Publisher's Synopsis
I WAS BORN IN CONNECTICUT ABOUT THIRTY YEARS ago. My name is David Innes.My father was a wealthy mine owner. When I was nineteen he died. All his property was to be minewhen I had attained my majority-provided that I had devoted the two years intervening in closeapplication to the great business I was to inherit.I did my best to fulfil the last wishes of my parent-not because of the inheritance, but becauseI loved and honored my father. For six months I toiled in the mines and in the counting-rooms, forI wished to know every minute detail of the business.Then Perry interested me in his invention. He was an old fellow who had devoted the better partof a long life to the perfection of a mechanical subterranean prospector. As relaxation he studiedpaleontology. I looked over his plans, listened to his arguments, inspected his working model-andthen, convinced, I advanced the funds necessary to construct a full-sized, practical prospector.I shall not go into the details of its construction-it lies out there in the desert now-about twomiles from here. Tomorrow you may care to ride out and see it. Roughly, it is a steel cylinder ahundred feet long, and jointed so that it may turn and twist through solid rock if need be. At oneend is a mighty revolving drill operated by an engine which Perry said generated more power to thecubic inch than any other engine did to the cubic foot. I remember that he used to claim that thatinvention alone would make us fabulously wealthy-we were going to make the whole thing publicafter the successful issue of our first secret trial-but Perry never returned from that trial trip, and Ionly after ten years.I recall as it were but yesterday the night of that momentous occasion upon which we were totest the practicality of that wondrous invention. It was near midnight when we repaired to the loftytower in which Perry had constructed his "iron mole" as he was wont to call the thing. The greatnose rested upon the bare earth of the floor. We passed through the doors into the outer jacket, secured them, and then passing on into the cabin, which contained the controlling mechanismwithin the inner tube, switched on the electric lights.Perry looked to his generator; to the great tanks that held the life-giving chemicals with which hewas to manufacture fresh air to replace that which we consumed in breathing; to his instruments forrecording temperatures, speed, distance, and for examining the materials through which we were topass.He tested the steering device, and overlooked the mighty cogs which transmitted its marvelousvelocity to the giant drill at the nose of his strange craft