er the
ice discussed and planned, but there was a strong feeling in favor of
overland travel by means of the electric-motor sledges; and in England
and Norway expeditions were organized for the purpose of reaching the
polar sea in this way. It was noticed in most that was written and
said upon this subject that one of the strongest inducements for arctic
expeditions was the fact that there would be found on the shores of the
polar sea a telegraph station, by means of which instantaneous news of
success could be transmitted.

The interest of sportsmen, especially of the hunters of big game, was
greatly excited by the statement that there was a whale in the polar
sea. These great creatures being extinct everywhere else, it would be a
unique and crowning glory to capture this last survivor of his race; and
there were many museums of natural history which were already discussing
contracts with intending polar whalers for the purchase of the skeleton
of the last whale.

During all this time of enthusiasm and excitement, Roland Clewe made
no reference, in any public way, to his great discovery, which, in his
opinion, far surpassed in importance to the world all possible arctic
discoveries. He was busily engaged in increasing the penetrating
distance of his Artesian ray, and when the public mind should have
sufficiently recovered from the perturbation into which it had been
thrown by the discovery of the pole, he intended to lay before it the
results of his researches into the depths of the earth.

At last the time arrived when he was ready for the announcement of the
great achievement of his life. The machinery for the production of the
Artesian ray had been removed to the larger building which had contained
the automatic shell, and was set up very near the place where the mouth
of the great shaft had been.

The lenses were arranged so that the path of the great ray should run
down alongside of the shaft and but a few feet from it. The screen was
set up as it had been in the other building, and everything was made
ready for the operations of the photic borer.

The address which Roland Clewe now delivered to the company was made
as brief and as much to the point as possible. The description of the
Artesian ray was listened to with the deepest interest and with a vast
amount of unexpressed incredulity. What he subsequently said regarding
his automatic shell and its accidental descent through fourteen miles
of the earth's