Page:Life in a thousand worlds.djvu/281

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276
LIFE IN A THOUSAND WORLDS.

established from one end of the ponderous tube to the other. It frequently happens when an attempt is made to fasten the car that the clamps fail to work and consequently the carriage commences its second journey toward the center. Another effort is made to hold the carriage when it again comes to a stop; but if this is not successful, then comes the most peculiar experience of all. The carriage of its own momentum continues dashing backward and forward until it comes to rest at the center of gravity. Then the engineer, by communicating with the surface, gets the longest stretch of rope and is drawn two hundred and fifty miles to the surface.

This world has no atmosphere and life is not sustained by breathing, neither by the process found on the Moon.

The inhabitants get their sustenance from the soil with which they must be connected, directly or indirectly over one-half the time, or they will suffer in a manner similar to us when we are suffocating.

From this faint glimpse of their life, it can be seen that the people of Holen in