The Great Stone of Sardis

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Great Stone of Sardis, by Frank R. Stockton

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Title: The Great Stone of Sardis
Author: Frank R. Stockton
Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6127] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on November 16, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS ***

THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS
BY FRANK R. STOCKTON

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE EUTERPE-THALIA
II. THE SARDIS WORKS
III. MARGARET RALEIGH
IV. THE MISSION OF SAMUEL BLOCK V. UNDER WATER
VI. VOICES FROM THE POLAR SEAS
VII. GOOD NEWS GOES FROM SARDIS
VIII. THE DEVIL ON THE DIPSEY
IX. THE ARTESIAN RAY
X. "LAKE SHIVER"
XI. THEY BELIEVE IT IS THE POLAR SEA
XII. CAPTAIN HUBBELL TAKES COMMAND
XIII. LONGITUDE EVERYTHING
XIV. A REGION OF NOTHINGNESS
XV. THE AUTOMATIC SHELL
XVI. THE TRACK OF THE SHELL
XVII. CAPTAIN HUBBELL DECLINES TO GO WHALING
XVIII. MR. MARCY'S CANAL
XIX. THE ICY GATEWAY
XX. "THAT IS HOW I LOVE YOU"
XXI. THE CAVE OF LIGHT
XXII. CLEWE'S THEORY
XXIII. THE LAST DIVE OF THE DIPSEY
XXIV. ROVINSKI COMES TO THE SURFACE
XXV. LAURELS

THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS

CHAPTER I
THE ARRIVAL OF THE EUTERPE-THALIA
It was about noon of a day in early summer that a westward-bound Atlantic liner was rapidly nearing the port of New York. Not long before, the old light-house on Montauk Point had been sighted, and the company on board the vessel were animated by the knowledge that in a few hours they would be at the end of their voyage.
The vessel now speeding along the southern coast of Long Island was the Euterpe-Thalia, from Southampton. On Wednesday morning she had left her English port, and many of her passengers were naturally anxious to be on shore in time to transact their business on the last day of the week. There were even some who expected to make their return voyage on the Melpomene-Thalia, which would leave New York on the next Monday.
The Euterpe-Thalia was one of those combination ocean vessels which had now been in use for nearly ten years, and although the present voyage was not a particularly rapid one, it had been made in a little less than three days.
As may be easily imagined, a vessel like this was a very different craft from the old steamers which used to cross the Atlantic--"ocean greyhounds" they were called--in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
It would be out of place here to give a full description of the vessels which at the period of our story, in 1947, crossed the Atlantic at an average time of three days, but an idea of their construction will suffice. Most of these vessels belonged to the class of the Euterpe-Thalia, and were, in fact, compound marine structures, the two portions being entirely distinct from each other. The great hull of each of these vessels contained nothing but its electric engines and its propelling machinery, with the necessary fuel and adjuncts.
The upper portion of the compound vessel consisted of decks and quarters for passengers and crew and holds for freight. These were all comprised within a vast upper hull, which rested upon the lower hull containing the motive power, the only point of contact being an enormous ball-and-socket joint. Thus, no matter how much the lower hull might roll and pitch and toss, the upper hull remained level and comparatively undisturbed.
Not only were comfort to passengers and security to movable freight gained by this arrangement of the compound vessel, but it was now possible to build the lower hull of much less size than had been the custom in the former days of steamships, when the hull had to be large enough to contain everything. As the more modern hull held nothing but the machinery, it was small in comparison with the superincumbent upper hull, and thus the force of the engine, once needed to propel a vast mass through the resisting medium of the ocean, was now employed upon a comparatively small hull, the great body