Page:Clement Fezandié - Through the Earth.djvu/47

Rh 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