"What are the readings now, David?" Perry's voice broke in upon my
somber reflections.
"Ninety miles and 153 degrees," I replied.
"Gad, but we've knocked that thirty-mile-crust theory into a cocked
hat!" he cried gleefully.
"Precious lot of good it will do us," I growled back.
"But my boy," he continued, "doesn't that temperature reading mean
anything to you? Why it hasn't gone up in six miles. Think of
it, son!"
"Yes, I'm thinking of it," I answered; "but what difference will
it make when our air supply is exhausted whether the temperature
is 153 degrees or 153,000? We'll be just as dead, and no one
will know the difference, anyhow." But I must admit that for some
unaccountable reason the stationary temperature did renew my waning
hope. What I hoped for I could not have explained, nor did I try.
The very fact, as Perry took pains to explain, of the blasting of
several very exact and learned scientific hypotheses made it apparent
that we could not know what lay before us within the bowels of
the earth, and so we might continue to hope for the best, at least
until we were dead--when hope would no longer be essential to
our happiness. It was very good, and logical reasoning, and so I
embraced it.
At one hundred miles the temperature had DROPPED TO 152 1/2 DEGREES!
When I announced it Perry reached over and hugged me.
From then on until noon of the second day, it continued to drop
until it became as uncomfortably cold as it had been unbearably hot
before.
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