new
building, which had such a high fence all around it. "I never saw him
more indifferent. I wonder if Tom isn't interested in seeing Uncle Sam
help win this war? That's the way it struck me. I thought surely Tom
would go up in the air, and say this was a dandy," and Ned unfolded the
paper and took another look at the British tank photograph. "If there's
anything can beat that I'd like to see it," he mused.

"But I suppose Tom has discovered some new kind of air stabilizer, or a
different kind of carburetor that will vaporize kerosene as well as
gasolene. If he has, why doesn't he offer it to Uncle Sam? I wonder if
Tom is pro-German? No, of Course he can't be!" and Ned laughed at his
own idea.

"At the same time, it is queer," he mused on. "There is something wrong
with Tom Swift."

Once more Ned looked at the picture. It was a representation of one of
the newest and largest of the British tanks. In appearance these are
not unlike great tanks, though they are neither round nor square, being
shaped, in fact, like two wedges with the broad ends put together, and
the sharper ends sticking out, though there is no sharpness to a tank,
the "noses" both being blunt.

Around each outer edge runs an endless belt of steel plates, hinged
together, with ridges at the joints, and these broad belts of steel
plates, like the platforms of some moving stairways used in department
stores, moving around, give motion to the tank.

Inside, well protected from the fire of enemy guns by steel plates, are
the engines for driving the belts, or caterpillar wheels, as they are
called. There is also the steering apparatus, and the guns that fire on
the enemy. There are cramped living and sleeping quarters for the
tank's crew, more limited than those of a submarine.

The tank is ponderous, the smallest of them, which were those first
constructed, weighing forty-two tons, or about as much as a good-sized
railroad freight car. And it is this ponderosity, with its slow but
resistless movement, that gives the tank its power.

The tank, by means of the endless belts of steel plates, can travel
over the roughest country. It can butt into a tree, a stone wall, or a
house, knock over the obstruction, mount it, crawl over it, and slide
down into a hole on the other side and crawl out again, on the level,
or at an angle. Even if overturned, the tanks can sometimes right
themselves and keep on. At the rear are trailer wheels, partly used in
stee