Through Space to Mars - Roy Rockwood (life changing books TXT) 📗

bell-jar and other things began falling about the room.

 

Mark was fumbling at the door of the laboratory, seeking to

escape.

 

“Come on back,” said Jack. “It’s all over. There’s no more

danger. We’ll try it again.”

 

Just then one of the pile of books, that had been blown on an

upper shelf, came down, landing on Mark’s head.

 

“No danger?” cried Mark, trembling from excitement. “No danger?

What do you call that?” and he pointed to the books at his feet,

while he rubbed his head ruefully.

 

“Well, there aren’t any more,” observed Jack, with a look upward.

 

Just then the door opened, and an elderly gentleman, wearing

spectacles, entered the laboratory. He seemed much excited.

 

“What happened? Is any one hurt? Was there an explosion here?”

he asked.

 

Then he saw the devastation on all sides—the broken glass, the

scattered and torn books—and he noticed Mark rubbing his head.

 

“There was—er—a slight explosion,” replied Jack, a faint smile

spreading over his face.

 

“Are you hurt?” the professor asked quickly, stepping over to

Mark. “Shall I get a doctor?”

 

“A book hit him,” explained Jack.

 

“A book! Did a book explode?”

 

“No, sir. You see, I was making a new kind of gas, and Mark was

helping me. He was afraid the test tube would explode, so I

piled books around it, and—”

 

“And it did blow up!” cried Mark, still rubbing his head. “The

test tube, and the other tube, and the rubber hose, and the

bell-jar. I told you it would, Jack.”

 

“Then you weren’t disappointed,” retorted Jack, this time with a

broad smile. “I don’t like to disappoint people,” he added.

 

“What kind of gas was it, Darrow?” asked Professor Lenton.

 

“Well, I hadn’t exactly named it yet,” answered the young

inventor. “I was going to show it to you, and see what you

thought of it. It’s the kind you said I couldn’t make.”

 

“And did you make it?” asked the instructor grimly.

 

“Yes, sir—some.”

 

“Where is it?”

 

“It’s—er—well, you can smell it,” replied Jack.

 

Sure enough, there was a strong, unpleasant odor in the

laboratory, but that was usual in the college where all sorts of

experiments were constantly going on.

 

“Hum—yes,” admitted the professor. “I do perceive a new odor.

But I’m glad neither of you was hurt, and the damage doesn’t seem

to be great.”

 

“No, sir. It was my own apparatus I was using,” explained Jack.

“I’ll be more careful next time. I’ll not put in so much of the

chemical.”

 

“I don’t believe there had better be a ‘next time’ right away,”

declared Mr. Lenton.

 

“The next attempt you make to invent a powerful gas, you had

better generate it in something stronger than a glass test tube.

Use an iron retort.”

 

“Yes, sir,” replied Jack.

 

“And now you had better report for your geometry lesson,” went on

the professor. “I need the laboratory now for a class in

physics. Just tell the janitor to come here and sweep up the

broken glass. I am very glad neither of you boys was seriously

injured. You must be more careful next time.”

 

“Oh, Mark was careful enough,” said Jack. “It was all my fault.

I didn’t think the gas was quite so powerful.”

 

“All right,” answered the professor with a smile as Jack and Mark

passed out on their way to another classroom.

 

The two lads, whom some of my readers have met before in the

previous books of this series, were friends who had become

acquainted under peculiar circumstances. They were orphans, and,

after having had many trying experiences, each of them had left

his cruel employers, and, unknown to each other previously, had

met in a certain village, where they were obliged to beg for

food. They decided to cast their lots together, and, boarding a

freight train, started West.

 

The train, as told in the first volume to this series, called

“Through the Air to the North Pole,” was wrecked near a place

where a certain Professor Amos Henderson, and his colored helper,

Washington White, lived. Mr. Henderson was a learned scientist

who was constantly building new wonderful machines. He was

working on an airship, in which to set out and locate the North

Pole, when he discovered Jack and Mark, injured in the freight

wreck. He and Washington White carried the lads to the

inventor’s workshop, and there the boys recovered. When they

were well enough, the professor invited them to live with him,

and, more than that, to take a trip with him North Pole.

 

They went, in company with Washington and an old hunter, named

Andy Sudds, and some other men, whom the professor took along to

help him.

 

Many adventures befell the party. They had battles with wild

beasts in the far north, and were attacked by savage Esquimaux.

Once they were caught in a terrible storm. They actually passed

over the exact location of the North Pole, and Professor

Henderson made some interesting scientific observations.

 

In the second volume of this series, entitled “Under the Ocean to

the South Pole,” Professor Henderson, Jack, Mark, Washington and

old Andy Sudds, made even a more remarkable trip. The professor

had a theory that there was an open sea at the South Pole, and he

wanted to prove it. He decided that the best way to get there

was to go under the ocean in a submarine boat, and he and the

boys built a very fine, craft, called the Porpoise, which was

capable of being propelled under water at a great depth.

 

The voyagers had rather a hard time of it. They were caught in a

great sea of Sargasso grass, monstrous suckers held the boat in

immense arms, and it required hard fighting to get free. The

boys and the others had the novel experience of walking about on

the bottom of the sea in new kinds of diving suits invented by

the professor.

 

On their journey to the South Pole, the adventurers came upon a

strange island in the Atlantic, far from the coast of South

America. On it was a great whirlpool, into which the Porpoise

was nearly sucked by a powerful current. They managed to escape,

and had a glimpse of unfathomable depths. They passed on, but

could not forget the strange hole in the island.

 

Mark suggested that it might lead to the center of the earth,

which is hollow, according to some scientists, and after some

consideration, Professor Henderson, on his return from the South

Pole, decided to go down the immense shaft.

 

To do this required a different kind of vessel from any he had

yet built. He would need one that could sail on the water, and

yet float in the air like a balloon or aeroplane.

 

How he built this queer craft and took a most remarkable voyage,

you will find set down in the third book of this series, entitled

“Five Thousand Miles Underground.”

 

In their new craft, called the Flying Mermaid, the professor, the

boys, Washington and Andy, sailed until they came to the great

shaft leading downward. Then the ship rose in the air and

descended through clouds of vapor. After many perils they

reached the center of the earth, where they found a strange race

of beings.

 

One day, to their horror, an earthquake dosed the shaft by which

they had come to the center of the earth. The boys were in

despair of ever getting to the surface again, but the professor

had been prepared for this emergency, and he had built a strong

cylinder, into which all the travelers placed themselves. Then

it was projected into a powerful upward shooting column of water,

which Professor Henderson hoped would take them to the surface of

the earth. Nor was he mistaken. They had a terrible journey,

but came safely out of it.

 

They opened the cylinder, to find themselves floating on the sea,

and they were rescued by a passing vessel. Of course, they had

abandoned the Mermaid, leaving the craft in the center of the

earth, but they had brought back with them some valuable

diamonds, which formed their fortune.

 

This ended, for a time, the experiments of the professor, who

decided to settle down to a quiet life, and write out the

observations he had made on the three voyages. The boys wanted

to get an education, and, investing their share from the sale of

the diamonds, they took up a course at the Universal Electrical

and Chemical College. Each had an ambition to become as great an

inventor as was Professor Henderson, with whom they continued to

live in a small city on the Maine coast. Washington White and

Andy Sudds also dwelt with the professor, Andy going off on

occasional hunting trips, and Washington acting as a sort of body

servant to Mr. Henderson.

 

Jack and Mark had completed one term at the college, and were in

the midst of the second when this story opens.

 

They had not lost their love for making queer voyages, and one of

their greatest desires was to help the professor turn out a craft

even more wonderful than the Electric Monarch, the Porpoise or

the Flying Mermaid. It was in this connection that Jack was

experimenting on the new gas, when the slight accident happened.

 

“Are you going to try that again?” asked Mark, as he and his chum

walked along to their geometry class.

 

“Sure,” replied Jack. “I want that to succeed. I know I am on

the right track.”

 

“You came near getting blown off the track,” remarked his

companion, which was as near to a joke as he ever would come,

for, though Jack was jolly and full of fun, Mark was more

serious, inclined to take a sterner view of life.

 

“Oh, I’ll succeed yet!” exclaimed Jack. “And when I do—you’ll

see something—that’s all.”

 

“And feel it, too,” added Mark, putting his hand on his head, the

book having raised quite a lump.

 

It was several days after this before the boys had the chance to

work alone in the laboratory again, and Jack had to promise not

to try his experiment with the new gas before this privilege was

granted him.

 

“Want any help?” asked Dick Jenfer, another student, as he saw

Jack and Mark enter the laboratory.

 

“Yes, if you want to hold a test tube for me,” answered Jack.

“I’m going to try a new way of making oxygen.”

 

“No, thanks! Not for mine!” exclaimed Dick as he turned away.

“I don’t want to be around when you try your new experiments.

The old way of making oxygen is good enough for me.”

 

“Well, I have a new scheme,” went on Jack.

 

Soon he and Mark, whom he had again induced to help him, were

busy with test tubes, rubber hose, Bunsen flames, jars of water,

and all that is required to make oxygen.

 

Somewhat to his own surprise, the experiment Jack tried was a

success. He collected a jarful of oxygen, generated in a way he

had thought out for himself. It was much simpler than the usual

method.

 

Just as he concluded the test, some one opened the laboratory

door. It was Professor Lenton.

 

“I have a telegram for you,” he said.

 

“A telegram?”

 

“Yes. It just arrived.”

 

Jack tore open the yellow envelope.

 

“It’s from Professor Henderson,” he said.

 

“Is anything the matter?” asked Mark.

 

“I don’t know,” answered Jack. “It says: ‘Come home at once.’

I wonder what’s wrong?”

 

“I hope nothing serious,” said Professor Lenton.

 

“You may both prepare to