To have even a faint idea of this enormous velocity, let us make a little comparison. A body falling from the summit of a steeple a hundred and fifty feet high, dashes against the pavement with a velocity of fifty five miles an hour. Falling from the summit of St. Peter's, it strikes the earth at the rate of 300 miles an hour, or five times quicker than the rapidest express train. Falling from the neutral point, the Projectile should strike the Earth with a velocity of more than 25,000 miles an hour! "We are lost!" said M'Nicholl gloomily, his philosophy yielding to despair. "One consolation, boys!" cried Ardan, genial to the last. "We shall die together!" "If we die," said Barbican calmly, but with a kind of suppressed enthusiasm, "it will be only to remove to a more extended sphere of our investigations. In the other world, we can pursue our inquiries under far more favorable auspices. There the wonders of our great Creator, clothed in brighter light, shall be brought within a shorter range. We shall require no machine, nor projectile, nor material contrivance of any kind to be enabled to contemplate them in all their grandeur and to appreciate them fully and intelligently. Our souls, enlightened by the emanations of the Eternal Wisdom, shall revel forever in the blessed rays of Eternal Knowledge!" "A grand view to take of it, dear friend Barbican;" replied Ardan, "and a consoling one too. The privilege of roaming at will through God's great universe should make ample amends for missing the Moon!" M'Nicholl fixed his eyes on Barbican admiringly, feebly muttering with hardly moving lips: "Grit to the marrow! Grit to the marrow!" Barbican, head bowed in reverence, arms folded across his breast, meekly and uncomplainingly uttered with sublime resignation: "Thy will be done!" "Amen!" answered his companions, in a loud and fervent whisper. * * * * * They were soon falling through the boundless regions of space with inconceivable rapidity! CHAPTER XX. OFF THE PACIFIC COAST. "Well, Lieutenant, how goes the sounding?" "Pretty lively, Captain; we're nearly through;" replied the Lieutenant. "But it's a tremendous depth so near land. We can't be more than 250 miles from the California coast." "The depression certainly is far deeper than I had expected," observed Captain Bloomsbury. "We have probably lit on a submarine valley channelled out by the Japanese Current." "The Japanese Current, Captain?" "Certainly; that branch of it which breaks on the western shores of North America and then flows southeast towards the Isthmus of Panama." "That may account for it, Captain," replied young Brownson; "at least, I hope it does, for then we may expect the valley to get shallower as we leave the land. So far, there's no sign of a Telegraphic Plateau in this quarter of the globe." "Probably not, Brownson. How is the line now?"