Page:Clement Fezandié - Through the Earth.djvu/76

56 his instruments transferred to one of the submarine habitations, where he now made his office. This office communicated with a carbonite observatory above water, from which the top of the tube could be plainly seen.

As time went on the doctor became more and more taciturn, and more severe in his discipline, until finally he issued an order forbidding any of the workmen to enter either the tube or the caisson.

Nor were these precautions superfluous; for on January 17, 1988, at three o'clock in the afternoon, a large volume of smoke and gases of all kinds was ejected from the tube, and this was accompanied by. a rumbling and trembling in the earth that was felt for miles around.

For several hours these gases escaped; but finally the pocket that contained them was so far exhausted that the pressure was no longer sufficient to hold back the greater forces underneath, and, with a report like thunder, these gave themselves a vent, and the boring-screw, carried upward by a furious column of lava, was thrown high into the air, whence it fell back into the ocean, a considerable distance from the mouth of the tube, accompanied by a seething and hissing of the water most wonderful to behold.