St Nicholas [serial] . tthe most hopeful per-son could have James Curtis,theskeptic of whom wehave already spoken,was forced to acknow-ledge that the word impossible was onewhich deserved to bestricken from the dic-tionaries of the twen-tieth century. To weld the two tubes together at the endswas a most delicate undertaking, but the workwas performed with all the care it the instruments were withdrawn, andspecially constructed pumps were set in oper- ation to exhaust the tube of air; this work wassupplemented by the use of ingenious chemicalprocesses to absorb the grea
St Nicholas [serial] . tthe most hopeful per-son could have James Curtis,theskeptic of whom wehave already spoken,was forced to acknow-ledge that the word impossible was onewhich deserved to bestricken from the dic-tionaries of the twen-tieth century. To weld the two tubes together at the endswas a most delicate undertaking, but the workwas performed with all the care it the instruments were withdrawn, andspecially constructed pumps were set in oper- ation to exhaust the tube of air; this work wassupplemented by the use of ingenious chemicalprocesses to absorb the greater part of the rarefiedair which the pumps and other apparatus wereunable to remove. This precaution was absolutely necessary, for,as already stated, air presents an enormous re-sistance to objects which are traveling at a greatvelocity. Air remaining in the tube would not only haveretarded the car considerably in its passage, andhave prevented it from reaching the oppositeside of the earth, but would have produced an. 1 WELL, MY BOY, SAID THE DOCTOR, SINCE YOU ARE DETERMINIFUT THAT 1 SHALL HAVE TO LET YOU TAKE THE TRIP. (SEE PAGE 243.) amount of heat sufficient to damage the vehicleseriously. Along with the boring of the hole, the con-struction of the car had occupied the doctorsattention. Fortunately, there was nothing very 34Q THROUGH THE EARTH. [Feb. difficult in this part of the work, for any closedvessel whatever would have answered the pur-pose. Nevertheless, there were certain pointsthat required to be taken into the first place, as, in spite of the precautionstaken for obtaining a perfect vacuum, therewould always remain a small amount of air inthe tube, it would be Avell to construct the carof such a shape as to offer the least possibleresistance in its passage. Secondly, in order toavoid the inconvenience of having the car turnaround during the trip, it was desirable to con-struct it of a uniform weight on all sides. The doctor finally decided to bu
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