That this application of light which he had discovered would be of the greatest possible service in surgery, Roland Clewe well knew. By totally eliminating from view any portion of the human body so as to expose a section of said body which it was desirable to examine, the interior structure of a patient could be studied as easily as the exterior, and a surgeon would be able to dissect a living being as easily as if the subject were a corpse. But Clewe did not now wish to make public the extraordinary adaptations of his discovery to the uses of the medical man and the surgeon. He was intent upon discovering, as far as was possible, the internal structure of the earth on which he dwelt, and he did not wish to interfere at present with this great and absorbing object by distracting his mind with any other application of his Artesian ray. It is not intended to describe in detail the various stages of the progress of the Artesian ray into the subterranean regions. Sometimes it revealed strata colored red, yellow, or green by the presence of iron ore; sometimes it showed for a short distance a glittering disk, produced by the action of the light upon a deep-sunken reservoir of water; then it passed on, hour by hour, down, down into the eternal rocks. When the Artesian ray had begun to work its way through the rocks, Margaret became less interested in observing its progress. Nothing new presented itself; it was one continual stony disk which she saw when she looked down into the shaft of light beneath her. Observation was becoming more and more difficult even to Roland Clewe, and at last he was obliged to set up a large telescope on a stand, and mount a ladder in order to use it. Day after day the Artesian ray went downward, always revealing rock, rock, rock. The appliances for increased electric energy were working well, and Clewe was entirely satisfied with the operation of his photic borer. One morning he came hurriedly to Margaret at her house, and announced with glistening eyes that his ray had now gone to a greater degree into the earth than man had ever yet reached. “What have you found?” she asked, excitedly. “Rock, rock, rock,” he answered. “This little State of ours rests upon a firm foundation.” Although Roland Clewe found his observations rather monotonous work, he was regular and constant at his post, and gave little opportunity to his steadily progressing cylinder of light to reach and pass unseen anything which might be of interest.