Through the Earth

Front matter

THROUGH THE EARTH

"SPECIAL APPLIANCES HAD BEEN ERECTED FOR RENDERING VISIBLE THE COURSE OF THE CAR."

THROUGH THE EARTH

Chapter I

THROUGH THE EARTH!

CHAPTER I

A NOVEL SCHEME

WHAT do I think of it? Why, doctor, the whole scheme is impossible from beginning to end, and I am surprised that a scientist of your standing should entertain it for a single moment."

"But, James, you surely cannot understand my plan fully, or you would see that, so far from being impossible, it is most feasible if I can only secure the necessary capital."

"Either I must be dreaming, doctor, or else I do not altogether understand you. From what you tell me, I gather that your idea is to open a rapid-transit line between Australia and the United States. You propose to bore a hole through the center of the earth, this hole to terminate at the city of New York. Am I right thus far?"

"Perfectly."

"Into this hole you intend to drop merchandise, baggage, and what not, and let them fall through to the antipodes. This, at least, is the way I understand the matter."

"Yes," said Dr. Giles, tranquilly, "that is my idea in a nutshell. Now tell me what objections you find to it."

"What objections? Only one, namely, that the entire plan is utterly impossible," replied James, conclusively.

"My dear friend," said the doctor, "do you know what the word 'impossible' means? It means simply something that has not yet been done. Everything is impossible until some one does it, and then it becomes, on the contrary, astonishingly easy. If we take any other definition for this word, we must admit that there is only one thing that is impossible."

"And that is?"

"And that is, to know that anything is impossible. But tell me, James, what it is you find difficult in my plan."

"Certainly, if you wish it. In the first place, perhaps you will be kind enough to tell me how you are going to make your tunnel through the earth. It strikes me that the man who undertakes that job will have a pretty big contract on his hands. Possibly, however, you may not yet have thought about this matter."

Dr. Giles laughed. "If you can find any feature of the whole scheme that I have n't studied over for months," he said, "you will deserve a gold medal. And as, of course, the most important part of the undertaking consists precisely in the boring of the hole through the earth, it is this subject which has received my most careful consideration."

"Then you actually mean to say that you think it will be possible to dig a tunnel through the center of the earth?"

"Most certainly I do."

"But how will you set about it?"

"Just as I should set about digging a well," replied the doctor. "But, to expedite matters, I shall be obliged to devise special machinery that will do the work of hundreds of picks and shovels."

"I should think you would indeed need special machinery," returned James Curtis, the first speaker. "But machinery is n't everything. Of course I won't deny that you could dig a well a few thousand feet deep; but all efforts to go much beyond this depth would be unavailing, since the walls would continually cave in, burying your workmen under an enormous mass of earth and stones."

"And so you suppose that I would stand by with folded arms, and allow the walls to cave in, do you?"

"I don't see how you could help yourself."

"Nothing will be easier. As fast as I dig, I shall have a stout metal tube cast, of the size of my well, and let it down to support the walls. In that way all danger of caving in will be avoided."

"Well, admitting, for the sake of argument, that you can make machinery powerful enough to dig through miles of solid rock, and allowing that you could prevent the walls from caving in, even so, I hardly see that you would be very much more advanced than you were before."

"And why not, pray!"

"Because you seem to forget that the earth, at the center, is one mass of liquid fire. So that, even if you succeeded in boring down through the solid portions of the external crust, you would be brought to a complete standstill as soon as you reached the red-hot fluid portions in the center. All your machinery, including your metal tube, would melt like wax, while your workmen could not live a single instant in the stifling, scorching heat!"

Chapter II

CHAPTER II

THE CENTRAL HEAT

YES," repeated Mr. Curtis, bringing down his fist with a bang, "that 's where the real difficulty lies; that 's where the impossibility arises. The other obstacles might perhaps be overcome if sufficient time and money were devoted to the work. But the great question is, How will you manage when you reach the center of the earth, where the materials are one mass of liquid fire? Answer me that!"

"How do you know the earth is a mass of liquid fire at the center?" inquired the doctor, coolly.

"How do I know it? Why, all the best authorities concede the fact."

"Indeed, I was not aware of it. On the contrary, I thought that our most profound thinkers all rejected this theory."

"You mean to say that the center of the earth is not a mass of molten matter at a white heat?"

"We have every reason to believe that this is not the case."

"Then how do you explain that, in mines, the temperature becomes warmer the deeper down you go? You will at least admit this fact, will you not?"

"Certainly," said Dr. Giles; "that fact is well established. But you must remember that our deepest mines barely extend a couple of miles into the earth."

"Still, in those two miles the increase in heat is considerable, the bottom of the mine being always hotter than the top."

"True; but this increase varies considerably in different parts of the earth, being much less in some mines than in others."

"Yes; but the average increase, as I understand it, has been found to be about 1° F. for every sixty feet, so that, if we accept this as the normal rate, the heat at the depth of a very few miles would be sufficient to melt the hardest rocks we know of."

"That would be true enough," said the doctor, "if the heat continued increasing at the same rate. But this scarcely appears possible. You might as well claim that, because the temperature becomes colder the higher we ascend on a mountain, if we were to continue forever in a vertical line the temperature would keep on decreasing at the same rate."

"Well, would n't it?"

"Most certainly not. We, of course, know very little about the matter, but this we do know, that there is a point of absolute cold, which is supposed to be at 459° F. below zero. A body at this temperature would have absolutely no heat left in it. Our scientists may very well be mistaken as to the exact figure, but, at any rate, we know that there is some point beyond which the cold cannot continue to increase as we ascend in the air. Hence those who argue that because the cold becomes greater when we climb a mountain, it would continue increasing at the same rate if we ascended into the heavens, would be altogether mistaken. Similarly, those who claim that because the temperature becomes higher as we descend in mines, the heat must be inconceivable after we have gone a few miles, have no logical basis for their statement."

"But does not the existence of volcanoes prove that there is a central fire in the interior of the earth?"

"It proves that there are certain incandescent masses in the interior, but not that the whole center of the earth is in a molten condition. In fact, if the earth were liquid at the center, the incandescent matter, or sea of fire, would have tides just as our oceans of water have. Consequently every active volcano would have each day two high and two low tides, whereas nothing of the sort happens. Indeed, all the manifestations with which we are familiar accord more closely with the theory of a solid earth than of one containing a sea of molten matter."

"But how about earthquakes? Do not earthquakes occur continually in every portion of the globe? And are not these earthquakes caused by internal heat?"

"True; but the earthquakes only lend support to what I have said. It is an undeniable fact that the land in almost every country on the face of the earth is slowly but continually either rising or falling. These elevations and depressions are, however, so gradual that most persons do not even notice them; in fact, very delicate instruments are required to ascertain their occurrence. It is only when they are very sudden and very violent that the general public hears of them as the earthquakes which destroy houses, devastate forests, or engulf whole villages."

"Well," said Mr. Curtis, triumphantly, "it seems to me that these facts support what I have just said. Whether the earthquake be great or slight, it must be produced by the same causes; and since these earthquakes occur continually in all parts of the world, it must be because the interior of the earth is in a liquid state."

"Excuse me," said Dr. Giles; "but I was about to add that the subject of earthquakes has been very carefully studied by seismologists, and the best authorities have calculated that the origin of the disturbance is usually not very deep in the interior of the earth—probably not over thirty miles below the surface in the most violent earthquakes, and certainly at a much slighter depth than this in many cases. Now, if the whole interior of the earth were in a liquid state, it would be natural to expect that the origin of our earthquakes would be at a much greater depth."

"So far as you are concerned," remarked Mr. Curtis, "I don't see that it makes very much difference whether the whole interior of the earth is incandescent, or whether there are only small seas of liquid fire scattered around within thirty miles of the surface. In either case you must count on having to battle with the internal heat of the earth."

"Oh, certainly," said Dr. Giles; "I have arranged to do so."

"What!" exclaimed Mr. Curtis, astonished, "you mean to say that you could dig your tunnel through these seething lakes of fire?"

"That is precisely what I do mean," returned Dr. Giles, "and it will not seem so strange to you when I explain the precautions I intend to take against the internal heat."

Chapter III

CHAPTER III

A COLD SUBJECT

MR. CURTIS let his hands drop helplessly by his side.

"So you actually think," said he, "that you can construct machinery that can work unharmed through lakes of molten matter?"

"Yes," answered Dr. Giles, "I am convinced that I can."

"And that you will be able to find, for workmen, human salamanders who can flit about in the fire unharmed by the scorching heat?"

Dr. Giles broke into a hearty laugh. "No," said he, shaking his head emphatically; "I claim no such power as that. I am convinced that I shall be able to construct fire-proof machinery, and that will be all I shall require. Of what use would it be to secure fire-proof workmen? If I were obliged to send my men down into the tube, I should, of course, need some protection for them, but I shall arrange my machinery so that it can be worked from above the earth."

"Even so, do you mean to tell me that machinery can be constructed that will pass unharmed through a sea of fire?"

"I think I would better explain the whole scheme to you in detail," observed Dr. Giles, "as otherwise there would be no end to your objections. To begin with, as I have already told you, I intend to have a metal tube cast and let down as the digging progresses; this tube will, of course, prevent any molten matter from entering my well from the sides."

"Yes, unless the tube itself melts."

"Precisely; and as this is what I wish to avoid, I shall, in casting the tube, provide it with internal passages such that refrigerating agents of the greatest power may be continually pumped through to keep the tube from melting."

"And you believe that you can obtain refrigerating agents of sufficient power to counteract the intense heat of the interior of the earth?"

"I am certain of it. For several years past I have been devoting considerable attention to the subject of accumulating cold, and I have at last succeeded in finding what I sought. I am now able to produce a temperature of about 425° F. below zero, and you will readily admit that a cold of this intensity can be made to offset any heat that I may meet with in my undertaking."

"But how do you manage to secure so great a degree of cold?" asked Mr. Curtis, somewhat skeptically.

"The details of the operation," said Dr. Giles, "would naturally be too complex to explain offhand, but the general principle on which I work is quite simple. To begin with, I suppose you are aware that, properly speaking, there is no such thing as cold. We say that ice is cold because it has considerably less heat than the human body. But ice nevertheless does possess heat, and quite a goodly amount of it, too. The only bodies which possess no heat whatever are those which are at a temperature of about 459° F. below zero. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the point of absolute cold, that is to say, the point at which a body will retain absolutely no heat at all. By no process that we know of can such absolute cold be produced,—although, as I have said, I have succeeded in coming very near to it."

"But how do you manage to obtain such a low temperature?" persisted Mr. Curtis.

"It was a hard problem," remarked Dr. Giles, "and my method is not easy to explain, but I shall do my best to make the matter clear to you. As you are aware, in order to cool a body, it is necessary to make it impart some of its heat to other bodies, and this is precisely what I have succeeded in doing. I put in my machine a gallon of specially prepared non-freezable liquid, and then pass a current of water at 50° F. through the apparatus. Every gallon of water that passes through becomes heated to 51° F. in its passage; in other words, it absorbs one degree of heat from the original liquid, so that the temperature of this liquid after ten gallons of water have passed through will be ten degrees lower than it was at first. By continuing the flow of water through the apparatus, this absorption of heat keeps on, at a slightly decreasing rate, until the temperature of the original liquid is lowered to 425° F. below zero. Beyond this point I have not yet succeeded in going, but 425° F. below zero is a temperature so inconceivably low that it will amply suffice for any practical application of cold."

"Well, doctor, you seem to have an answer for everything, although I must confess that I am only half convinced by your arguments. Still, even granting that you could bore your hole through the center of the earth, your scheme would yet seem impossible."

"How so?" asked Dr. Giles.

"Why, in this way. Let us suppose that you drop something into the hole; the object would merely fall to the center of the earth and stop there. It would then, of course, be half the way to New York, but to haul it up the last four thousand miles would require such expensive apparatus, and would be such a slow and laborious operation, that you would lose much more than you would gain."

Chapter IV

CHAPTER IV

FLORA CURTIS ASKS A QUESTION

SO," said Dr. Giles, smiling, "you think that if I succeeded in boring a hole through the earth, and dropped a stone into it, the stone would fall down to the center of the earth and stay there?"

"Why, undoubtedly. The attraction of the earth may be considered as coming from the center, may it not?"

"Certainly it may—at least in the present case."

"Well, then," said Mr. Curtis, triumphantly, "it seems to me that if the attraction comes from the center of the earth, the stone would only be pulled down to the center, and would stop there, because there would be nothing to pull it any farther."

"Your idea is to a certain extent correct," replied the doctor; "after the stone reached the center of the earth there would indeed be no attraction to cause it to fall any farther; but you forget that it would then be traveling at considerable speed, and so would not stop."

"Yes, I understand that," said Mr. Curtis; "but as soon as the stone passed the center of the earth, the attraction would begin to pull it from behind, and so would draw it back to the center."

"To be sure, it would pull from behind," laughed Dr. Giles; "but the trouble is, it would n't pull hard enough. If you harnessed a dog to the front of a carriage and a horse at the back, and made them both pull with all their strength, you would certainly not expect the carriage to go forward. No matter how hard the dog might pull, the horse would easily drag him backward."

"I must say that I don't see the connection," observed Mr. Curtis.

"No? Well, then I'll explain. You probably know that a body falling to the earth falls sixteen feet the first second, forty-eight feet the next second, and eighty feet the third."

"Yes, I know that. The speed of a falling body constantly increases, and the increase is about thirty-two feet per second."

"The increase is thirty-two feet per second at the start," corrected the doctor. "As the body neared the center of the earth the increase would become less and less each second, until at the very center of the earth there would be no increase whatever. But, without going into the figures in detail, you will readily see that if the speed of the falling body increased, say, an average of sixteen feet per second, by the time it reached the center of the earth it would be going at such a frightful velocity that it could not stop, but would be carried on right past the center and far up the tube toward the New York end.

"In vain the attraction of the earth would try to hold it back; it would be like the dog pulling against the horse, for the body, carried onward by its acquired velocity, would continue on its mad career, though at a continually decreasing rate, until it came to a stop almost at the very surface of the earth at the New York end of the tube. In fact, if there were no air in the tube, the laws of physics teach us that the body, dropped into the hole here in Australia, would go completely through to the United States!"

"Yes, that 's true enough; but when the body reached the United States, it would simply fall back again, and keep on falling backward and forward in the tube. Moreover, as the air would create a certain resistance to the passage of the body, it would make a shorter journey each time, until finally it came to a complete rest at the center of the earth."

"So it would, if we allowed it to fall back; but you must remember that before it can fall back it must come to a complete stop; and what prevents us from having suitable catches in the tube to hold the body fast and prevent its return! If it stopped short of its destination, as it probably would, it could be hauled up the last part of its journey by any convenient device—say, for example, an electrically actuated cable."

Mr. Curtis was silenced. One by one the objections which had seemed to him so vital vanished into thin air before the doctor's ready answers. He did not for an instant admit the possibility of the scheme, but he was silenced for a moment, and during that moment a third actor appeared upon the scene. This third personage was no other than Mr. Curtis's daughter Flora, a pretty girl of ten, who, curiously enough, far from inheriting her father's pessimism, possessed, on the contrary, the happy faculty of always looking at the bright side of things.

At the beginning of the dialogue above recorded she had been reading unnoticed in a corner of the room; but, little by little, she had become interested in the conversation, and had gradually approached the two speakers. And now, while her father paused, she profited by the interruption to put a question on her own account:

"Dr. Giles," said she, "when you get your hole dug through the earth, will you send only baggage and things like that through it? Won't you send people through as well?"

Mr. Curtis laughed. "I guess nobody would care to go on such a trip as that, Flora," he said.

"I 'm not so sure of that," returned Dr. Giles, drawing the young girl to him, and looking at her kindly. "In fact, I have seriously been thinking of sending passengers through my tunnel."

"What," exclaimed Mr. Curtis, in utter amazement, "you mean to say that you actually think of dropping a living man down a bottomless pit eight thousand miles deep!"

"Yes," said Dr. Giles, "I most assuredly do!"

Chapter V

CHAPTER V

PROS AND CONS

FLORA clapped her hands with delight. "Oh, what fun it will be," she exclaimed, "to drop right down through the earth like that, and come out thousands of miles away in the United States!"

"Don't excite yourself, Flora," said Mr. Curtis. "There may be found some men foolhardy enough to risk such a trip, the result of which would be almost certain death, but neither you nor I would ever consent to undertake such a journey."

Dr. Giles smiled contemptuously. "That's always the way with anything new," he observed; "the dangers of any undertaking the least bit out of the usual run are always magnified to extraordinary proportions, whereas much greater dangers with which we are familiar dwindle down to almost nothing."

"But, doctor, you are surely joking when you speak of dropping passengers through the tunnel?"

"I was never more serious in all my life."

"Still, you must admit that a man could not possibly breathe while he was falling at this frightful speed; and by the time he had fallen his eight thousand miles, and reached the opposite side of the earth, he would find himself—dead, so to speak."

"Not at all. You forget that every man upon this earth is continually moving at the rate of about sixty thousand miles an hour, this being the speed at which the earth revolves about the sun, and yet we find means to breathe comfortably."

"Yes, because our air travels with us."

"So it would with my passengers, for I should put them in a closed car, with plenty of air stored up for the trip."

"Even so, there is another point which I think you have not sufficiently considered. We have just spoken of the resistance of the air in the tube. At the velocity which your car would attain, the resistance of this air would be something enormous, and would suffice to stop the car long before it reached its destination."

"That's true enough."

"Besides, not only would the air in the tube retard your car, but the resistance would be so great that the friction would produce enough heat to melt up both the car and the passengers."

"Certainly it would, if I were foolish enough to leave the air in the tube; but I should, of course, first take the precaution of removing the air from my tunnel before I attempted to send my cars through."

"But—"

"My dear friend," interposed the doctor, calmly, "you must remember that I have been studying this problem for the last ten years; you must remember that I have carefully considered every detail of the operation, and that there is not a single difficulty which I do not feel confident I can overcome. You must consequently admit that the scheme is not altogether so impossible as it would seem at first sight."

"Well, doctor, let me say just one last word. Do you realize the incalculable sum of money that will be required to carry out such an undertaking as you have in view?"

"It will not cost so much as you think, James," returned Dr. Giles. "I have estimated that the expense ought not to exceed one hundred million dollars."

"One hundred million dollars!" replied Mr. Curtis, contemptuously; "that's altogether too low an estimate for such a gigantic undertaking. But even taking your own figures, where in the world are you going to obtain a hundred million dollars? Where will you find men sufficiently foolish to pay their money for the mere anticipation of the pleasure of being dropped down a hole eight thousand miles deep?"

"I have little fear of failing to secure the necessary capital," replied Dr. Giles. "The advantages to be gained are so great, even from a financial point of view, that I am convinced the shares of the company will sell like hot cakes."

"The advantages of the scheme!" echoed Mr. Curtis. "I must say I cannot see what advantages you find in it."

"Perhaps not. But do you know how long it now takes for merchandise to go from Australia to New York?"

"It takes several weeks in our steamers."

"Yes, and several months in our sailing-vessels. Perishable goods cannot be shipped at all, or at least not without resorting to expensive methods of refrigeration, which are almost invariably injurious to the articles shipped. Now, do you know how long it would take for merchandise from here to reach New York through my tunnel!"

"No, but I suppose only a day or two."

"Less than one hour! Consequently the most perishable goods could be shipped without deterioration, and even for other articles of merchandise the great saving in time effected would be of the highest value. A dealer need order goods only at the moment he wants them, instead of having to estimate, weeks ahead of time, what products he will require, and loading himself up with stock that he may afterward be unable to dispose of."

"Well, that certainly would be a slight advantage," admitted Mr. Curtis.

"It would be an inestimable advantage," retorted Dr. Giles. "Moreover, do you realize what the expense is of shipping goods by steamer—of the thousands upon thousands of tons of coal burned, of the salaries of the men employed, the high cost of the vessels, etc.! With my tunnel, almost all this expense would be done away with. The goods would merely have to be dropped into the hole in Australia, and carried away when they reached the New York side. There would be almost no limit to the quantity sent, because one car-load after another could be dropped through as fast as they could be taken out on the other side. There would be no danger of collisions, as no car could ever possibly catch up with the car in front of it; there would be no delays, and there would be almost no expense, the earth itself furnishing the motive power, and an inexhaustible one at that."

"It does make a pretty picture," said Mr. Curtis, half convinced by his friend's earnest manner.

"Yes, sir," continued Dr. Giles, warming up to his subject, "the advantages of the scheme are so great that I hope to live to see the whole earth honeycombed by such tunnels, destined to facilitate the communication of the different nations. It seems a pity to think that man, although traveling a million and a half miles in space every day, cannot travel even two or three thousand miles on the earth itself in the same time. Why, our fastest locomotives travel only a couple of hundred miles an hour, while with my tunnel through the earth we shall be able to travel some ten thousand miles in the same time without noise or jolting.

"Surely you must admit that the scheme has advantages, and great ones, too, and that the men who furnish the funds will have a fair prospect of reaping a rich reward. No, sir, there is no lack of free capital in the world, and our business men are sufficiently enterprising to risk it gladly in a work of this sort."

"Well, I suppose you know your own affairs best," observed Mr. Curtis, unconvinced.

"I ought to," said Dr. Giles;" and that reminds me that if I wish to carry this undertaking through successfully, I shall have to lose no time, but set about it at once. Consequently I shall be obliged to leave you both for the present."

"Dr. Giles," said Flora, coming closer to her friend, "how long do you think it will take you to make your tunnel through the earth?"

"It will probably take several years, under the most favorable circumstances," replied the doctor, smiling. "It will be very slow work at the best, and there are many difficulties to be overcome. Perhaps I may even find the undertaking beyond my powers and be obliged to give it up in despair."