where I don't know, but Abe Abercrombie,
the old miner whom we met when out in Colorado this summer, says he
can find it if we circle around in the airship. So I'm going to take
a chance. I'll tell you all about it."

And, while Tom is doing this, I will take the opportunity to more
formally introduce to my new readers our hero and his friends.

Tom Swift was an inventor of no little note, in spite of his youth.
He lived with his father, Barton Swift, who was also an inventor, on
the outskirts of the village of Shopton, New York State. Tom's
mother was dead, and Mrs. Baggert had kept house for him and his
father since he was a child. Garret Jackson, an expert machinist,
was also a member of the household, and as has been explained,
Eradicate Sampson, who took that name because, as he said he
"eradicate de dirt," was also a sort of retainer. He lived in a
little house on the Swift grounds, and did odd jobs about the place.

In the first book of the series, entitled "Tom Swift and His Motor
Cycle," there was related how the lad became possessed of one of
those speedy machines, after Mr. Wakefield Damon had come to grief
on it. Mr. Damon was an eccentric man, who was always blessing
himself, some part of his anatomy, or some of his possessions.

After many adventures on his motor-cycle, Tom Swift went through
some surprising happenings with a motor-boat be bought. After that
he built an airship, the RED CLOUD, and later he and his father
constructed a submarine, in which they went under the ocean in
search of sunken treasure, enduring many perils and much danger.

Tom Swift's electric runabout, which he built after returning home
from the submarine trip, proved to be the speediest car on the road.
The experience he acquired in making this machine stood him in good
stead, when (as told in the sixth volume, "Tom Swift and His
Wireless Message") the airship in which he, Mr. Damon and a friend
of the latter's (who had built the craft) were wrecked on Earthquake
Island. There Tom was marooned with some refugees from a wrecked
steam yacht, among whom were Mr. and Mrs. Nestor, father of a girl
of whom Tom thought a great deal.

With parts from the wrecked electric airship the youth rigged up a
plant, and sent wireless messages from the island. The castaways
nearly lost their lives in the earthquake shocks, but a steamer,
summoned by Tom's wireless call, arrived in time to save them, just
as the island disappeared beneath t