to reach the side of the car without resorting to any heroic measures such as he had been considering. Had there been no air in the car, however, the only possible way for him to have reached the floor, ceiling, or walls would have been some method similar to that suggested.
Our hero's first idea was naturally to reach the floor. He accordingly turned himself head downward, and proceeded literally to swim toward the bottom of the car. But William had failed to consider, in his calculations, how slight the resistance offered by the air really is; and after making a dozen lusty strokes without appreciably advancing, he was ready to give up the undertaking in despair.
"Whew!" said he, panting, "if I can't get on any faster than this, with all my exertions, I sha'n't reach the floor in a year. Why, in swimming through water I M go ten times as fast! It seems to me that it ought to be just the contrary, and that, as air offers a much slighter resistance to my progress than water would, I ought to go faster here."
In speaking thus our hero did not take into account the fact that, although the resistance to his progress was much less, the force of impulse was correspondingly decreased. Consequently, since his advance was due to the difference between the propelling force and the resistance to his progress, the denser the medium in which he traveled, the quicker he would go, so long as the medium remained mobile. Hence he could swim through water very much faster than through air.
Another very peculiar fact which our hero noticed was that, in making these swimming motions, the speed of all his movements was greatly increased. The same fact had struck him on attempting to hit the fly. For example, even when he tried to raise his hand very slowly, it would be shot violently upward, while when he moved it normally it would travel with lightning speed. So, in his swimming movements, although he meant his strokes to be very slow and deliberate, yet his arms fairly flew through the air.
Our hero was very much puzzled at first for an explanation of this singular phenomenon; but at last it struck him that the reason his motions were so much more violent than on the earth was that, while his muscular force remained unchanged, this force produced greater effects, since his limbs now possessed no weight.
When he moved his limbs on the earth a great portion of his muscular force was consumed in overcoming the attraction of gravitation, while here no force whatever was wasted in this way; hence the same exertion would produce very much more rapid movements.
"I understand it now," said William, after considering the matter a little. "We learned at school that a force sufficient to give a weight of one pound an acceleration of one foot per second would, if the same body were placed where it would have no weight, suffice to impart to it an acceleration of thirty-two feet per second. In other words, all motions which I would make on the earth in direct opposition to the attraction of gravitation will, now that I have no weight, be made thirty-two times as fast. Of course all my motions are not of this character, but, on the whole, the average speed of my movements is considerably increased."
So far, so good. But interested though William was in explaining this curious mechanical effect, his present desire was to get to the bottom of the car as soon as possible; and his efforts, in spite of the violence of his movements, carried him but slowly forward.
"I guess I'll have to give it up!" he exclaimed, at length. "This is too slow work."
So saying, he stopped his exertions for a breathing-spell. But, to his surprise, he saw that, although he had stopped swimming, he was still slowly progressing.
"Sure enough!" he exclaimed joyfully. "I was forgetting that, now that the attraction of gravitation no longer has to be taken into account, any motion I make will continue indefinitely, or at least until it is stopped by the resistance of the air in the car. Consequently, now that I have a start, I need merely fold my arms, and I shall slowly but surely keep on advancing. Moreover, if I want to set to work and swim a little more, each stroke I take will increase my speed, so that by keeping on I could finally get up a speed of over a mile a minute."
It is safe to say that William could never have succeeded in obtaining so great a rapidity as this, since the resistance of the air would increase as the square of his velocity. Still, he could have obtained a high rate of speed had he had sufficient space to swim in. As it was, however, he was fast approaching the bottom of the car.
It was most amusing to find that when he stopped his exertions he still continued progressing at the same rate, while whenever he took a few strokes his speed increased and continued at the new rate. Finally he reached the lower part of the car, and catching hold of one of the handles on the lounge, he pulled himself down.
"This is hot work," said he, as he let go of the handle and remained lying about ten inches above the sofa. "It's hot work, but it's glorious fun! I wonder if I'll be able to swim up again. Of course, in going up, I shall have to work my way against the attraction of gravitation, and that will make it much harder for me to swim up than it was to swim down. I am really like a fish in a basket that is floating down a river. So long as the fish remains perfectly still he won't get any nearer the ends of the basket; but if he wants to swim, he will find it easier to swim down with the current to the lower end of the basket than to swim against the current to the upper end."
William's simile of the fish in the basket was perfectly correct, but there was a serious flaw in his conclusions as to what would happen in the given case, and this error was the cause of his meeting with a new experience, which might have turned out rather unpleasantly.
"It can't make very much difference, anyway," thought William; "for even if I find it too hard to swim up, I can turn around and swim down again. I shall, however, give myself a good start by jumping up from the floor with all my might, and will thus have less distance to swim."
With these words, our hero, bracing himself by the handles at the bottom of the car in order to get a good start, put down his feet against the floor, and gave himself a strong upward push.
The result of this simple action was a positive and very disagreeable surprise. Never in the world would he have imagined that such an every-day act as jumping could produce such wonderful results as it did here in the car!
HE effect of William's attempt to jump upward was, as we have said, a positive surprise to him. He had fully expected that the act jumping upward would bring the attraction of gravitation into play again, or, more properly speaking, that to rise in the car he would be obliged to overcome the earth's attractive force. He consequently calculated to be able to jump no farther in the car than he would have been able to spring from the surface of the earth; that is to say, he expected to rise two or three feet, and to be then obliged to swim up the rest of the way to the top of the car.
But he was mistaken in believing that his upward progress would be checked by the attraction of gravitation. As the bodies in the car were falling with exactly the same speed as the car itself, they no longer possessed any weight, and it was consequently just as easy to move a body upward as downward, or to one side of the car. The result of William's jump was accordingly to carry him up toward the ceiling with great rapidity; but, owing to his bent position at the start, instead of going straight up, he found himself turning a series of somersaults as he rose in the air.
In vain he tried to stop himself. The impetus he had acquired was too great, and up he went, spinning like a top. Fortunately, the trip was not long, and he soon reached the ceiling. But, to his surprise, instead of stopping there, he struck against the cushions, and then bounced back toward the floor again, still spinning quite rapidly.
Poor William was highly alarmed at this completely unexpected turn of affairs.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed; "it looks as if I was going to keep on bouncing up and down, and spinning round and round, until I am stopped by the resistance of the air and the elasticity of the cushions! This will never do, because I already begin to feel terribly dizzy."
How matters would have ended it is impossible to say, had not our hero made one supreme effort, and managed to grasp the back of the lounge, thus stopping himself, though with no little difficulty.
"Gracious!" said he, as he pressed his hand to his throbbing temples; "it's lucky I managed to catch hold of that lounge, or I should surely have had an apoplectic stroke, with all that blood running to my head as I spun round."
The blood had, in fact, been unduly forced to his head by centrifugal force as he whirled around, and the problem now arose, how to get this, blood down into his feet again. Surely there must be some way in which this could be effected, and yet William was obliged to puzzle over the problem some little time before a solution occurred to him.
"I have it!" he exclaimed, at last. "The only way I see to get back the blood into my feet is to stand on my head! It does seem a curious remedy; but everything is so different here from what it is on the earth that in order to get the blood down into my feet I shall now be obliged to stand head downward, whereas, on the earth, to stand in this position would have just the opposite effect."
"UP HE WENT, SPINNING LIKE A TOP."
William's explanation of his reasons was a most plausible one.
"The thing is this," said he. "As I am falling faster and faster every second, there is every instant a slight shock which tends to throw my blood upward."
He was, of course, referring to the well-known sensation that a man going down on a very rapid elevator experiences when the elevator starts, a peculiar disturbance in the pit of the stomach—the well-known sensation of falling. The reason is that the body of the man falls a small fraction of a second before his internal organs, and these consequently seem to rise up in his abdomen.
"Here in the car," continued our hero, "as my velocity increases every instant, I must feel the same kind of a shock continuously when I am upright in the air; but when, on the contrary, I turn head downward, the shocks will be in the direction of my feet, and will therefore tend to send the blood slowly away from my head. Besides, Dr. Giles recommended an upside-down position; and the farther I go, the more I see that he knew what he was about when he put up those signs on the walls."
It seemed as though William had hit upon the true solution; but unfortunately, things are not always what they seem, especially not in our hero's case, and William's explanation, plausible though it was, was incorrect. This he soon discovered; for although he turned himself head downward for a short time, he found that this position did not relieve him in the least.
The real explanation of the matter was probably that William's internal organs were under the same conditions in his body as he himself was in the car; in other words, they tended to remain stationary at whatever point they might be. Hence whether he stood upright or head downward made no difference; even his blood would have no tendency to run more in one direction than in another. No matter how he placed himself, the flow of blood to his head would be somewhat more than normal, because gravitation no longer pulled it down into his feet as it did on the earth. In a word, his head received as much blood now as it would ordinarily upon the earth if he were lying perfectly flat.
William's surprise at not feeling in any way the increase in his velocity would have disappeared had he remembered that the earth, in its course around the sun, travels very much faster during the winter than during the summer. Yet although this increase of speed occurs every year at about the same date, no one feels any unpleasant effects from it, or even notices it.
After vainly trying to solve this puzzle, William was obliged to give it up; but it reminded him that Mr. Curtis had asked him to try two experiments during his trip.
"He told me," said William, "that as soon as bodies in the car lost their weight he would like me to try to throw something from one side of the car to the other. He claimed that I should n't be able to throw an object a single inch.
"He said that up on the earth a very light object, such as a feather, cannot be thrown far, even by a very strong man; and the lighter the body, the less distance it can be thrown. Consequently, if a body had no weight at all, he claimed, it could n't be thrown any distance. He told me that if I tried to throw a ball or any other object, no matter how hard I tried, the ball would stick to my hand as if it were glued there, and that I should n't be able to get rid of it.
"I noticed that Dr. Giles laughed, but he too told me that I ought to try the experiment; so, as I've got my jack-knife in my pocket, I'll have a try with that."
Our hero accordingly took his knife from his pocket, and, steadying himself by the handle of the lounge, he threw his cherished four-blader with all his force toward the top of the car.
F Mr. Curtis had been in the car at that moment, especially if he had been in the direct path of the knife, he would have freely acknowledged the fallacy of his theory; for the knife, far from clinging to William's hand, as predicted, sped off like a shot to the ceiling, its velocity being much greater than it would have been if thrown from the surface of the earth with the same force. Bounding back from the cushions, it returned to our hero, who dexterously caught it and put it back in his pocket.
William laughed heartily at this result. "I guess there must be something wrong with Mr. Curtis's reasoning," he said, "though I hardly see where his mistake is. I know that on the earth a ball stuffed with wadding could be thrown only a short distance, while a good heavy base-ball could be thrown out of sight. The same thing ought to be true here in the car, because here all objects are stuffed with wadding instead of with weight, so to speak; yet my knife flies around here better than it would up there. I can't understand it at all!"
After a moment's pause, our hero continued:
"If the knife had even a small amount of weight, I could understand why it is possible to throw it around; but I know that objects in the car have no weight at all, because I can stay up in midair if I want to, and this would be impossible if I had weight. Besides, among the instruments on the wall there is a spring balance with a pound weight in the pan. At the present moment the needle in the balance points to zero. This shows that the pound weight does n't pull on the spring at all, or, in other words, the same piece of iron which on the earth would weigh a pound has no longer any weight. Just for the fun of it, I weighed myself on the balance, too, but even I did n't weigh a single ounce. Consequently it's certain that bodies in the car have now no weight, and that makes it hard to understand why that knife flew around so nicely."
At this juncture William remembered that there was a second experiment which Mr. Curtis had asked him to try.
"He said that as soon as I lost my weight I should no longer be able to smash anything. He said that even if I had the most delicate glass vase in the car, I could hit it with my fist, or stamp on it with all my force, and yet I could n't break it, because, of course, neither my hand nor foot would have any weight.
"I thought he was joking at first; but he explained that, on the earth, if we took a body without weight, or even a very light body like a feather, and threw it down with might and main on top of a delicate glass vase, the feather could not possibly break it. So he claimed that when bodies in the car lost their weight they would be lighter than the lightest feather, and said I could take a heavy piece of iron and throw it down with all my force on the most brittle vase, and yet I could n't smash it.
"I promised to try; but the only thing I see to experiment on is the tumbler that is hanging up by the water reservoir, and I don't want to run the risk of breaking that. Besides, I should n't like to have any broken glass flying around loose in the car. Perhaps I may find something in the drawer of the table."
Acting on this idea, our hero opened the drawer; but the only object he found in it was a light wooden box containing various odds and ends. William decided that this box would answer his purpose, and ruthlessly dumped out the contents into the drawer. Then he placed the box beside him in the air, about a foot from the ground, and, supporting himself by one of the handles on the lounge, he drew back his foot and brought it forward with all his strength, giving the box a violent kick that shivered it into fragments and sent the pieces flying in all directions.
"Gracious!" exclaimed William, as he gazed at the flying fragments. "It's mighty lucky I used the wooden box instead of the glass tumbler. Otherwise the car would now be full of flying pieces of broken glass that would n't make very pleasant traveling companions. I guess there's something wrong about Mr. Curtis's mechanics, and I'm glad there are no more of his experiments to try. They don't seem to turn out as expected." William's studies in physics helped him to understand the reason for the two occurrences which had just puzzled him.
"I understand the whole thing now," he said, a light dawning on him. "I have been confusing weight with mass. The weight of bodies has nothing whatever to do with the question as to how far you can throw them, or the amount of damage they will do when thrown; it is their mass that decides this.
"Mass is the amount of matter a body contains, while weight is the force with which it is attracted to the earth. My mass here is just the same as it was on the earth, although my weight has entirely disappeared, and hence I can do as much damage with my hands and feet here as I could in my native land. The reason we can't throw a feather far on the earth, or smash a glass vase by throwing a feather at it, is not because the feather has little weight, but because it has almost no mass; that is to say, it contains very little matter."
These two experiments being satisfactorily terminated and explained, our hero now turned his attention to a third one which occurred to him, and that promised to afford no end of entertainment.
"S the earth has no longer any attraction for bodies in the car," thought William, "or rather, as it can produce no change in their position in the car, it must follow that if there were any loose objects here they would be attracted toward me and follow me around wherever I went. The car itself would n't attract them, because, the car being almost spherical, the attraction would be the same on all sides, and so neutralize itself. The attraction of each side of the car is balanced by that of the opposite side, and the attraction of the floor balances that of the ceiling. It is true that the furniture on the floor would pull bodies downward, but the furniture on the ceiling would pull them upward to the same extent.
"Consequently, if there were a loose stone in the center of the car, I should be the heaviest body to attract it, and it would accordingly fall to me, whether I were above it or below it, and it would follow me around wherever I went. If there were a whole cart-load of loose pebbles in the car, they would all come clustering about me like a hive of bees. There would be no possible way to escape them, for, wherever I went, they would be obliged to follow. What a glorious time I should have swimming about the car with such a procession after me!"
Our hero was perfectly correct in saying that, now that the earth's attraction no longer influenced the position of objects in the car, they would be free to follow the attraction of other bodies. He was also correct in saying that the attraction of the car itself would be neutralized, since it was practically the same on all sides. Sir Isaac Newton himself demonstrated that if the earth were a hollow shell it would exercise no attraction whatever on bodies in the interior. Hence if people lived inside of it, gravity would no longer exist for them, and they could fly about at will from one point to another.
These facts being admitted, the necessary consequence was that all loose objects in the interior of the car would be attracted toward William. On this point there could be no dispute. But there was one little fact which he overlooked, and that oversight was enough to doom him to disappointment.
William had no pebbles in the car with which to try the experiment, but he had the jack-knife which has already been mentioned, and this would, of course, answer the purpose just as well.
Taking the knife from his pocket, he placed it in the air beside him, and then started to swim for the top of the car. When he reached the top, and turned around to look at the knife, he was overjoyed to find that it had disappeared.
"It is evidently following me," said he. But in this he was mistaken; for, looking more closely, he perceived the knife flying about through the air, but, far from coming toward him, it was going in almost the opposite direction.
"Gracious!" exclaimed our hero, after gazing at it for a few moments in open-mouthed astonishment. "What in the world can be the matter with that knife?"
Then the explanation slowly dawned on him. "I see," said he, laughing. "The wind I make in swimming blows the knife about as though it were a feather. It seems funny to think of blowing a knife about through the air, but that's certainly what I've been doing. I'll have to wait till the wind stops before I can expect my body to act as a magnet and attract the knife toward me."
William was right. It was indeed the wind made by his movements that blew the knife irregularly through the air; for after he had waited a few minutes, and the air became calm again, the knife slowly ceased its movements and came to a rest in mid-air.
"Now it's going to fall toward me," muttered our hero, under his breath, remaining perfectly still to avoid causing new currents. But, to his surprise, although he waited quite a little while after the air had become still again, the knife remained in the identical spot where it had come to rest, about six feet away from him.
"I can't understand this at all," said William, considerably puzzled. "I'm positively certain that, by the laws of physics, that knife ought to fall toward me. And yet it does n't. Of course I know that it won't fall toward me as fast as a knife usually falls to the ground, but it ought to fall toward me at some speed. The rule they taught us at school was that "the attraction of bodies is directly in proportion to their masses." That is to say, if one body weighs twice as much as another (or, more properly speaking, if it contains twice as much matter as another) it will have twice the power of attraction.
"Now I weigh a great deal less than the earth does, and consequently the knife will fall toward me a great deal more slowly than it falls toward the earth. Ah, 'now goes me a light up!' as our German professor used to say. The earth must weigh over a trillion times as much as I do, and consequently, since it would take a second for the knife to fall sixteen feet on the earth, it would take—a trillion seconds for it to fall to me. Now a trillion seconds represent many thousands of years, so that if I want to wait until the knife is attracted to me, I shall have to stay in the same spot here for thousands upon thousands of years, and I'm afraid I have n't the time to spare just at present."
William had hit the nail on the head this time, but he had greatly underestimated the time that would be required. The density of the earth is five and one half times that of water, and our planet, therefore, weighs five and one half times as much as a globe of water of the same size. The diameter of the earth being about eight thousand miles, the weight, or rather the mass, of the earth is no less than thirteen octillion pounds!
13,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds!
It is difficult to form any conception of this stupendous figure, but some idea of it will be obtained when we state that the earth weighed so much more than our hero that, since it would take a second for the knife to fall sixteen feet on the earth, it would take billions upon billions of years for it to fall even one ten thousandth part of an inch nearer to William!
To say that our hero was amazed at the result even of his inaccurate calculations would be to put the matter mildly. Like every other person who has had a smattering of physics, he was familiar with the fact that the attraction of bodies is proportional to their masses; but few persons stop to reflect how infinitesimal the attraction of a man really is in comparison to the attraction of the earth itself.
William, it must be confessed, was highly disappointed at this turn of affairs, for it would have been most amusing to swim around the car, with all the loose objects in it, solids as well as liquids, following around after him as a nail follows a magnet.
This being out of the question, he turned his thoughts to another matter. He had already noticed a reservoir of water fastened to the side of the car, and as his varied exercises had made him somewhat thirsty, he decided to climb up and help himself to a drink.
On the earth it would have been the simplest matter in the world to climb up to the reservoir by means of the straps, and draw off and drink a glass of water. But here in the car, where bodies had no weight, it was by no means so simple a matter as it seemed, and our hero was destined to a fresh series of experiences, more wonderful than any he had yet met with.
ORGETTING the doctor's admonition not to touch the side of the car, our hero started himself on his upward journey by giving a strong jerk on the strap by the side of the car—one of the same straps, in fact, by means of which he had climbed to the ceiling before the start.
But a strange surprise was in store for him; for, while by his pull upon the strap he sent himself traveling upward, the reaction pushed the car in the opposite direction, and it began slowly spinning around while our hero rose in the air.
William did not at first realize the true state of affairs. The idea that the car was turning did not at once occur to him, and he consequently imagined that the car was stationary, and that it was he himself who was spinning around. It was a natural illusion, and it was only dispelled when he noticed, in passing one of the instruments that denoted the position of the car in the tube, that the cylinder which represented the car was now placed obliquely in the glass tube, and was slowly turning. Then the truth of the matter flashed upon him.
"Well, here's something new," he remarked gleefully. "Not only can I spin myself around as I please, but I can also spin the car around, and make it revolve in any direction I wish."
As he said these words he reached the wall of the car, and the mere act of grasping the straps brought both him and the car to a stop.
"This does beat everything!" he exclaimed, highly pleased at the novel experience. "If I was like a fish in a basket before, I'm now more like a squirrel in a rotary cage, and could keep the car spinning around all day by climbing around the inside! At present, however, I'm not much in the humor for anything of the sort, especially as the car will present a slightly greater resistance to the air in the tube unless the point is kept perpendicularly downward. Besides, I'm still thirsty, and I want to get that drink."
So saying, William, little dreaming what was in store for him, quietly swam for the reservoir, and turned on the faucet; but, to his surprise, no water came out.
"H'm! this is pleasant," he said. "Dr. Giles must have forgotten to fill the reservoir."
Wishing to "make assurance doubly sure," he lifted off the cover, but in doing this left the faucet open, and also neglected to keep hold of the strap on the side of the car; and to these omissions he owed a new and rather disagreeable experience, for in his effort to lift off the lid he was obliged to use the side of the car as a point of resistance.
The consequence was that, when the cover did come off, the force of his exertions sent him flying through the air, still clutching the cover; and, as usual in his flights, he began spinning around, this time varying the monotony by turning his somersaults backward.
But this was not the worst of the matter, for, the faucet having been left open, the cover acted as a sort of piston, and sucked up all the water in the reservoir after it; and this water, accordingly, followed our hero in his strange flight, so that the poor boy was soaked through and through, while the water, by his violent movements, was scattered to all sides of the room as spray, and was either absorbed by the cushions, or rebounded from the instruments and came flying back, some portions of the liquid remaining suspended in glittering drops in mid-air, as though supported by invisible spider-webs.
But this was not all. Blinded and spluttering from his unexpected shower-bath, William did not notice just where he was going, and went crashing against one of the delicate instruments on the side of the car, breaking it into fragments.
This last incident brought him to his senses, and hastily grasping one of the straps, he brought himself to a stop, and tried to regain his composure.
"I wish Mr. Curtis was here now," he said to himself, grimly. "If he could look at that broken instrument, I guess he'd be satisfied that it does n't require weight to smash a glass globe.
"I see, too, what a fool I was when I set about getting that drink of water. I understand perfectly why it was the water did not run out of the faucet. The water, having no weight, could not, of course, be expected to run out. The law applies to liquids as well as to solids, that a body without weight will have no tendency to fall.
"I understand, also, how it was the water followed the cover of the reservoir and deluged me so
"THE FORCE OF HIS EXERTIONS SENT HIM FLYING THROUGH THE AIR."
completely. I left the faucet open, and there was accordingly a pressure on the water, from below, of fifteen pounds to the square inch. Consequently when I lifted up the cover a partial vacuum was formed, and the pressure from below pushed up the water after the cover in much the same manner that it would in a suction-pump. And as the vacuum continued as the cover moved along, the water would naturally tend to follow, having no weight to overcome, and its own inertia helping it."
This explanation was all very satisfactory, but it did not tend to quench our hero's thirst. There was, of course, enough loose water suspended in the car to enable him to get a good drink, if he were willing to swim after it, and swallow a few drops here and a few drops there, frog-fashion; but he was not much tempted to try this experiment. He had noticed a second reservoir of water, fastened upside down in the car for the convenience of passengers traveling from the New York side, and he therefore set to work to obtain a drink from this. He had, however, learned a lesson by experience, and reflected carefully before acting.
"Even if I could fill a tumbler with water," said he, "I should n't be able to drink it, as the water would n't run into my mouth. In fact, I'm not sure that, even after I get it into my mouth, I shall be able to make it run down my throat. If that's the case, then I'll be truly in the position of the ancient mariner, with plenty of water all around, yet never a drop to drink. Even if that is not the case, I shall have no easy task in getting the water into my mouth; in fact, the only possible way to accomplish this, that I see, is to suck it from the faucet."
This was, in reality, the easiest method at his command, and he had soon refreshed himself, for he found not the slightest difficulty in making the water pass down his throat. The feat was, in fact, the same as is frequently performed by jugglers, who quaff a tumbler of water while standing on their heads.
But William's passion for experimenting had not left him, and after he had drunk his fill, he swam slowly back from the faucet, without turning off the flow of water. As he had previously opened a vent in the cover, the pressure of the air from above forced the water out through the faucet into the vacuum formed, and the liquid accordingly followed our hero slowly, in the form of a long rope dangling from his mouth.
"WILLIAM WAS ABLE, BY BEING VERY DELIBERATE AND CAREFUL IN HIS MOVEMENTS, TO TIE IT UP INTO VARIOUS KINDS OF KNOTS."
William was highly delighted to see this rope of water lying in mid-air; and he was able, by being very deliberate and careful in his movements, to tie it up into various kinds of knots, and to mold it into different shapes, his sculptural skill, however, being somewhat hindered by the fact that the water adhered considerably to his hands; but, on the whole, it was quite a novel experience.
Finally, when our hero tired of the sport, he wondered what to do with this water. By striking it in all directions it would, of course, be absorbed by the cushions, like the first lot; but he did not care to wet them any more than necessary, so he gathered up the mass of water in his hands, and slowly swam with it to the empty reservoir, and with considerable difficulty succeeded in putting it in and closing the cover again before it could escape.
It was really curious to be thus enabled to treat water almost as though it were a solid substance, the absence of weight rendering it so much easier for the mobile molecules to keep together!
Our hero's experiences with the water had proved so diverting that he now turned his attention to another experiment, which also promised to yield very amusing results.
N casting his eyes around the interior of the car, the sight of the furniture had suggested to our hero the idea that, now that bodies no longer possessed weight, he ought to be able to lift up a very heavy weight with no appreciable exertion.
"It seems to me," said he, "that I ought to be able to lift thousands upon thousands of pounds with my little finger. As bodies have no weight, it ought to require no force to lift them. I have already noticed that the furniture is all arranged so that it can be easily unfastened, and I think I shall experiment on that."
Acting on this idea, William accordingly unfastened all the furniture that was in the car, and, piling the articles one on top of the other, he tried to lift the entire pile with his little finger, being careful, however, to first slip his foot under a strap at the bottom of the car—a necessary precaution to prevent him from rising with his load.
But the furniture would not budge.
"I guess I'll have to use my whole hand," he said, somewhat discomfited. But even with his hand he was unable to move the pile.
This was a positive surprise to William. "I thought," said he, "that, now that bodies have no weight, I ought to be able to lift the heaviest objects without any exertion whatever."
Then he recollected what the doctor had told him about mass. "Ah," said he, "I think I see what the trouble is. If the furniture were up in the air I should indeed require no force to hold it there, since it has no weight—that is to say, no tendency to fall. But in order to raise it, it will be necessary to use a certain amount of force to overcome its inertia. A very little force will suffice, if I am willing to wait long enough, and I could, if I wished, raise all the furniture with my little finger; but it would take too long, so I shall use both hands."
Here, again, our hero's reasoning was perfectly correct, but it was based on the assumption that objects in the car possessed no weight at all, and his assumption, as he was soon to learn, was erroneous; for, even with his two hands, William found it quite a task to raise the furniture. He, however, finally succeeded, and triumphantly held out this weight of several hundred pounds at arm's length.
"Here you are, ladies and gentlemen!" he cried. "Walk right up and view the modern Samson. I can lift anything you give me, and not half try! Walk right up! Admission, only five cents, or half a dime! Only a nickel, ladies and gentlemen! Walk right up!"
It was really quite amusing; but, to our hero's surprise, the objects, instead of being devoid of weight, exerted a very perceptible pressure on his hand.
Astonished at this, he gave the articles a strong upward push, and up they all went, pell-mell; but, curious to relate, instead of ascending to the ceiling, as William had confidently expected, the objects began to slowly fall again before they reached the top of the car.
"Well, I declare!" exclaimed our hero, hugely astonished. "If I had been obliged to figure out beforehand what was going to happen on this trip, I should never have been able to come anywhere
"HE HELD OUT THIS WEIGHT AT ARM'S LENGTH."
near the truth. The things that you feel sure are going to occur are those that don't take place, while the ones you don't think about are precisely those that do happen. And as soon as something does happen, and you think everything else is going to occur in the same way, then it changes and takes place in a different manner. All the laws of nature seem turned topsy-turvy in this car!"
Whatever the explanation, there was no doubt about the fact that bodies in the car now possessed a slight weight. William would not believe it until he had made several experiments. He began by placing his penknife beside him, and slowly, very slowly, it fell to the bottom of the car and stayed there. The furniture, too, did likewise. He lifted each article a slight distance from the floor, and yet it slowly but surely fell to the bottom again. To "make assurance double sure," he now did what he should have done at first, namely, he looked at the spring balance suspended in the car. The needle showed that the pound weight now weighed about half an ounce. As a final test, our hero suspended himself to the balance, and found he weighed about six pounds.
"There's no longer the slightest doubt about it," muttered William. "Everything in the car is now regaining its weight."
Then the doctor's words recurred to him, together with his explanation about the resistance of the air retarding the car, though not checking his own speed.
"I guess the doctor was right, as usual," said our hero; "but, whatever the reason, if bodies are going to get their weight again, the sooner I bring this furniture back to the top of the car, the better it will be. If I delay long it may become too heavy for me to carry up, and I don't want to have it loose in the car when we come to a stop on the New York side."
Accordingly, William, now no longer fearing to jump, bounded up to the ceiling with one of the lounges, and fastened it in place there. Then he let himself slowly fall to the floor, and jumped up again with one of the chairs, which he fastened securely in place. The table with the books came next; and then he occupied himself with restoring the remaining articles of furniture to their proper places at the bottom of the car.
These matters having been attended to, our hero gave a casual glance at the clock. It may be well to state here that this clock was not worked by a pendulum, as a pendulum could not swing if deprived of its weight. In order to have a clock that would correctly keep the time in the novel conditions in which it was to be placed, the doctor had it arranged to be worked by a spiral spring, his clock being, in reality, nothing but a huge watch, the parts finished with the highest accuracy in order to insure its perfect working. When our hero looked up, the hands pointed to ten minutes past eleven.
"Ten minutes past eleven!" exclaimed William. "Is it possible that it is only ten minutes since I started? Why, I've passed through so many curious experiences that the minutes seem like hours. Nevertheless, I ought very soon to be at the center of the earth. They taught us at school that a body falls sixteen feet the first second, forty-eight feet the next, eighty feet the third, and so on, falling thirty-two feet more each second. The distance to the center of the earth is about four thousand miles; so, as I have a pencil in my pocket, I can easily make the calculation. Let me see; why, it will only take me a little over nineteen minutes to finish the first half of my journey. In nine minutes more I ought to be at the very center of the earth."
He looked again at the telemeter; but, to his dismay, the needle was still far from the spot that would indicate the center.
A sudden fear came over our hero. "Something must be wrong!" he exclaimed in anguish. "I must calculate at once how far I ought to have fallen already, and compare it with the indications of the telemeter."
With feverish haste he jotted down the figures and performed the operations; but when he looked up again at the instrument a cry escaped him.
"I am lost!" he exclaimed in despair. "I am already one whole minute behind time! There must have been more air in the tube than the doctor calculated. One minute seems like a very small delay, and yet it is sufficient to keep me from arriving within six hundred miles of my destination. I shall never come anywhere near New York, but shall keep falling backward and forward in the tube until I finally come to a stop in the center; and there I may have to remain several days before the doctor can find some means of fishing me out—dead or alive!"
HERE was but one hope left, and this was that the telemeter might be wrong. But of this there was very little chance, as Dr. Giles had taken the greatest precautions to secure instruments that would be perfectly accurate. In fact, as it turned out in the sequel, the telemeter was correct to within a very small fraction of an inch.
But William did not know this at the time, and, in his anxiety to learn the truth at all costs, he glanced around at the different instruments in the car, and his attention was attracted to the spring balance already mentioned. To his surprise, the pound weight now exerted such a pull that the needle pointed to two ounces.
"What!" exclaimed William, in great astonishment. "Is it possible that objects in the car are really regaining their weight! At the start the needle of this balance pointed to zero; the last time I looked at it, it pointed to only half an ounce; while now it shows two ounces. If this balance is correct, and one pound weighs two ounces, then every object in the car must have regained one eighth of its full weight, and I myself must now weigh twelve and one half pounds."
A careful watch on the instrument showed William that his surmise was correct; for the needle of the balance gradually turned more and more, showing that the heaviness of objects in the car was increasing every second.
Our hero was at first unable to account for this strange fact. The whole journey had been a perpetual succession of surprises, but here was one that seemed to promise more interest than anything which had yet transpired.
His astonishment will be readily understood. He was sufficiently well versed in physics to know that a body at rest near the center of the earth would have little or no weight. Consequently, even if the car were standing still, at the point which he had reached the objects it contained should have almost no weight. On the other hand, since the car was falling in obedience to the attraction of gravitation, as all the objects in the car were falling with precisely the same speed, they ought to weigh absolutely nothing during any part of the journey!
But it was now plainly manifest that bodies in the car did have weight, a weight equal to one eighth of what they possessed upon the earth, and this weight was steadily increasing every minute!
Here was indeed a puzzle. William that morning was firmly convinced that during his fall through the earth all bodies in the car would at the start have their normal weight, but that at the center of the earth none of them would weigh anything at all.
Yet, in practice, what had occurred? The very reverse of what he had imagined. At the start, none of the bodies in the car possessed any weight, while here, as he approached the center of the earth, they were in some mysterious manner rapidly regaining their heaviness.
Then he remembered the doctor's words, and the explanation came back to him like a flash. Evidently this resumption of weight was due to the presence of air in the tunnel. The doctor had not been able to remove all the air from the tube, and what little was left sufficed to retard the car somewhat; and the greater the speed of the car, the more was it retarded by the resistance of the air.
"Ah, now I begin to understand," said William, thoughtfully. "The reason I had no weight before was because I fell just as fast as the car did, and so could never catch up with the bottom. But now that the speed of the car is checked by the resistance of the air in the tube, the bottom of the car is held back three or four feet every second; and as I am, of course, not held back at all, save by the trifling resistance of the air in the car, I am each second forced three or four feet nearer the bottom. And the faster we go, the more will the car be retarded, and the more I shall, consequently, weigh. As soon as the resistance is sufficient to retard the car thirty-two feet each second, I shall weigh just as much as I did upon the earth, namely, one hundred pounds. If the resistance becomes still greater, I shall weigh even more. When I reach the center of the earth, it is quite possible, as the resistance increases with the square of the velocity, that I may be falling at a sufficient speed for the car to be retarded one hundred and twenty-eight feet each second, in which case I should weigh four hundred pounds!
"Four hundred pounds! Just to think of it! I should be such a heavy, lead-like mass I could not stand upright, and would have the greatest difficulty even to drag myself around. I could scarcely move my hands or feet. Truly, I am in a veritable fairyland, and everything turns out just the opposite of what I expect. I would have sworn, this morning, that when the car started I should have my usual weight, and when it reached the center of the earth I should float around like a feather, without any weight. How has it turned out! Just the reverse! At the start I floated around like a feather, while at the center, far from floating around, I shall be an inert, lead-like lump, so heavy I can hardly move myself about! Surely, wonders will never cease!"
T really seemed as if William was correct in his surmise, for the weight of bodies in the car kept steadily increasing, and he could now jump from the floor to the ceiling without fear of rising too quickly. In fact, if the increase in weight continued at the same rate, it was evident that bodies in the car would have several times their normal weight before the center of the earth was reached.
Our hero was so fascinated by the idea that he was soon to weigh some four hundred pounds or so that he could not take his glance away from the spring balance for an instant, but watched it with feverish interest. Imagine his dismay, therefore, when, shortly after indicating a weight of four ounces, the needle on the dial began to move backward.
"Why, whatever can this mean?" exclaimed William, in fresh surprise. "Nothing here ever seems to happen the way I expect. Just as I had made up my mind to he the champion heavyweight of the world, bodies begin to grow light again, and with no apparent cause. It is impossible that we can have already passed the center of the earth."
A glance at the telemeter confirmed this impression, for it showed that the car was still quite a distance from the center. What, then, could cause this diminution in the weight of bodies! Only one thing, namely, a decrease in the velocity of the car. But the speed of the car, instead of diminishing, ought to have been increasing every second.
"H'm!" exclaimed William, "here's a fresh puzzle. Objects in the car now seem to be getting lighter and lighter, although I have n't yet passed the center of the earth. It would be a pity if four ounces to the pound were to be the greatest weight I shall have. I was beginning to think that my weight would keep on increasing until I weighed four or five hundred pounds and could n't drag myself about any longer."
There was only one small flaw in our hero's reasoning. He was right in believing that his weight would be greatest when he was traveling fastest, as the resistance of the air in the tube would then be greatest. He was also right in believing that, if there was no air in the tube, his speed would be greatest when he reached the center of the earth. What he overlooked was the fact that, while the increase in the speed of the car each second was now very small, the resistance offered by the air was considerable. In a word, although he had not yet passed the center, his speed was checked by the air more than it was increased by gravity, so that the car was gradually slowing up. He had passed the point at which objects would have their greatest weight, and from now on all bodies in the car would continue growing lighter and lighter.
"Ah, yes," said William, as he slowly realized the true state of affairs; "I begin to see now where I made my mistake. Under no circumstances could I have weighed more than I generally do on the earth, because, if the resistance in any one second had kept back the car more than thirty-two feet, my speed the next second would of course be less than before, since gravity, even when greatest, only increases my velocity thirty-two feet each second. And my speed being less, the resis
"A WARNING SIGN APPEARED, BEARING IN LARGE BLACK LETTERS THE WORD 'DANGER!'"
tance of the air would be less also. There is no conceivable way in which I could obtain a weight of four or five hundred pounds, and I was a dunce to imagine such a thing possible!"
It seemed a pity to be deprived of the novel experience he had anticipated; but William soon consoled himself, and looked at the telemeter to see what progress he was making. The instrument indicated that the car was now only two hundred miles from the center of the earth, and was falling with the frightful velocity of six miles per second, its speed, however, decreasing every instant.
At this moment our hero was startled by the violent ringing of an electric bell fastened to one of the instruments, while at the same time a warning sign appeared, bearing in large black letters the word:
DANGER!
T the very moment when the warning of danger appeared to William in his car, a similar sign appeared in Dr. Giles's office, where that gentleman was closeted with Mr. Curtis and Flora. For some little time past the doctor had noticed with growing anxiety an abnormal fluctuation in the electrical current from the tube. Evidently something was the matter, but what could it be? In vain the doctor tried every conceivable remedy; the trouble increased, and finally the danger-signal itself appeared, warning him that matters had reached a crisis, since this signal was only set for a high amount of disturbance in the current.
The effect of this signal on the three spectators may be readily imagined; but on Flora Curtis it was especially potent. The poor girl buried her face in her hands, and burst out sobbing.
"FOR SOME LITTLE TIME FAST, THE DOCTOR HAD NOTICED WITH GROWING ANXIETY AN ABNORMAL FLUCTUATION."
"It's all my fault!" she cried in anguish, the natural spirit of self-condemnation of her sex rising to the surface. "If it had n't been for me, you would never have let William go; so if he is killed, all the blame will rest upon me!"
"Nonsense," said the doctor, kindly. "You had nothing whatever to do with the matter, Flora. I had fully made up my mind to let William go before you spoke a word. Besides, matters are not so bad as they seem. If the danger can only be warded off for half an hour more, William will be in safety on the other side. Every instant we gain now is so much toward his salvation. Come, dry your eyes; for I shall need you to help me watch the instruments, and on the promptness of our actions everything may now depend.
Thus admonished, Flora quickly brushed away her tears, for in the hope of being of use to our hero she would have risked anything and dared anything. But as she turned to the instruments, a cry of alarm from the doctor caused her to look up.
At the same moment an ominous rumbling was borne to her ears, and closely following it came a more pronounced irregularity in the working of the electric conductors which served to keep the tube from melting.
Dr. Giles heard this rumbling too, and the whole truth flashed upon him in an instant. Something must have happened to the tube! The devices for converting the heat into electricity must in some way have become injured, and now refused to work properly.
The doctor's face blanched as he realized the full meaning of these signs.
Evidently, if the apparatus was out of order, the internal heat of the earth, having no longer a free outlet, would rapidly accumulate, producing such a temperature that the tube would melt; and what would then become of the brave boy who had dared this unknown danger for the sake of his mother?
With set faces, our three friends watched the instruments, when suddenly they were startled by a loud report like distant thunder, accompanied by a shock that set the whole office vibrating. Dr. Giles cast one agonized look at the instruments, and then fell back in his chair.
"William is lost!" he cried in anguish. "The carbonite tube has given way. The poor boy's death is certain; for I am absolutely powerless here, and can only stand idly by and let matters take their course!"
ET us now return to William and see how he is faring. At the same moment that the danger-signal appeared in the car, a microphone fastened to the wall began to work, and William, highly puzzled, rapidly made his way to the instrument. This microphone was so arranged that it received the sounds from outside, and transmitted them, greatly magnified, to the interior of the car.
Had there been a perfect vacuum in the tube, the instrument would, of course, have been useless, as sound cannot travel through empty space. But, fortunately, there was, as we have said, a certain amount of air left in the tunnel, so that sounds could be received from the metal walls of the carbonite tube. These sounds were, it is true, considerably weakened in intensity, but by means of the microphone they were afterward increased to their normal volume.
Accordingly, when our hero put his ear to the instrument he could plainly hear all that was passing around him. He listened with an anxiety that may be readily conceived, and his face paled a little when through the instrument was borne to his ears an ominous rumbling and grumbling like the muttering of distant thunder. There was no mistaking the significance of that sound: it meant that some mighty internal commotion was taking place at the center of the earth, and that it portended danger to him. And as he listened the sound became louder and louder, until he seemed to be in the very midst of a battle, with heavy pieces of artillery thundering on all sides.
To depict our hero's feelings as he listened to these ominous sounds would not be easy. A hundred conflicting thoughts rushed through his mind; but he felt the need of prompt decision, and resolved above all things that he must reach the walls of the car in order to be ready for action when the time came.
"If I only had Dr. Giles here to advise me what to do," he exclaimed, "there might be some hope left; but thrown as I am entirely upon my own resources, and not even knowing just what the danger is that threatens me, I'm a goner, sure!"
As he said these words his eyes happened to fall on the telemeter, and to his surprise he found that he was now only twelve miles from the center of the earth—that spot so long a mystery to the human race; and the instrument showed him, moreover, that in two seconds more he would be at the exact center.
The clock pointed to twenty-one minutes past eleven. It had taken him only twenty-one minutes to fall to the center of the earth!
"Tick-tack, tick-tack," went the chronometer; and as the two seconds sped, the needle of the telemeter descended until it pointed exactly to the center of the earth. But at this instant our hero felt a terrific shock, and was hurled violently upward against the top of the car!
HAT in the world could have happened? William had reached the stage now where he was ready to accept anything as a matter of course. He had just passed through so many strange experiences, each more wonderful than the last, that he would hardly have been surprised if Aladdin's genie had appeared to him and asked his commands.
His natural good sense, however, soon reacted against these impressions, for he knew that all the astonishing manifestations which he had met with must be due to natural causes. But what natural cause could explain the danger-signal which had reached him, or the violent shock which he had just experienced?
He saw only two ways in which a shock might reach him in the car; the first was the necessary jolt when his car stopped at New York, and the second a possible shock if the car struck the side of the carbonite tube.
But the telemeter plainly indicated that the car was at the center of the earth, or four thousand miles away from New York, while other instruments showed that the car occupied a central position in the tube, being no nearer one side than another. Hence neither of the two hypotheses seemed tenable.
These thoughts flashed through William's mind in an instant, as he clung to the straps at the top of the car, which he had managed to clutch after being thrown to the ceiling. Determined to ascertain the truth at all costs, he rapidly made his way to the window at the top of the car, and threw open the metal shutter that guarded the glass pane, his action serving at the same time to automatically turn on a search-light designed to illuminate the tube.
What a sight met his eyes! There, directly above him,—or, more properly speaking, below him, since he had now passed the center of the earth,—he beheld a most startling sight. The carbonite tube was red-hot, and was evidently yielding to a pressure from without! Even as he gazed it gave way with a crash, and a column of molten matter issued forth into the tube!
But William's surprises were not at an end, for, closing his eyes with a shudder to escape the sight of the dreadful death impending, what was his astonishment, on opening them again, to see that the stream of fire, instead of approaching him, seemed to be going in the opposite direction, and was now farther away from him than it had been a moment before.
He was not long in realizing the true state of affairs.
"It's no wonder," said he, "the molten matter seems to be going the other way, for I am falling so fast now—nearly six miles every second—that nothing can catch up with me. But, unfortunately, my speed is continually slacking up, as I have passed the center of attraction, while the liquid mass of fire will probably keep on just as fast as it is going at present; so it will sooner or later catch up with me, especially when the car comes to a stop six hundred miles from the surface of the earth, and begins to fall back again.
"I'm a gone coon, whatever happens! However, I'll fight for my life as long as possible; and that reminds me that the signs mentioned some
"IT GAVE WAY WITH A CRASH, AND A COLUMN OF MOLTEN MATTER ISSUED FORTH INTO THE TUBE!"
thing about what to do in case of danger. I guess I'd better go down and see what they said."
But as he swam down toward the floor his mind was busy in trying to account for the strange shock he had received at the center of the earth.
"The only possible explanation I can see," said William, "is that there must have been something in the tube in front of the car, because the shock threw me upward toward the ceiling. And now that I come to think of it, I see that the trouble must have been caused by some large stone that fell into the tube and remained at the center of the earth. It must have been a pretty big one, though, to give me such a shock as that!"
Our hero did not stop to reflect that he was traveling at such a frightful speed that, had it really been a stone that he had struck, the shock would have smashed the car to atoms.
What is known in physics as the living force of a body is equal to its mass times the square of its velocity. Consequently, if the car had struck even a small stone, the stone would in all probability have passed through it like a bullet. Hence in the present case the chances were that the shock experienced was due to the presence of some very light particles of matter that had accumulated at the center of the earth—some dust remaining in the tube. "With all the doctor's ingenuity and care, he could not avoid leaving some particles of matter in the tube, and it was evidently these particles which caused the whole trouble.
While seeking to discover the cause of the shock William's attention was somewhat diverted from his perilous situation; but having, as he thought, found the true solution, he dismissed the matter from his mind, and prepared to cope with the difficulties which he felt were in store for him. With a renewed sense of his danger, he anxiously looked at the telemeter.
One glance was sufficient to show him that the speed of the car was decreasing rapidly, and it at once flashed upon him that the molten matter must be gaining upon him. To satisfy himself on this point, he again opened the shutter at the top of the car, and looked out; but, to his intense relief, the molten matter that was following him in the tube had now dwindled down to a mere speck of light.
For a few moments he remained at the window, absorbed in his own thoughts. It was comforting to know that there was no immediate danger, for while there's life there's always hope, and so long as the car was gaining on the molten matter he could well afford to forget the precariousness of his position.
His fears somewhat allayed in regard to his present danger, our hero swam to a window at the side of the car to see if the tube there showed any signs of giving way. He did not stop to reflect on the doctor's admonition, but threw open the shutter and looked out at the tube.
He gave but a single glance, and then, with a cry of pain, he clapped his hand over his eyes; for he was now falling with such frightful rapidity that the light of the car, reflected from the walls of the tube, almost blinded him.
He hastily closed the shutter again, and after waiting a few minutes to compose himself, he swam again to the top of the car, and gazed up the tube. But what was his consternation to notice that the speck of fire was gradually growing larger! The molten matter was evidently gaining on him!
UR hero glanced hurriedly at the telemeter and then at the clock. The latter indicated twenty-five minutes to twelve.
"Good gracious!" he exclaimed, "I must have made a mistake somewhere in my calculations. Let me see!" And he hurriedly went over his figures. But now a light dawned on him.
"I am saved!" he shouted. "I forgot that it was only above the earth that the velocity of a falling body increases thirty-two feet every second. As it approaches the center of the earth the increase gradually diminishes until it finally becomes nothing at all.
"Consequently, when I calculated that it would take me only thirty-nine minutes to go through the earth I was wrong. It would really take a trifle longer than this. I am saved! Hurrah! Instead of stopping six hundred miles short of my destination, and falling back to be roasted alive, I may yet reach the New York side safely, if I can only keep ahead of this liquid fire for a few minutes more!"
Curiously enough, now that the danger had diminished the anxiety of our hero had increased. The reason was that, before, hope seemed altogether out of the question, while now there was a small chance of escape.
It was a race for life or death, and our hero did not leave the window for an instant. To his dismay, the liquid mass of fire came every minute nearer, while the telemeter, on the contrary, showed that the car's speed was decreasing every second.
Six minutes of dread suspense had passed in this manner when a phonographic alarm fastened to the side of the car began to speak in loud metallic tones.
"In one minute more," it said, "you will arrive in port. Lie down on the sofa that is fastened to the ceiling, and grasp the handles tightly. You will thus avoid all shock when the car comes to a stop."
But William had other things to think of just then than the means of preventing the slight shock that would occur on his arrival at the New York end of the tube; for the words on the cushion had recurred to him: "In case of danger, turn on the cold!"
These words, at which he had previously scoffed, now proved an inspiration. If the molten matter caught up with him, he could hope to save his life only by producing a very low temperature in the metallic shell of the car.
He accordingly swam down to a tank containing the refrigerating agents, and pressed the releasing device. An intense cold was distributed over the outside surface of the car, a cold so intense that our hero, in spite of the protection afforded by the non-conducting walls of the car, was chilled to the marrow, and hastily turned on the artificial heat inside.
Then he started to swim for the sofa; but he was too late, for a sudden click showed him that he had arrived in port, while at the same moment he was thrown down to what had formerly been the bottom of the car, and then fell heavily to the top (now really the bottom, since it was the end nearest the center of the earth), bruising himself somewhat in his fall, notwithstanding the elasticity of the cushions.
He had not yet, however, reached the surface of the earth, for the telemeter showed him that he was still two miles underground.
"This is just as I expected!" exclaimed William; "for although Dr. Giles did his best to get all the air out of the tube, he was not able to make a perfect vacuum, and what little air was left has sufficed to retard the car somewhat, and so prevent it from going the whole distance. In fact, it is surprising that the vacuum was even so perfect as it has been. I did not expect to come within twenty miles of the surface on the New York side.
"It is true that my greatest loss of speed was only eight feet per second, since objects in the car, even when heaviest, weighed only four ounces to the pound, so I could easily have calculated that my total retardation would be about two miles. At any rate, I have beaten the record for rapid traveling, for I have gone eight thousand miles in a little over forty-two minutes, and that is a figure that will not be beaten in a hurry!"
Scarcely were these words well out of his mouth when he felt another shock, and perceived that the car was in motion again.
A sudden fear arose in his mind. "That must be the shock of the molten matter!" he cried. "It must have caught up with me!"
Instinctively he tried to swim up through the air to get as far away from this matter as possible; but he was not able to lift himself an inch. Then he tried to jump up to what was now the top of the car, but was not more successful in this, for he rose only a couple of feet, and then fell back again.
"What a dunce I am!" he exclaimed. "Of course I can't jump or swim around any more, now that I am no longer falling. I have reached terra firma again, and have regained my entire weight, so I must return to primitive methods, and climb up by the straps. No fear now of setting the car spinning!"
This was true, for the car was being rapidly drawn up the last part of its journey by means of an electrically actuated cable.
A few minutes later our hero felt another shock, and the door of the car was hurriedly thrown open, when he found himself face to face with a workman.
It was not, however, at the workman that William looked, but at the sky. To his surprise, it was night-time, and the stars were shining brightly in the heavens. Our hero rubbed his eyes in bewilderment; but rub as he might, the stars continued twinkling, and the bright moon looked down at him as if laughing at his stupefaction.
But if our hero was astonished to find it was night-time, his feelings may be imagined when, on emerging from the car, he found that the islet was covered with several inches of snow, which sparkled in the moonlight as though it, too, participated in the enjoyment at our hero's surprise.
And well might William rub his eyes, and well might he feel bewildered and imagine that some elf was playing its tricks upon him. He had left Australia at eleven o'clock in the morning, and his trip seemed to have lasted but fifty minutes; yet it was night-time when he reached the United States! He had left Australia on a sultry midsummer's day, with the thermometer at 100° in the shade; yet he arrived in the United States in midwinter, the ground being covered with several inches of snow! Truly our hero might well be forgiven for believing himself suddenly transported back into the days of the fairies.
AKE haste," said the workman, shaking our hero somewhat roughly, to bring him back to the consciousness of the present danger. "Follow me, or the liquid fire will be upon us before we can reach a place of safety."
"But—" said William.
"No 'buts'; you will have plenty of time to talk after we are safely settled in the submarine boat."
The man was right; there was not a moment to lose; for before the boat had gone a couple of miles the expected catastrophe happened. The molten matter in the tube, launched forth by the enormous pressures in mid-earth, flew up to a great height, while the hissing of the mass of fire as it fell into the water warned our friends that their boat would do well to seek a greater depth.
"'MAKE HASTE,' SAID THE WORKMAN. 'FOLLOW ME.'"
When the danger was over William turned to his companion.
"Excuse me," said he, "but I really don't know whether I am awake or dreaming. The events that have passed are so unnatural that I feel somewhat like Rip Van Winkle, and should not be surprised to learn that what have seemed to me to be minutes have really been years. Can you tell me, first, what time it is?"
"It is nearly midnight," replied the man.
"Midnight!" repeated our hero, astounded. "Why, it seems to me barely an hour since I started this morning." Then a new idea struck him. "What day is it, may I ask?"
"January the 5th," replied the man.
"January the 5th!" exclaimed William, aghast. "Why, then I have been gone a whole year! I started on January 6!"
But his fears were now thoroughly aroused.
"In what year are we?" he demanded eagerly.
"Why, 1993, of course," replied the man, gazing at him in astonishment. "It seems a strange question to ask."
"January 5, 1993!" repeated William. "Come, you are joking with me. At midnight on January 5, 1993, I was sleeping on one of the benches in an Australian park. I sha'n't forget the date in a hurry; it's marked in my memory with the blackest of black inks."
"You forget," said the man, "that, as you have come from Australia, you have gained twelve hours. You have traveled faster than the sun, and have consequently arrived here eleven hours before you started from the other side. You are now having yesterday over again."
"But how about that snow?" said William. "When I left Australia it was during a sweltering hot summer's day, and when I arrived here the ground was covered with snow. How do you explain that?"
"Simply enough. You must remember that, Australia being below the equator, there is a difference of six months between the seasons here and there. You have your summer while we have our winter, and vice versa. January 5, which comes during your hottest summer weather, is with us the period of snow and blizzards, and you might well have arrived in a regular northeaster."
It was exactly true. William had left the Australian side at eleven o'clock on the morning of January 6, and had arrived at the New York end of the tube at about twelve o'clock of the night before! He had left Australia on a sultry summer's day, and had reached the United States in the depths of winter! Of all the wonderful events of his most extraordinary trip, this was perhaps the most marvelous, and he could hardly recover from his surprise.
At this juncture the boat, which was now sailing on the surface of the ocean, was hailed by another, which soon came alongside, and a young man stepped on board:
"Is this Mr. William Swindon?" he asked.
"Yes, sir; that's my name," said William.
"Well, I am the representative of the Universal Press Association, central branch, New York city. I should like a full account of your trip for the morning papers, and will pay you a hundred thousand dollars cash for the exclusive right to use it in every country on the face of the globe. Will you consent?"
Would he consent! William felt that, though his trip was ended, his surprising adventures had only begun, and this last stroke of fortune completely unnerved him.
The rest of our story is soon told. Our hero, after sending the tale of his adventures to the papers, telephoned to his mother and friends to let them know he was safe, and then leisurely made his way home, stopping at all the interesting countries on his long journey.
Wherever William went he was hailed as a hero. Magnificent pageants of air-ships bearing wonderful electric lights were arranged in honor of the intrepid youth who had dared to make the first journey through the earth. In a word, he was everywhere received with ovations that might well have turned the head of a less sensible lad.
An hour had sufficed to make the trip going, but it took him over a month to return. He was rich now, and neither he nor his mother need ever fear want again. Dr. Giles received him with open arms, and Flora fairly beamed with delight as she listened to the tale of his curious adventures.
The account of our hero's trip was published far and wide, and the celebrity thus obtained brought him numerous demands for contributions from the various magazines of the day, and thus led him to take up writing as a vocation, a field in which he achieved a high degree of success.
As for the transportation company Dr. Giles had organized, I regret to say that it was dissolved, as the dangers from the central heat of the earth
"MAGNIFICENT PAGEANTS OF AIR-SHIPS PEAKING WONDERFUL ELECTRIC LIGHTS WERE ARRANGED IN HONOR OF THE INTREPID YOUTH."
were found to be too great to be risked with impunity.
Mr. Curtis was jubilant, and repeated "I told you so" a dozen times a day, as though it were better for humanity that he should have been in the right than that a great improvement in the methods of transportation should have been effected. But Dr. Giles readily forgave him, for he could not help remembering that, had it not been for this gentleman's timely warning in regard to the centrifugal force of the earth, William would certainly have paid the penalty of the oversight with his life.
Dr. Giles regretted the failure of his enterprise deeply; but as for the stock-holders, it is pleasant to be able to say that they lost nothing, as the returns from the electrical power they had furnished to different cities during the five years in which the construction of the tube was in progress not only paid for all the capital sunk in the enterprise, but left a handsome margin of profit besides.
HE following wedding announcement, which appeared in the New York "Herald" for June 5, 1999, is given here in full, as it will probably interest all who have read the story of our hero's extraordinary adventures.
The marriage of Miss Flora Curtis to Mr. William Swindon took place yesterday evening, at the home of the bride's father. Relatives and a few intimate friends were invited to attend the ceremony, and an informal reception followed.
The bride was attired in a handsome gown of white silk trimmed with duchess lace, and a tulle veil, caught up with orange blossoms and a diamond pin of beautiful design, a present from Dr. Joshua Giles, the well-known scientist.
Mr. William Swindon is known the world over for his astonishing trip through the earth. His literary work has also attracted great attention, and has earned for its author a well-deserved fame.
The young couple, after their honeymoon, propose to come to the United States, where Mr. Swindon intends to take up his residence. Let us hope, in the words of the good old fairy-tales, that the bride and groom will u live happily together ever afterward."
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