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CHAPTER II

JACK MAKES OXYGEN



“There it goes! There it goes!” cried Mark, making a dive for the laboratory door, but slipping and sprawling on the floor. “There it goes, Jack!”

“No; it’s gone already!” cried Jack, who, even in the midst of danger and excitement, seemed to remain calm and still to have his appreciation of it joke.

“Come on!” cried Mark as he scrambled to his feet. “We must get out of here, Jack!”

“What’s the use now? It’s all over.”

There was a tinkling sound, as fragments of the broken test tube, the bell–jar and other things began falling about the room.

Mark was fumbling at the door of the laboratory, seeking to escape.

“Come on back,” said Jack. “It’s all over. There’s no more danger. We’ll try it again.”

Just then one of the pile of books, that had been blown on an upper shelf, came down, landing on Mark’s head.

“No danger?” cried Mark, trembling from excitement. “No danger? What do you call that?” and he pointed to the books at his feet, while he rubbed his head ruefully.

“Well, there aren’t any more,” observed Jack, with a look upward.

Just then the door opened, and an elderly gentleman, wearing spectacles, entered the laboratory. He seemed much excited.

“What happened? Is any one hurt? Was there an explosion here?” he asked.

Then he saw the devastation on all sides—the broken glass, the scattered and torn books—and he noticed Mark rubbing his head.

“There was—er—a slight explosion,” replied Jack, a faint smile spreading over his face.

“Are you hurt?” the professor asked quickly, stepping over to Mark. “Shall I get a doctor?”

“A book hit him,” explained Jack.

“A book! Did a book explode?”

“No, sir. You see, I was making a new kind of gas, and Mark was helping me. He was afraid the test tube would explode, so I piled books around it, and—”

“And it did blow up!” cried Mark, still rubbing his head. “The test tube, and the other tube, and the rubber hose, and the bell–jar. I told you it would, Jack.”

“Then you weren’t disappointed,” retorted Jack, this time with a broad smile. “I don’t like to disappoint people,” he added.

“What kind of gas was it, Darrow?” asked Professor Lenton.

“Well, I hadn’t exactly named it yet,” answered the young inventor. “I was going to show it to you, and see what you thought of it. It’s the kind you said I couldn’t make.”

“And did you make it?” asked the instructor grimly.

“Yes, sir—some.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s—er—well, you can smell it,” replied Jack.

Sure enough, there was a strong, unpleasant odor in the laboratory, but that was usual in the college where all sorts of experiments were constantly going on.

“Hum—yes,” admitted the professor. “I do perceive a new odor. But I’m glad neither of you was hurt, and the damage doesn’t seem to be great.”

“No, sir. It was my own apparatus I was using,” explained Jack. “I’ll be more careful next time. I’ll not put in so much of the chemical.”

“I don’t believe there had better be a ‘next time’ right away,” declared Mr. Lenton.

“The next attempt you make to invent a powerful gas, you had better generate it in something stronger than a glass test tube. Use an iron retort.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Jack.

“And now you had better report for your geometry lesson,” went on the professor. “I need the laboratory now for a class in physics. Just tell the janitor to come here and sweep up the broken glass. I am very glad neither of you boys was seriously injured. You must be more careful next time.”

“Oh, Mark was careful enough,” said Jack. “It was all my fault. I didn’t think the gas was quite so powerful.”

“All right,” answered the professor with a smile as Jack and Mark passed out on their way to another classroom.

The two lads, whom some of my readers have met before in the previous books of this series, were friends who had become acquainted under peculiar circumstances. They were orphans, and, after having had many trying experiences, each of them had left his cruel employers, and, unknown to each other previously, had met in a certain village, where they were obliged to beg for food. They decided to cast their lots together, and, boarding a freight train, started West.

The train, as told in the first volume to this series, called Through the Air to the North Pole, was wrecked near a place where a certain Professor Amos Henderson, and his colored helper, Washington White, lived. Mr. Henderson was a learned scientist who was constantly building new wonderful machines. He was working on an airship, in which to set out and locate the North Pole, when he discovered Jack and Mark, injured in the freight wreck. He and Washington White carried the lads to the inventor’s workshop, and there the boys recovered. When they were well enough, the professor invited them to live with him, and, more than that, to take a trip with him North Pole.

They went, in company with Washington and an old hunter, named Andy Sudds, and some other men, whom the professor took along to help him.

Many adventures befell the party. They had battles with wild beasts in the far north, and were attacked by savage Esquimaux.

Once they were caught in a terrible storm. They actually passed over the exact location of the North Pole, and Professor Henderson made some interesting scientific observations.

In the second volume of this series, entitled Under the Ocean to the South Pole, Professor Henderson, Jack, Mark, Washington and old Andy Sudds, made even a more remarkable trip. The professor had a theory that there was an open sea at the South Pole, and he wanted to prove it. He decided that the best way to get there was to go under the ocean in a submarine boat, and he and the boys built a very fine, craft, called the Porpoise, which was capable of being propelled under water at a great depth.

The voyagers had rather a hard time of it. They were caught in a great sea of Sargasso grass, monstrous suckers held the boat in immense arms, and it required hard fighting to get free. The boys and the others had the novel experience of walking about on the bottom of the sea in new kinds of diving suits invented by the professor.

On their journey to the South Pole, the adventurers came upon a strange island in the Atlantic, far from the coast of South America. On it was a great whirlpool, into which the Porpoise was nearly sucked by a powerful current. They managed to escape, and had a glimpse of unfathomable depths. They passed on, but could not forget the strange hole in the island.

Mark suggested that it might lead to the center of the earth, which is hollow, according to some scientists, and after some consideration, Professor Henderson, on his return from the South Pole, decided to go down the immense shaft.

To do this required a different kind of vessel from any he had yet built. He would need one that could sail on the water, and yet float in the air like a balloon or aeroplane.

How he built this queer craft and took a most remarkable voyage, you will find set down in the third book of this series, entitled Five Thousand Miles Underground.

In their new craft, called the Flying Mermaid, the professor, the boys, Washington and Andy, sailed until they came to the great shaft leading downward. Then the ship rose in the air and descended through clouds of vapor. After many perils they reached the center of the earth, where they found a strange race of beings.

One day, to their horror, an earthquake closed the shaft by which they had come to the center of the earth. The boys were in despair of ever getting to the surface again, but the professor had been prepared for this emergency, and he had built a strong cylinder, into which all the travelers placed themselves. Then it was projected into a powerful upward shooting column of water, which Professor Henderson hoped would take them to the surface of the earth. Nor was he mistaken. They had a terrible journey, but came safely out of it.

They opened the cylinder, to find themselves floating on the sea, and they were rescued by a passing vessel. Of course, they had abandoned the Mermaid, leaving the craft in the center of the earth, but they had brought back with them some valuable diamonds, which formed their fortune.

This ended, for a time, the experiments of the professor, who decided to settle down to a quiet life, and write out the observations he had made on the three voyages. The boys wanted to get an education, and, investing their share from the sale of the diamonds, they took up a course at the Universal Electrical and Chemical College. Each had an ambition to become as great an inventor as was Professor Henderson, with whom they continued to live in a small city on the Maine coast. Washington White and Andy Sudds also dwelt with the professor, Andy going off on occasional hunting trips, and Washington acting as a sort of body servant to Mr. Henderson.

Jack and Mark had completed one term at the college, and were in the midst of the second when this story opens.

They had not lost their love for making queer voyages, and one of their greatest desires was to help the professor turn out a craft even more wonderful than the Electric Monarch, the Porpoise or the Flying Mermaid. It was in this connection that Jack was experimenting on the new gas, when the slight accident happened.

“Are you going to try that again?” asked Mark, as he and his chum walked along to their geometry class.

“Sure,” replied Jack. “I want that to succeed. I know I am on the right track.”

“You came near getting blown off the track,” remarked his companion, which was as near to a joke as he ever would come, for, though Jack was jolly and full of fun, Mark was more serious, inclined to take a sterner view of life.

“Oh, I’ll succeed yet!” exclaimed Jack. “And when I do—you’ll see something—that’s all.”

“And feel it, too,” added Mark, putting his hand on his head, the book having raised quite a lump.

It was several days after this before the boys had the chance to work alone in the laboratory again, and Jack had to promise not to try his experiment with the new gas before this privilege was granted him.

“Want any help?” asked Dick Jenfer, another student, as he saw Jack and Mark enter the laboratory.

“Yes, if you want to hold a test tube for me,” answered Jack. “I’m going to try a new way of making oxygen.”

“No, thanks! Not for mine!” exclaimed Dick as he turned away. “I don’t want to be around when you try your new experiments. The old way of making oxygen is good enough for me.”

“Well, I have a new scheme,” went on Jack.

Soon he and Mark, whom he had again induced to help him, were busy with test tubes, rubber hose, Bunsen flames, jars of water, and all that is required to make oxygen.

Somewhat to his own surprise, the experiment Jack tried was a success. He collected a jarful of oxygen, generated in a way he had thought out for himself. It was much simpler than the usual method.

Just as he concluded the test, some one opened the laboratory door. It was Professor Lenton.

“I have a telegram for you,” he said.

“A telegram?”

“Yes. It just arrived.”

Jack tore open the yellow envelope.

“It’s from Professor Henderson,” he said.

“Is anything the matter?” asked Mark.

“I don’t know,” answered Jack. “It says: ‘Come home at once.’ I wonder what’s wrong?”

“I hope nothing serious,” said Professor Lenton.

“You may both prepare to leave this afternoon. I am sorry. Let me hear from you when you reach Professor Henderson. I trust nothing has happened to him. He is too great a scientist for us to lose.”



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