What I thought of doing was of sinking a shaft through the earth's crust, and of establishing rapid communication with the Antipodes.

When you had got a certain distance down--how far is an interesting mathematical problem--the centre of gravity would be beneath you, presuming that your boring was not quite directed towards the centre, and you could then lay down rails and tunnel as if you were on the level." Then for the first time it flashed into Robert McIntyre's head that his father's chance words were correct, and that he was in the presence of a madman.

His great wealth had clearly turned his brain, and made him a monomaniac.

He nodded indulgently, as when one humours a child.
"It would be very nice," he said.

"I have heard, however, that the interior of the earth is molten, and your workmen would need to be Salamanders." "The latest scientific data do not bear out the idea that the earth is so hot," answered Raffles Haw.