"Why, it would just fall through to the New York side, would n't it?" asked Flora.
"That's what I thought, too, and what anybody would think. But I was mistaken. I had completely forgotten the centrifugal force of the earth!"
"What's that?" asked Flora, "and how would that hinder the fall of the car?"
"You know, of course, Flora, that the earth turns around on its axis once in every twenty-four hours."
"Yes, I know that; that's what makes day and night."
"True. Now, if it were not for this motion, anything dropped into my tunnel would fall straight through to New York; but this movement of the earth is going to spoil everything."
"How so?" inquired Flora.
"Why, in this way. As the earth is twenty-five thousand miles in circumference, and turns around on its axis once in every twenty-four hours, it follows that every person on the equator is continually traveling in a circle, at the rate of more than a thousand miles an hour."
"Yes, I understand that," said Flora.
"Well, here in Australia we are twenty degrees
