sed, by weight of air, or atmosphere beneath the earth, the
power of one tiny spark a million times.

Without ceremony or farewell, Asher crawled inside his tube. The door
was closed and he fastened it from inside. For a moment, wild panic
assailed him. But he fought it off, becoming again less the feeling
human and more the cold calculator of advanced science. The light from
outside, coming in through the windows of the Miner, was shut off. The
long steel cage clanked against the sides of the special casing in the
well, and Blaine Asher was on his trip into a lower world never before
visited by man.

That was what Asher believed. But, had he known what waited for him,
two miles into the bowels of the earth....

* * * * *

At five hundred feet, the descent stopped, giving him time to adjust
himself to the pressure change. The gas and oil had been eased out of
the hole. That is, the casing had been run on through the producing
strata, shutting it off. Asher signaled by buzzer, and a stream of the
ice-washed air flowed down to him.

Three thousand feet! Six thousand feet! More than a mile down! Sweat
poured from his body in streams, and the air coming into the Miner
through the hose did not relieve him. It was hot--almost unbearably
so. His ears were roaring. The dark of his tube was relieved as he
turned on his pressure lamps. He adjusted the pressure discs over his
ears by twisting a thumbscrew on his helmet, and the pounding of his
ear-drums ceased.

Gasping, he watched the depth meter in front of him. It did not seem
as if he was moving, but the indicator now showed more than seven
thousand feet. It moved around slowly and more slowly; trembled at
eight thousand--and stopped.

Like the snapping of a man's fingers, the temperature inside the Miner
changed. Asher was now fifty feet below the bottom of the oil and gas
sands, and if his theory about rock pressure worked.... It _was_
working. Frost was forming on the inside of the Miner!

"I'm right--right--right!" Asher thought, elated, sending his buzzer
signal up to those so far above. The icy air through his hose changed
to air of normal temperature. He signaled for slack in the lowering
cable, then prepared for the greatest test of all.

Cramped, with hardly room to move, he studied his gages. Helium tubes
at the proper pressure for compressing the tiny spark of the pressure
generator, so it would flare a million times stronge