Just as I was on the very verge of success, to find all my plans knocked on the head, all my work rendered useless! In fact, my whole scheme is impracticable, unless I dig a tunnel through from the north pole to the south pole. Here, indeed, I should have no centrifugal force to deal with, as the axis of the hole would be relatively stationary; but a tunnel in such a location would be of no use whatever. At any other spot on the earth I should be obliged to make due allowance for the centrifugal force, and dig a curved tunnel instead of a straight one. Here in Australia, my tube, instead of going straight through the earth, would have to make something like a parabolic curve, and terminate nearly two thousand miles away from its present location."
"How do you make two thousand miles?" asked Flora. "I thought you said the trip would not take more than an hour, and that the car would move eastward only at the rate of one thousand miles an hour."
"Yes," said Dr. Giles; "but you must remember that while the car is falling the New York end of the tube will also be moving eastward at the rate of about a thousand miles an hour. In other words, the car will move one thousand miles east-
