The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Undersea Tube, by L. Taylor Hansen

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Title: The Undersea Tube

Author: L. Taylor Hansen

Illustrator: Hans Waldemar Wessolowski

Release Date: December 25, 2008 [EBook #27609]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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The Undersea Tube

BY L. TAYLOR HANSEN

Classic Reprint from AMAZING STORIES, Nov., 1929

Copyright, 1929, by E. P. Incorporated

[Illustration]

If my friend the engineer had not told me the Tube was dangerous, I
would not have bought a ticket on that fatal night, and the world would
never have learned the story of the Golden Cavern and the City of the
Dead. Having therefore, according to universal custom, first made my
report as the sole survivor of the much-discussed Undersea Tube disaster
to the International Committee for the Investigation of Disasters, I am
now ready to outline that story for the world. Naturally I am aware of
the many wild tales and rumors that have been circulated ever since the
accident, but I must ask my readers to bear with me while I attempt to
briefly sketch, not only the tremendous difficulties to be overcome by
the engineers, but also the wind-propulsion theory which was made use of
in this undertaking; because it is only by understanding something of
these two phases of the Tube's engineering problems that one can
understand the accident and its subsequent revelations.

It will be recalled by those who have not allowed their view of modern
history to become too hazy, that the close of the twentieth century saw
a dream of the engineering world at last realized--the completion of the
long-heralded undersea railroad. It will also be recalled that the
engineers in charge of this stupendous undertaking were greatly
encouraged by the signal success of the first tube under the English
Channel, joining England and France by rail. However, it was from the
second tube across the Channel and the tube connecting Montreal to New
York, as well as the one connecting New York and C