The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1915-03-19
orator spellbound by the eloquence
OF his own thought.

5Oci iiolu tuc oCpiuo VI LIB tIduCs
: I'VE can make air." And at the word
} he crumpled Imply to the floor.
! Barton was by his side instantly
shaking him roughly, savagely, Will
: he fought back hope that he dare
not trust
What do you mean, Dick? Com
speak! Make air? Man, are yor
mad?" he cried as he tugged at tn
PROSTATE form with all his failin,
strength.
/ yes! Air oxygen = lifei" thu
ensign muttered. He sat up I'm
steadily. "At the academy-remem
Der? The acid and the batteriesl We
decomposed water. There's enough II
the tank till we raise the pressure
then we'll get oceans of it."
He swung his arms above his head
-dramatically-a bit wildly, while
Barton himself almost collapsed as his
| mind flew back to his training-school
! chemistry and the experiment of long
before.
Notwithstanding the ends of
two current-charged wires into water,
salt or fresh, tinctured weakly with
sulphuric acid, beyond question, would
separate the liquid into the oxygen
| and hydrogen of which it is composed.
One part of the first to two of the
latter would be the proportion; and
a single cubic foot of the water would
produce 1000 feet of the gas.
For an instant thought of the fatal
effect of pure oxygen struck the lieu
tenant cold.
To make it respirable in the air it is
diluted with three times its volume of
nitrogen. Then he reflected that n.y.
drogen is also inert and harmless to
breathe and its ratio would be sufi-
GENTLY large. Corrigan's act in sub
shutting lead-oxid battery plates for
the iron weights of the balance-trough
now appealed to him as nothing short
of providential.
"Unbelievablei" he cried as he be-
gan to gather together all the glass
Leyden-jars they had; "yet-thank
God-so true-so truei"
Their reprieve was barely in time;
and the lieutenant and Rolf went at
the preparations feverishly, while
Marsh and Corrigan watched dumbly,
scarcely comprehending the vital
sweep of events.
And when at last the first tiny bub-
bles began to rise through the water
like the effervescence of some Jovian
wine, no Ponce de Leon arrived at his
quested Fountain of Youth could have
matched the wild cry which sprang
from the lips of Barton and Rolf. For |
to them it was life, spelled in 65-foot |
letters that reached to the top of the |
sea.
A box of caustic soda used for cor
roding parts, was found; and its con-
tents scattered about the room served
to absorb much of the carbonic gas. |
AS the pressure rose further means |
of disposal was recalled by Rolf. The
balance-trough was filled with water, |
and it gradually became charged with
the gas. At the end of a week the
Paragraph showed that it would be
safe to open port to get in touch
with the world above.
When no bottles were found in the
medicine chest of size to be reason
ably seen on the waves, and when the
other men failed to make any of the
empty food-cans floating tight, it was
Corrigan who hit upon the expedient
If using the oiled-silk cases in which
he torpedoes were wrapped.
They spread out the folds of these
With their breath and securely tied
he ends. Barton put down their DO
;ition as he had figured it, noting the
possibility of error in longitude, and
making mention of the hulk-the To-
,ation of which he thought would
be known.
The several slips of paper were
,laced in the bags, of which there
we're four; and three of them were
eleased at brief intervals.
The men were now in total dark
less. The single light inside had
eally been extinguished to conserve !.
be battery-power.
Their fourteenth day of imprison-
lent came; and still the men had re- ,
eived no intimation of any effort to
escue them They could not know
nat the frail silk bags had burst at ;
ne surface and had sunk again, carry :
lg their messages with them. But such
possibility occurred to Rolf when !,
he last of the castings was about to !,
Q released. b
1t was then that Corrigan volun-
,ered to go up in its place. G
But he encountered another shock e
hen Barton explained that for all O
tactical purposes they were shut in g
caisson-and told him of the dan q
srous bends which must attend a s.
10 rapid return to the air. Only
hen the batteries would fail, and as "
final resort, was it his purpose to j,
I'VE them all risk the trip together. W
Had he known that the Victory
vung at anchor barely thousand :
Irds away he might have altered his Il
CO
Hope for B-23 had long been aban- RI
ned, and already the nation had for
ally honored her "dead''-when the az
urth bag left the little tower. At ca
,1f'S suggestion all the gas had been | W.