The Great Stone of Sardis | Page 8

diameter and as deep as it was possible to make it descend, in which
he could see all the various strata and deposits of which the earth is composed. How far
he could send down this piercing cylinder of light he did not allow himself to consider.
With a small and imperfect machine he had seen several feet into the ground; with a great
and powerful apparatus, such as he was now constructing, why should he not look down

below the deepest point to which man's knowledge had ever reached? Down so far that he
must follow his descending light with a telescope; down, down until he had discovered
the hidden secrets of the earth!
The peculiar quality of this light, which gave it its great preeminence over all other
penetrating rays, was the power it possessed of illuminating an object; passing through it;
rendering it transparent and invisible; illuminating the opaque substance it next met in its
path, and afterwards rendering that transparent. If the rocks and earth in the cylindrical
cavities of light which Clewe had already produced in his experiments had actually been
removed with pickaxes and shovels, the lighted hole a few feet in depth could not have
appeared more real, the bottom and sides of the little well could not have been revealed
more sharply and distinctly; and yet there was no hole in the ground, and if one should try
to put his foot into the lighted perforation he would find it as solid as any other part of the
earth.

CHAPTER IV
THE MISSION OF SAMUEL BLOCK
Not far from the works at Sardis there was a large pond, which was formed by the
damming of a stream which at this point ran between high hills. In order to obtain a
sufficient depth of water for his marine experiments, Roland Clewe had built an
unusually high and strong dam, and this body of water, which was called the lake,
widened out considerably behind the dam and stretched back for more than half a mile.
He was standing on the shore of this lake, early the next morning, in company with
several workmen, examining a curious-looking vessel which was moored near by, when
Margaret Raleigh came walking towards him. When he saw her he left the men and went
to meet her.
"You could not wait until I came to your house to tell you what I was going to do?" he
said, smiling.
"No," she answered, "I could not. The Artesian ray kept me awake nearly all night, and I
felt that I must quiet my mind as soon as I could by giving it something real and tangible
to take hold of. Now what is it that you are going to do? Anything in the ship line?"
"Yes," said he, "it is something in that line. But let us walk back a little; I am not quite
ready to tell the men everything. I have been thinking," he said, as they moved together
from the lake, "of that practical enterprise which we must take up and finish, in order to
justify ourselves to the public and those who have in various ways backed up our
enterprises, and I have concluded that the best thing I can do is to carry out my plan of
going to the north pole."
"What!" she exclaimed. "You are not going to try to do that --you, yourself?" And as she

spoke, her voice trembled a little.
"Yes," said he, "I thought I would go myself, or else send Sammy."
She laughed.
"Ridiculous!" said she. "Send Sammy Block! You are joking?"
"No," said he, "I am not. I have been planning the expedition, and I think Sammy would
be an excellent man to take charge of it. I might go part of the way--at least, far enough to
start him--and I could so arrange matters that Sammy would have no difficulty in
finishing the expedition, but I do not think that I could give up all the time that such an
enterprise deserves. It is not enough to merely find the pole; one should stay there and
make observations which would be of service."
"But if Sammy finishes the journey himself," she said, "his will be the glory."
"Let him have it," replied Clewe. "If my method of arctic exploration solves the great
problem of the pole, I shall be satisfied with the glory I get from the conception. The
mere journey to the northern end of the earth's axis is of slight importance. I shall be glad
to have Sammy go first, and have as many follow him as may choose to travel in that
direction."
"Yet it is a great achievement," said she. "I would give much to be the first human being
who has placed