Great Stone of Sardis

by Frank Richard Stockton

  CHAPTER XVI. THE TRACK OF THE SHELL

  During the course of his inventive life Roland Clewe had becomeaccustomed to disappointments; he was very much afraid, indeed, that hewas beginning to expect them. If that really happened, there would be anend to his career.

  But when he spoke in this way to Margaret, she almost scolded him.

  "How utterly absurd it is," she said, "for a man who has just discoveredthe north pole to sit down in an arm-chair and talk in that way!"

  "I didn't discover it," he said; "it was Sammy and Gibbs who found thepole. As for me--I don't suppose I shall ever see it."

  "I am not so sure of that," she said. "We may yet invent a telescopewhich shall curve its reflected rays over the rotundity of the earth andabove the highest icebergs, so that you and I may sit here and look atthe waters of the pole gently splashing around the great buoy."

  "And charge a dollar apiece to all other people who would like to lookat the pole, and so we might make much money," said he. "But I mustreally go and do something; I shall go crazy if I sit here idle."

  Margaret knew that the loss of the shell was the greatest blow thatRoland had ever yet received. His ambitions as a scientific inventorwere varied, but she was well aware that for some years he hadconsidered it of great importance to do something which would bringhim in money enough to go on with his investigations and labors withoutdepending entirely upon her for the necessary capital. If he couldhave tunnelled a mountain with this shell, or if he had but partiallysucceeded in so doing, money would have come to him. He would have madehis first pecuniary success of any importance.

  "What are you going to do, Roland?" said she, as he rose to leave theroom.

  "I am going to find the depth of the hole that shell has made. It oughtto be filled up, and I must calculate how many loads of earth and stonesit will take to do it."

  That afternoon he came to Mrs. Raleigh's house.

  "Margaret," he exclaimed, "I have lowered a lead into that hole with allthe line attached which we have got on the place, and we can touch nobottom. I have telegraphed for a lot of sounding-wire, and I must waituntil it shall arrive before I do anything more."

  "You must be very, very careful, Roland, when you are doing that work,"said Margaret. "Suppose you should fall in!"

  "I have provided against that," said he. "I have laid a floor over thehole with only a small opening in it, so there is no danger. And anothercurious thing I must tell you-our line is not wet: we have struck nowater!"

  When Margaret visited the Works the next day she found Roland Clewe anda number of workmen surrounding the flooring which had been laid overthe hole. They were sounding with a windlass which carried an immensereel of wire. The wire was extremely thin, but the weight of thatportion of it which had already been unwound was so great that four menwere at the handles of the windlass.

  Roland came to meet Margaret as she entered.

  "The lead has gone down six miles," he said, in a low voice, "and wehave not touched the bottom yet."

  "Impossible!" she cried. "Roland, it cannot be! The wire must be coilingitself up somewhere. It is incredible! The lead cannot have gone down sofar!"

  "Leads have gone down as far as that before this," said he. "Soundingsof more than six miles have been obtained at sea."

  She went with him and stood near the windlass. For an hour she remainedby his side, and still the reel turned steadily and the wire descendedinto the hole.

  "Shall you surely know when it gets to the bottom?" said she.

  "Yes," he answered. "When the electric button under the lead shall touchanything solid, or even anything fluid, this bell up here will ring."

  She stayed until she could stay no longer. She knew it would be of nouse to urge Roland to leave the windlass. Very early the next morning anote was brought to her before she was up, and on it was written:

  "We have touched bottom at a depth of fourteen and an eighth miles."

  When Roland came to Mrs. Raleigh's house, about nine o'clock thatmorning, his face was pale and his whole form trembled.

  "Margaret," he cried, "what are we going to do about it? It iswonderful; I cannot appreciate it. I have had all the men up in theoffice this morning and pledged them to secrecy. Of course they won'tkeep their promises, but it was all that I could do. I can think of noparticular damage which would come to me if this thing were known, but Icannot bear that the public should get hold of it until I know somethingmyself. Margaret, I don't know anything."

  "Have you had your breakfast?" she asked.

  "No," he said; "I haven't thought of it."

  "Did you eat anything last night?"

  "I don't remember," he answered.

  "Now I want you to come into the dining-room," said she. "I had a lightbreakfast some time ago, and I am going to eat another with you. I wantyou to tell me something. There was a man here the other day with apatent machine for making button-holes--you know the old-fashionedbutton-holes are coming in again--and if this is a good inventionit ought to sell, for nearly everybody has forgotten how to makebutton-holes in the old way."

  "Oh, nonsense!" said Roland. "How can you talk of such things? I can'ttake my mind--"

  "I know you can't," she interrupted. "You are all the time thinking ofthat everlasting old hole in the ground. Well, I am tired of it; do letus talk of something else."

  Margaret Raleigh was much more than tired of that phenomenal hole in theearth which had been made by the automatic shell; she was frightened byit. It was something terrible to her; she had scarcely slept that night,and she needed breakfast and change of thought as much as Roland.

  But it was not long before she found that it was impossible to turnhis thoughts from that all-absorbing subject. All she could do was toendeavor to guide them into quiet channels.

  "What are you going to do this morning?" she asked, towards the close ofthe breakfast.

  "I am going to try to take the temperature of that shaft at variouspoints," said he.

  "That will be an excellent thing," she answered; "you may make valuablediscoveries; but I should think the heat at that great depth would beenough to melt your thermometers."

  "It did not melt my lead or my sounding-wire," said he. And as he saidthese words her heart fell.

  The temperature of this great perforation was taken at many points,and when Roland brought to Margaret the statement of the height of themercury at the very bottom she was astounded and shocked to find that itwas only eighty-three degrees.

  "This is terrible!" she ejaculated.

  "What do you mean?" he asked in surprise. "That is not hot. Why, it isonly summer weather."

  But she did not think it terrible because it was so hot; the fact thatit was so cool had shocked her. In such temperature one could live! Agreat source of trust and hope had been taken from her.

  "Roland," she said, sinking into a chair, "I don't understand this atall. I always thought that it became hotter and hotter as one went downinto the earth; and I once read that at twenty miles below the surface,if the heat increased in proportion as it increased in a mine, thetemperature must be over a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Your instrumentcould not have registered properly; perhaps it never went all the waydown; and perhaps it is all a mistake. It may be that the lead did notgo down so far as you think."

  He smiled; he was becoming calmer now, for he was doing something: hewas obtaining results.

  "Those ideas about increasing heat at increasing depths areold-fashioned, Margaret," he said. "Recent science has given us bettertheories. It is known that there is great heat in the interior of theearth, and it is also known that the transmission of this heat towardsthe surface depends upon the conductivity of the rocks in particularlocations. In some places the heat comes very near the surface, and inothers it is very, very far down. More than that, the temperature mayrise as we go down into the earth and afterwards fall again. There maybe a stratum of close-grained rock, possibly containing metal, coming upfrom the interior in an oblique direct
ion and bringing the heat towardsthe surface; then below that there may be vast regions of other rockswhich do not readily conduct heat, and which do not originate in heatedportions of the earth's interior. When we reach these, we must find thetemperature lower, as a matter of course. Now I have really done this.A little over five miles down my thermometer registered ninety-one, andafter that it began to fall a little. But the rocks under us are poorconductors of heat; and, moreover, it is highly probable that they haveno near communication with the source of internal heat."

  "I thought these things were more exact and regular," said she; "Isupposed if you went down a mile in one place, you would find it as hotas you would in another."

  "Oh no," said he. "There is nothing regular or exact in nature; even ourearth is not a perfect sphere. Nature is never mathematically correct.You must always allow for variations. In some parts of the earth itsheated core, or whatever it is, must be very, very far down."

  At this moment a happy thought struck Margaret.

  "How easy it would be, Roland, for you to examine this great hole! I cando it; anybody can do it. It's perfectly amazing when you think ofit. All you have to do is to take your Artesian, ray machine intothat building and set it over the hole; then you can light the wholeinterior, all the way down to the bottom, and with a telescope you cansee everything that is in it."

  "Yes," said he; "but I think I can do it better than that. It would bevery difficult to transfer the photic borer to the other building, and Ican light up the interior perfectly well by means of electric lights. Ican even lower a camera down to the very bottom and take photographs ofthe interior."

  "Why, that would be perfectly glorious!" cried Margaret, springing toher feet, an immense relief coming to her mind with the thought that toexamine this actual shaft it would not be necessary for anybody to godown into it.

  "I should go to work at that immediately," said he, "but I must have adifferent sort of windlass--one that shall be moved by an engine. Iwill rig up the big telescope too, so that we can look down when we havelighted up the bottom."

  It required days to do all that Roland Clewe had planned. A greatdeal of the necessary work was done in his own establishment, andmuch machinery besides was sent from New York. When all was readymany experiments were made with the electric lights and camera, andphotographs of inexpressible value and interest were taken at variouspoints on the sides of this wonderful perpendicular tunnel.

  At last Clewe was prepared to photograph the lower portion of the shaft.With a peculiar camera and a powerful light five photographs were takenof the very bottom of the great shaft, four in horizontal directions andone immediately below the camera. When these photographs were printedby the improved methods then in vogue, Clewe seized the pictures andexamined them with eager haste. For some moments he stood silent, hiseyes fixed upon the photographs as if there was nothing else in thisworld; but all he saw on each was an irregular patch of light. He thrustthe prints aside, and in a loud, sharp voice he gave orders to bring thegreat telescope and set it up above the hole. The light was still at thebottom, and the instant the telescope was in position Clewe mounted thestepladder and directed the instrument downward. In a few moments hegave an exclamation, and then he came down from the ladder so rapidlythat he barely missed falling. He went into his office and sent forMargaret. When she came he showed her the photographs.

  "See!" he said. "What I have found is nothing; even a camera showsnothing, and when I look down through the glass I see nothing. It isjust what the Artesian ray showed me; it is nothing at all!"

  "I should think," said she, speaking very slowly, "that if yoursounding-lead had gone down into nothing, it would have continued to godown indefinitely. What was there to stop it if there is nothing there?"

  "Margaret," said he, "I don't know anything about it. That is thecrushing truth. I can find out nothing at all. When I look down throughthe earth by means of the Artesian ray I reach a certain depth and thenI see a void; when I look down through a perfectly open passage to thesame depth, I still see a void."

  "But, Roland," said Margaret, holding in her hand the view taken of thebottom of the shaft, "what is this in the middle of the proof? It isdarker than the rest, but it seems to be all covered up with mistiness.Have you a magnifying-glass?"

  Roland found a glass, and seized the photograph. He had forgotten hisusual courtesy.

  "Margaret," he cried, "that dark thing is my automatic shell! It islying on its side. I can see the greater part of it. It is not in thehole it made itself; it is in a cavity. It has turned over, and lieshorizontally; it has bored down into a cave, Margaret--into a cave--acave with a solid bottom--a cave made of light!"

  "Nonsense!" said Margaret. "Caves cannot be made of light; the lightthat you see comes from your electric lamp."

  "Not at all!" he cried. "If there was anything there, the light of mylamp would show it. During the whole depth of the shaft the lightshowed everything and the camera showed everything; you can see the verytexture of the rocks; but when the camera goes to the bottom, when itenters this space into which the shaft plainly leads, it shows nothingat all, except what I may be said to have put there. I see only my greatshell surrounded by light, resting on light!"

  "Roland," said Margaret, "you are crazy! Perhaps it is water which fillsthat cave, or whatever it is."

  "Not at all," said Roland. "It presents no appearance of water, and whenthe camera came up it was not wet. No; it is a cave of light."

  He sat for some minutes silently gazing out of the window. Margaret drewher chair closer to him. She took one of his hands in both of hers.

  "Look at me, Roland!" she said. "What are you thinking about?"

  He turned his face upon her, but said nothing. She looked straight intohis eyes, and she needed no Artesian ray to enable her to see throughthem into his innermost brain. She saw what was filling that brain;it was one great, overpowering desire to go down to the bottom of thathole, to find out what it was that he had discovered.

  "Margaret, you hurt me!" he exclaimed, suddenly. In the intensity of theemotion excited by what she had discovered, her finger-nails had nearlypenetrated through his skin. She had felt as if she would hold him andhold him forever, but she released his hand.

  "We haven't talked about that button-hole machine," she said. "I wantyour opinion of it." To her surprise, Roland began immediately todiscuss the new invention of which she had spoken, and asked her todescribe it. He was not at all anxious now to tell Margaret what he wasthinking of in connection with the track of the shell.